Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-6057702-20130805192027/@comment-5028409-20130831205414

Sternritter M wrote: I never thought about the fact that Ichigo defeated kenpachi only with his Shikai (although it was more of a tie), but had to achieve Bankai to defeat Byakuya. It does incline that Byakuya is more powerful than Kenpachi, which is true in that he has Bankai and great skills with Shunpo and Kidô.

Kenpachi only has his constant Shikai and some Kendo skills, but he also has an extreme reiryoku, and he is one of the strongest captains despite his lack of skills. Personally I like him as a character, I think there's been quite some funny moments with him although he is simple minded and seem to only like fighting and killing.

Besides, Ichigo is very alike him. He has achieved Bankai and seem to have some Shunpo skills, and he has Quincy powers, but that's pretty much it. He isn't that different from Kenpachi except not sharing his love for fighting and killing.

I think it inclines towards Byakuya being more skilled than Kenpachi. Kenpachi doesn't run around/use shunpo in a fight or use kido, he just goes direct slashing and cutting his way to victory.

Byakuya on the other hand required Ichigo to learn Shunpo and increase his speed to deal with Byakuya's zanpakuto abilities. Conveniently, the Bankai ended up providing a speed boost for him(Makes you wonder if Bachgetsu was responsible for this) which helped him deal with senbozakura and Byakuya's own speed.

From what we've seen, I would say Kenpachi is far more powerful(he has far more raw power and reiatsu) than Byakuya but this still doesn't mean that Byakuya is weak. Byakuya makes up for this with Shunpo, Kido and sword fighting.

BACK ON TOPIC, Ichigo fighting with hand to hand combat/hakuda would be big dream come true for him. I honestly believe that he would have fared better in some fights if he had just put his sword away and used his fists like the fight against Soifon and against the Privaron Espada. Using that against Grimmjow would have also been better if not for the blades on his arms.