User blog comment:Godisme/Bleeding Guitar Blues/@comment-44061-20120607010007/@comment-28861328-20120607072211

I have no doubt that the Royal Guard is tough and neither should you. The Royal Guard are the Shinigami that were promoted to protect the Spirit King. Urahara and Aizen highlighted how important the Spirit King was, do you really think they'd hire a bunch of weaklings to protect that guy?

Furthermore, from what we know, the Royal Guard are promoted Captains. That means these guys are at least Captain-level or above. I have no doubt that if it takes that much to bring the Royal Guard out, they'll have some skill that makes them Soul Society's trump card.

Also, this arc seems to be moving at the right pace for me. We've already seen a lot of Soul Society's capabilities against Aizen and his Arrancar. Kubo is now trying to show us the strength of the enemy by decimating the Gotei 13. Salburi, I do see what you're trying to say, but consider this; if the Gotei 13 does what you say and put up this even or better fight against the Quincy, then the Royal Guard have no reason to appear, and this whole arc just turns into another war against the bad guys with the goal to kill the leader, just like the Arrancar arc.

Kubo says he wants to make it seem like its hopeless for the Shinigami. That means, the enemy really has to give them an *ss kicking. And before you get on me about how this doesn't "work" for the Bleach universe due to the whole balance thing, did you ever consider that the Quincy don't give a flying crap? I mean, the Quincy in the past refused the Shinigami demands despite being told this over and over. For the Quincy, its a matter of justice. Hollows kill humans, so humans should kill Hollows. Since the Shinigami got in the way with that massacre, now the Shinigami must be killed too. They really don't care about the end of the world or any of that. Just their so-called "justice".

In closing, I'm just going with the flow. I like what Kubo's doing with this arc, though I do think he could improve the names of the Quincy drastically. Hopefully we'll get to see a Bankai soon. I'm itching to see Renji and Hitsugaya's improved Banakis.