Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-4957813-20131130185522/@comment-5553481-20140604130604

Kamikaze839 wrote: Gacsam wrote: Benter wrote:

Katen Kyōkotsu and Sōgyo no Kotowari manifest them self as 2 separate spirits. Hisagi's zanpakuto has only one spirit. For the latest version of Zangetsu it is unknown. As far as I know, they "show" themselves as 2 separate entities, but they're still one spirit, while Ichigo's blades are 2 different spirits ("Hollow" Zangetsu and "Quincy" Zangetsu)

Well the "Quincy" Zangetsu was never his actual Zanpakuto, just an imposter. Ichigo only considers him as part of his true Zanpakuto, to my understanding. As for Katen Kyototsu and Kazeshini, we can't go by their spirit representations as they were only shown during a filler arc and are therefore non-canon representations of their Zanpakuto. Of course, but the blades are purely shinigami powers, while Ichigo's bigger blade is his shinigami-merged-hollow powers while the smaller one is the quincy power. Quoting: Both blades represent a different facet of Ichigo's powers: the larger blade represents his inner Hollow (the manifestation of his Shinigami/Hollow powers) and the smaller blade represents "the old man" (the manifestation of his Quincy powers). On a side note, spirit representations were designed by Tite Kubo himself if I remember correctly, so I'm 50-50 on whether they're canon or not.

Back to Zangetsu, I'm actually curious if this actually is his shikai, or is he still in an unreleased stage, considering he finally managed to get an actual asauchi and has finally managed to get control over his reiatsu; reminds me how people always thought Kenpachi was running around with a shikai all the time without knowing the blade's name.