Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-5398287-20130809180907

Before we start off, just something I want to make clear: I'm not referring to Zangetsu's temperament or personality (guy's kind of an ass to Ichigo and others).

Anyhow, what I'm referring to is the purity of his fusion. Remember how a Visored is a Shinigami who has gained Hollow powers and an Arrancar is a Hollow who has gained Shinigami powers? Well, Zangetsu (and I'm referring to the spirit who was Zangetsu all along, not the two spirits Ichigo now believes make up his new Zanpakuto) is like neither of those: he is an inner Hollow who fused with Ichigo's Shinigami powers. Now, we haven't seen the inner Hollows of the other Visored, but the closest I believe we've come to this is Muramasa from the anime-only Zanpakuto Rebellion, who underwent an odd sort of Hollowfication. Am I saying Zangetsu is an OP character who consistently defies the laws of Bleach? No. But when you think about it, we've never seen a true fusion of two races. Sure, a Shinigami can Hollowfy, but that doesn't make them part-Hollow, it just allows them to draw on the power of an internal entity. Same goes for the Arrancar, although they don't have an inner Shinigami or anything, just a Zanpakuto like they do. Hell, even Ichigo has the powers of 3 races, and they're not merged, just working together in tandem. I'm not sure if we're ever gonna directly see Zangetsu as an inner world spirit again, but he's a very interesting case because he's the only example thus far of two beings of different races completely merging into one being, and I'm sure his powers reflect that. I suppose you could argue that the merged spirit is also like this, but he represented Ichigo's complete power, in a way, and was only temporary, while Zangetsu's been like this since his creation. Anyway, what do you think? 