Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-27392440-20160221191403/@comment-27392440-20160313143640

Salubri wrote: Asauchi is the bases by what allows a zanpakuto to exist. Without him there would be no zanpakuto. The ultimate form taken has happened because of his creation. Yes a soul projected into an asauchi ultimately makes a zanpakuto but the base asauchi is required. Thus he created the zanpakuto. Ichibe's contribution is names without him nothing would have a name or purpose as they exist. You want simple specification directly for something with various levels and complexity to it. Also your locked into semantics. others can make observations and speak truth, direct statements arent the only way to gain information if it were we would virtually have nothing on the pages.

The problem is that semantics are important here if you're trying to define what Ichigo's pre-asauchi zanpakuto was. If Nimaiya had made zanpakuto entirely then he could say whether Ichigo had a zanpakuto or not but all he did was make the asauchi to manifest the inner zanpakuto that already existed. Even if Nimaiya made the first way to create zanpakuto I contend that Ichigo unconciously made an alternate way, even if it was less effective, and it should still at least be considered a valid zanpakuto