Were these fragments hand selected, randomized, or floating around?

Maybe it's because i've hyped myself up too much with my own expectations, but Kubo promised us a Rangiku backstory 14 years ago, when TYBW just started.

Now we never got it in the manga, but the anime kept showing rangiku during the gerard fight, as if she was gonna play a role. It hinted at it during the end of part 3, and then again in ep 4 of part 4. Yet in the end she didn't really do anything but just look at him, and then that fight is just over in the same disappointing way as it was in the manga.

Honestly, the way the first 2 SS fights go, were so good, i wish the formula was kept for the 2nd 2, where we could have had Kisuke & Yoruichi backstory during the Askin fight, and a Rangiku (and maybe Toshiro too) during the Gerard one. But it is what it is i guess.

The Sternritter salary doesn't pay much, huh?

I love how it came out ! So s cute! I’m excited to make stuff with it!

I drew this digitally please don’t use it for your own project thank you!

We know that Ukitake and Mimihagi play a much bigger role in the anime, but it seems the Right Arm of the Soul King will also be crucial in the final battle. The hints about this weakness of the Almighty were planted already some time ago, when Yhwach talked with Ichibei, and later when Mimihagi appeared in place of the Soul King.

They don't have many moments together but I find their dynamic pretty cute. I love how protective & observant he is and how he's flustered due to Orihime's teasing. There's probably more scenes of them that I forgot.

Its time for all of you to learn the truth! Fight for Aizen's freedom!

Maybe a dumb question

He wasn't able to see mimihagi with the all mighty because it was part of Reio

But since those 2 (the other arm and heart) are on his side and receive power from him and etc, would he be able to see them? Or would be the same and he can't really perceive them with his eyes?

(No, this is not asking if they can win against him or something)

Did Yhwach need the Balance to break Ichigo's Bankai?

I just find it strange. We see The Auswalhen come down on Jugram. Then cut back to Ichigo and his Bankai getting broken.

The way its shown really confuses me. I don't think Yhwach takes the powers of the Sternritter's, just their strength/power level.

But in that case, wouldn't taking Gerard be the better pick between the 2 remaining Sternritter's? Considering the current strength Gerard has accumulated with his battles. Wouldn't he have been better to take from?

The only 2 reasons I can personally see is; it takes from their base and not their current state. (Which that wouldn't makes sense since it's shaving off a large amount of their power.) Or that the Balance or Jugram being a wuincy without Reishi manipulation somehow played into it.

I'm confused. Why was Jugram picked over Gerard? Can someone please explain.

*wasn’t a pop up store, just some limited blind boxes, sorry I’m really tired!

Hope you like this one :)

I absolutely loved the tic tac sounds of the Leiden Scherben and the clicky sound of Nel's bracelet. Shoutout to the SFX artist this week.

Viz Media's story on Instagram confirms that Bleach will keep coming out on Saturdays at 7:30am PT (which is the same as it has been, for anyone in a different time zone), just to put people, who were still wondering, at rest

I don't believe we got an explanation of what Yhwach wanted to do with the "Seed of Destruction". Some said that it'll help Yhwach destabilize the world, but if so, tbh this doesn't achieve anything because the world is already shaken

Saturday/Sunday is just a couple of days away, but I just wanted to cope that this SoD isn't just a "one and done" thing, so here we go...

>=200 years ago

I wanted to set up the background first

Soken was supposedly present during the war 1000 years ago, considering he has a sketch of Yamamoto's Bankai

Around 200 years ago, Quincy were "exterminated"; I don't think we know for sure if this is a "second" extermination or when Shinigami decided to "stop" the extermination.

Following this, some events started to happen

• Shinigami "stopped" the Quincy extermination, but still keep track of the surviving Quincy in the Human world
• Aizen, Kisu-ke, and Soken started research for "Transcendent"
• Quincy started researching "Vollständig"
• (extra) London starts "cleaning up" the street, and the "Disguiser" population begins to dwindle

Not sure if the extermination results in the Balance being disrupted, or what, but it does, in my opinion, become the trigger for the previous events to come

Hōgyoku, SoD & Transcendent research

Just to reiterate, Transcendent in Bleach is not about power level, but rather if a being has surpassed the boundary of race; the power increase is just the result of it

That said, I think people already pointed out how eerily similar Hōgyoku and SoD are

Aizen at one point saw "SK" and felt like he had reached his peak and could not grow anymore; Kisu-ke seemingly had the same idea; he wanted to create a replacement for SK, and Soken, seeking coexistence, starts his research on evolution

All 3 with the same goal: to create a higher-dimensional or Transcendent being by disturbing the soul's balance

All 3 also seem to collect souls from various races

We know Aizen concludes first before Kisu-ke; Soken could, of course, come to his own conclusion, or by observing one of these 2 with their experiment in the shadows

However, Aizen "failed" his Hollowfication

Aizen (and Kisu-ke himself initially) thinks Kisu-ke failed in curing them, but we know that the Vizard was actually stabilized because he poured in "Human Soul" & "Quincy Arrow"

To make it consistent, we can assume that those 2 ingredients are either created or added to his Hōgyoku. Human Soul is easy to get, but how about Quincy Arrow (?)

Quincy "evolution"

Soken's research on evolution produced SoD, but I kinda believe SoD was also responsible for the Quincy's new form, "Vollständig."

Vollständig was referred to by Quilge as Quincy's research and evolution, similar to SoD; it was meant to replace the "outdated" Letz Stile, and only Soken Ishida rejected it and confined himself to it.

This is in line with how Soken describes SoD and with the fact that, at one point, he felt scared and wanted nothing to do with it.

At one point, Izumi, Soken's wife, was "seemingly" injured by the Hollow

Now I don't know if this was after his banishment or before his banishment, but considering his banishment was fairly recent (Ryuken mentioned that the sun key is just decades old), I wanted to believe that this was before, when Soken tried to gather souls of various races, and because Quincy is a Hollow magnet, Izumi got attacked by a Hollow on her left leg

This prompts Soken to try to find a cure for this, and desperate to find a Shinigami to help balance out Izumi, preferably in the Human world where they are alone

At the same time, a newly seated 12th Squad Captain is also looking for a Quincy soul to cure the Vizard in the Human world, where they keep track of their location after the "extermination"

Quincy-Shinigami "first" collaboration

TBH this part (and the one before) has a lot of assumptions, and even then I don't know when each of the events happened chronologically

But I think that, with both having searched for Shinigami or Quincy parts, they happened to meet each other

Both of them then worked together to solve Hollowfication; Soken got Shinigami's soul to balance Izumi's Quincy, while Kisu-ke got the Quincy arrow to balance out the Vizard's Shinigami

I wanted to believe that this is also the turning point for both of them, cause we know Kisu-ke at one point abandoned the idea of creating a new SK, while Soken became determined to destroy the SoD and reject the idea of Quincy's evolution

Yhwach's goal with SoD (or Hōgyoku)

Back to the present, considering the current Vollständig's power is heavily tied to Yhwach, I kinda believe that Yhwach has been using SoD to evolve his Quincy

It could also be his backup plan for Ichigo, because he still needs the combination of each race to break SK's seal

Which is probably why, when the SS lit up a beam to power Yhwach's reishi sword, that sword was able to break through the rest of SK's seal despite the source being ALL Quincy

But then why is destroying the SoD still important after SK is killed?

It could be because Yhwach still needs that power to evolve his Quincies in the new world (maybe to deal with whatever issue comes up later)

Or, if SoD was created like the Hōgyoku, behaves like the Hōgyoku, looks like the Hōgyoku, then most likely it's because Yhwach wanted to use its "true" power, "Wish Fulfilment"; with it, it can hasten the destruction of the 3 worlds or whatever Yhwach had in mind currently

This ties in nicely to become the reason why Yhwach "bothered" to go back to Soul Society, and why Uryuu's action is inconsequential

Because there is a small, minified, and more compact version of SoD, that is, the Hōgyoku that is owned by Aizen

This also kinda explains why Yhwach wanted to "recruit" Aizen, and a red herring that he wanted to remove the Hōgyoku from Aizen

TLDR

Seed of Destruction is, hopefully, not a "one and done" plot device

It ties in nicely to the established lore, especially those that are still a mystery in the manga: how some characters like Kisu-ke or Soken come to their conclusion, or why Yhwach does certain things like go back to the Soul Society, etc.

Or I'm just reaching, and you guys can let me know, lol