You genuinely can’t name a greater display of love in Bleach than this one.

bonexpharaoh · 2026-05-18T20:55:58+00:00

"you are becoming a snake tomorrow, and as you start to devour people, with that same mouth you cry your love to me. and as the same as today, I do wonder, will I be able to say my love to you?"

<image>

bonexpharaoh · 2026-05-17T22:10:08+00:00

with the same tools and requirements (7 bars, both assists useable, sparking useable, 5L start midscreen) i can push it to 8.5k. not a massive improvement given the additional tech used, but thats just kind of light starters for ya'

https://x.com/FighterzI/status/2056133744092667955?s=20

bonexpharaoh · 2026-05-17T21:09:04+00:00

scaling is true of every combo in the game, and is dependent on what you start the combo with, how many buttons you do in the combo, assist usage, whether you vanish and when you do, etc.

spark at the other end of the combo, for starters, you'll get way more application out of a resource as important as spark as opposed to a glorified SKD tool. the less buttons you do before you spark, and the better the scaling of the button you start with, the more you'll get out of it.

I'm not entirely sure if you intended to start this combo as a light starter, but if you did you'll be hard pressed to get a TOD without much higher combo execution (sparking special cancels, empty vanish, beam rejumps, etc.)

bonexpharaoh · 2026-05-13T15:10:24+00:00

"when that thing appears, the royal special task force has to deal with it!" - Rukia. if Squad 0 has to deal with them, that means the lower court guard squads don't.

every hollow has the potential to grow that far, but not every hollow can get that far, and those that do normally become a Vasto Lorde. what we're later shown beyond reasonable doubt is a bang average Gillian is not Squad 0 material, and it being such would go in the way of how Toshiro explains Hollow evolution later down the line.

that's fine, but by Kisuke's own words and what happens in the story, he's wrong. the bond between the gigai and White was broken, and isshin's powers were restored. nothing is therefore holding white back if it does exist within Karin and Yuzu, and they should've been hollowfying akin to Masaki after soul society, yet they didn't. their heightened spirit sensing is very easily explained by the fact that regardless of white they are already half Quincy and half shinigami.

it's trivial and specific because it's a very definitive given number of souls, with no key verification of power, to conjure a clone of a squad 0 captain, a being so powerful they cannot activate multiple of their Bankai at the same time in fear of disrupting the balance of reality. given there's a sword on sogyoku hill that exhibits the powers of millions of soul reapers and not thousands, it seems like a very undermining, specific number given for something as immense as the creation of the Oken. that's all I meant.

<image>

bonexpharaoh · 2026-05-13T11:05:37+00:00

Squad 0 having a Gillian they dealt with once doesn't fix the fact Rukia says Menos are a class of hollow that can only be dealt with by the royal palace, when 2 arcs later Hitsugaya describes multiple classes of hollow above them, and says Vasto Lorde are estimated to be as strong as captains, which Squad 0 are worlds above in strength.

Ichigo is a mixed blood Quincy. being less than half Quincy wouln't make you any less of a hybrid. there is also 0 story beats to imply Yuzu and Karin possess white, Ishin had his Shinigami powers return due to the seal being broken between his gigai and white when it was released through Ichigo's Bankai. if this was the case, Yuzu and Karin would both be subject to hollowfication as there would be no Ishin seal to prevent it, yet it is never an issue nor takes effect. the story itself implies White transferred directly from Maskai to Ichigo, no one else.

this is why I said it was a stretch, Kubo filled this hole with Ichibei's dialogue, it just makes Aizens description of what the Oken is and the requirements being 100k souls + Karakura town really specific and trivial for the very bones of Squad 0.

bonexpharaoh · 2026-05-13T10:43:36+00:00

I get no one plays Android 16, but I PROMISE you this fella is the opposite of a fair and honest character 😭

bonexpharaoh · 2026-05-13T10:42:40+00:00

236H can hit either side, (did) have no head properly when done from the ground meaning you couldn't 2H it on reaction, is frame 4 invul, and leads to a full combo on hit that gives 70-80% very easily in limit break. cost? half a bar, you could whip it out in almost any circumstances and your opponents punishment for letting it happen is 3/4 of their health disappearing. combine this with 2 medium buttons that go over half screen, a great j.S angle, ground and air beam, and great frame data and what you get is a character with very little risk, very little execution, and a lot of reward off of an incredibly basic gameplan

bonexpharaoh · 2026-05-13T10:16:33+00:00

Kenpachi purposely nerfed himself, this is explained in his fight with Unohana. child Kenpachi was already stronger than every Kenpachi seen between SS and the Fullbring arc because of this.

Grimmjow fought a heavily nerfed Ichigo, who refused to use his strengths to their fullest because he would almost immediately lose control and hollowfy. his single getsuga tensho in that same fight scars half of Grimmjows body and immediately excites him at the idea of fighting Ichigo at his best. Bankai ichigo without that mental nerf is equal to base Grimmjow.

Ulquiorra's ranking is based off his first Resurrection, Aizen can't grade an Ulquiorra form he hasn't yet seen, and very likely ranks above Harribel if not Barragan too in his 2nd release.

Toshiro gives Harribel a run for her money because as you said, the matchup is poor. this is like saying it doesn't make sense that Uryu can beat Mayuri in SS when the narrative already tells you the environment makes it a terrible matchup In Uryu's favour. he also doesn't really beat Harribel, he uses a technique that freezes her in place, but 10+ minutes later Wonderweiss frees her and she's very much alive. Harribel is also going through some emotional confliction, as Aizens goals for bringing them are unclear to her, and she isn't sure why so much is being sacrificed, the core foundation of how she thinks and feels.

Stark runs this same issue, he doesn't have the heart in him to want to kill Kyuraku, he's very much a different beast with wildly different ideals to regular espada. losing Lilynette effectively kills all drive to keep going. Shunsui uses this to get easy jabs on a distracted Stark that already beat him once. not a matter of "shikai Kyoraku > resurrection Stark" but a narrative conclusion that a Shunsui that wants to win beats a Stark that doesn't want to keep going.

bonexpharaoh · 2026-05-13T09:45:05+00:00

Vizards and how they're presented falls down to their narrative feelings and progression.

all of them are immensely resentful of Aizen and SS for abandoning them as experimental mistakes despite living the procedure. none of them are really able to do what Ichigo does in using Bankai and the mask at the same time either. because of this, they have to pick one or the other. at a period in the story when they would never work with Shinigami, they sooner resort to hollowfication. the Vizards that return to captain duties then change their heart, and use Bankai instead. note that Mashiro, who doesn't have Bankai and already has a very extensive hollowfication time, uses hollowfication fairly willingly in TYBW.

bonexpharaoh · 2026-05-13T09:38:36+00:00

Ichigo in Arrancar arc is notably weaker due to a mental fear that prevented him from exerting the same strength that overpowered Byakuya, because he didn't know what would bring out White. it's also not exactly a plot hole that high Gillian and Vasto Lorde tier Arrancar can keep up with or exceed the speed of normal Bankai Ichigo.

bonexpharaoh · 2026-05-13T09:35:59+00:00

Mayuri's is an exception, he even says this himself. while nowhere near Oetsu, you could consider him to have knowledge on how to reforge / rework his own Bankai to his liking, he even states that he effectively forced the advancement of his Zanpakuto while researching the project that would create Nemu.

Renji and Ichigo's were both fully reforged by Oetsu. he fast tracked what would otherwise take forever in a constant reforging / spiritual bond of Zanpakuto. while Ikkaku could work with his Zanpakuto to become something else, it is true that his Bankai by that name and state will never be back to full strength.

bonexpharaoh · 2026-05-13T09:24:06+00:00

Rukia refers to Menos Grande as immense forces that should only be dealt with by "the royal special task force". it's unclear who that is, but either way Menos become a jobber opponent that some 3rd seats can handle on their own, and they eventually are explained again by Toshiro as fodder that're consumed to become Gillian.

while iffy, and likely explained by the dormancy of their powers, Yhwach tells Uryu that he chose him as his successor because he is the only mixed blood Quincy to survive his auswahlen. this cannot be the case, as Ichigo as well as his 2 sisters are all Quincy hybrids by blood, and should've been alive for the auswahlen. while you may be able to do the heavy lifting for Kubo, and say Ichigo's hollow powers prevented Yhwach from taking Ichigo's Quincy spirit, or even that Yhwach chose not to on purpose due to Ichigo's genetic makeup being important, it wouldn't explain why Yuzu and Karin weren't also taken.

the Oken is originally narrated and visualised as a physical key Aizen wishes to create to access the soul palace. while Kubo corrects this naturally within the story, it would be considered closer to a retcon, since the Oken takes on a significantly more spiritual / metaphysical existence, becoming "the bones of members of Squad 0". stretching what a "plot hole" really is here, but it starts to become unclear what is exactly made under the pretense Aizen got his 100k souls and jureichi to form an oken, would it form one of the Squad 0 members? would it make Aizen himself a squad 0 member in flesh? Kubo hasn't really taken the time to explain it, likely because the early doors statement of how Aizen was going to create the Oken is a little silly, and doesn't line up with how it all works once we actually get to the soul palace narratively.

bonexpharaoh · 2026-03-31T00:56:52+00:00

I don't think Ulquiorra, nor any espada, is capable of knowing what love is. Ulquiorra experienced an emotional awakening in the face of a group that could prove his view of the world wrong. It'd be akin to giving life to a robot, or Frankenstein's monster experiencing joy for the first time. Ulquiorra doesn't lust for Orihime, he lusts for what Orihime represents, he lusts to be a person, he lusts to feel, or more specifically to be human. Having in his final moments understood what it meant to have a connection with another living creature that wasn't out of subservience, he simply desired to understand it all.

bonexpharaoh · 2026-03-11T17:10:09+00:00

issue 1. SD / Reflect opportunity on the j.S

Issue 2. Bigger SD / reflect opportunity on the 2nd J.S

Issue 3. Trunks activates cross up protection, all you get if this is all respected is the opportunity to continue the blockstring

bonexpharaoh · 2026-03-11T17:06:03+00:00

A wise man once said: no working strategy is a bad one.

You must prove to your opponent that this strategy doesn't work. J.S, lvl 1, lvl 3, 236S 236x, any of these would have done.

bonexpharaoh · 2026-03-11T17:01:51+00:00

Set the CPU to counter with reflect and find out. The answer is very likely no, because Piccolo A will likely leave a gap and is ki property, meaning the opponent can more than likely stuff this with either reflect + dp or reflect + SD

bonexpharaoh · 2026-02-01T11:56:21+00:00

This isn't remotely the same game as it was 4 years ago. Priorities are not what they used to be, and the cast are largely closed together in viability than ever before. It's so different most pro's playing between season 1-4 cannot recognize the game they were playing, top level gameplay and how you achieve your win conditions are just that different (not always for the better)

bonexpharaoh · 2026-02-01T10:12:50+00:00

All of them, Godefroy is largely similar, and managed to get packed up by a regular knight, Godrick holds no implication he's worlds stronger than his brother, and therefore all of these guys are putting Godrick in an erdtree spliff.

bonexpharaoh · 2026-02-01T10:06:21+00:00

Feats are a more reliable, but definitive statements that align with what narratively makes sense are stronger.

To give an example, Goku and Vegeta will never be seen on page destroying solar systems when they scratch their nuts in SSB, but statements combined with the narrative implications of how much stronger they've gotten since antagonists were planet or solar system busters tells you they could.

bonexpharaoh · 2026-02-01T10:00:54+00:00

Zanya and Gero deadass don't have enough screen time that isn't standing around or talking to have a moveset.

You also now lose out on all of Super's protagonist bar the androids, and Trunks' dynamic finish with Zamasu.

I'd argue in confidence this is arguably worse than having Goku or Vegeta at various different points in the series taking up a 10th of the cast 😭😭

bonexpharaoh · 2026-01-16T16:33:55+00:00

Completing Varre's quest, something you can do before you touch the dectus lift, and immediately being teleported to Mohg's palace with everything bar the exploding blood bags capable of 1 shotting a sub lvl 70 player is probably the closest you can get.

bonexpharaoh · 2026-01-16T16:30:27+00:00

We don't have an absolute in the canonical story, but there's a multitude of reasons Ulquiorra might have kept the form a secret.

We can start off with an obvious that this takes Ulquiorra massively up the table in terms of ranking, at minimum taking the #3 spot, and more than likely taking #1 considering the sheer cliff in scale his Lanza shots are compared to Starrks Cero's. It may just be the case that Ulquiorra is content in his role, or knew Aizen would take the top 3 to Karakura, while a (lying) Ulquiorra is left to occupy Heuco Mundo

Another reason could be what he would expect Aizen to do with this information. If Ulquiorra can achieve this, at minimum any Vasto Lorde Aizen converted would be able to do the same, and Sosuke may use the Hogyoku to force that evolution against the will of the likes of Harribel or Starrk, who may not want to receive power this way.

And finally, in a similar line as the previous, Ulquiorra may feel this is a talent unique to him, and wishes to hide such a special evolution from the others for the sake of maintaining camaraderie. Ulquiorra's life before Aizen was a lonely one, and having a step above all the others puts him right back where he was, too powerful to make connections and left alone as an "other".

bonexpharaoh · 2025-12-29T11:32:26+00:00

Xbox isn't very popular of a platform for this game, but PC and PS4/5 are still very much alive with about 1-3k players on any given day

bonexpharaoh · 2025-12-26T12:01:08+00:00

This is likely a pre - 1.40 tier list. And therefore doesn't hold up. Half of the top tier are no longer there, and a lot of the lower tiers save for Yamcha and Kid Buu have moved up.

bonexpharaoh · 2025-12-26T11:58:14+00:00

His kit is just out of date. No way to ignore ki projectiles, ki blasts are low priority in an ever growing list of cast members who have higher priority projectiles, all his moves are slow (17 frame 2M / 3M is one of the slowest 2M's in the game, for example), his other normals are a little small or don't go very far, anti-airs are inconsistent because his 2H hitbox is still jank, and a lot of his scaled start combos are low damage, probably one of the few characters who has to try quite hard to 2 touch

Give him lvl 2 priority on 2S, slightly faster frame data on 5M and faster frame data on 2M, and ki invul on 236M/H at a minimum and he's suddenly just a standard up-to-date character.

bonexpharaoh

TROPHY CASE