A new chapter of Bleach is out, so let's talk about it.
Spoilers after the cut, as usual.
There were two developments this week that bear monitoring.
The first is quite momentous; Kyouraku has finally revealed his bankai. As of now, of course, we have no idea what it does. It should be quite interesting, though, given the warning Ukitake gave him about releasing it in front of other people so many moons ago.
Valkyrie has finally found an opponent, or in this case a group of them. At first it looked like Renji would take him on personally, but Valkyrie has challenged the whole group of shinigami there (including Rukia, Shinji, and possibly Urahara).
Barro's Vollstandig is more powerful than we probably considered. Usually, whenever one of the enemies makes a bold claim like being "close to god" or some such, they're usually dispatched quickly and the claim looks ridiculous.
This time around, Barro has done severe damage to Kyouraku. The fact that he's about to use his bankai is testament to the injuries he's suffered.
I thought Kyouraku would never release his bankai. But then again, I didn't see him getting pushed this far by Barro (or anyone else, really).
As far as the Valkyrie fight goes...well, even though he challenged all of the shinigami to take him on as a group, we know that won't happen. Shinigami never work together as a team, so one of them is going to take on Valkyrie and likely get the piss knocked out of him. I expect it to be either Renji or Shinji. Really, neither one of them stand a chance. Renji might be "captain-level" and has taken out a Stern Ritter already, but he wasn't one of the elites.
Shinji, on the other hand, looks like one of the weaker captains, barely stronger than Rose, Soifon, Kensei, or Komamura. There is such a huge gap between Kyouraku, Ukitake, Unohana at the top and the rest.
Of course, two of them are dead and the other is probably dying shortly.
Where would that leave Seireitei? There is a distinct lack of powerful shinigami who could possibly take up the role of Captain-Commander should Kyouraku not survive this battle. But that is definitely a plot point for another time.
