Really? A better friendship/relationship sure, but romantic relationship?
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Tite Kubo's Bleach Manga Nears Ending
- Thread starter HypnoDarkrai
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Really? A better friendship/relationship sure, but romantic relationship?
Dressrosa just focused too much on side-characters, but it had godly moments like, well, Usopp becoming a "god," and pulling off that awesome shot where he awoke his haki, Luffy and Doflamingo's final throwdown, Luffy vs Don Chinjao, Zoro's takedown of Pica.
That arc only fell apart at the thematic level. Riku took pacifism to a stupid level and was too accepting of his people who were happy to let Doflamingo run their lives. The people themselves looked like they had no will of their own, and the lesson of Kyros and Rebecca's arc seemed to be "let daddies take care of their daughters" even when their daughters are grown up and competent gladiators...
Permanently A
Junior Member
mm, its hard to describe. like ichigo and orihime's relationship went from "nothing" to "romantic" and ichigo and rukia's relationship could have gone from "friends" to "romantic" and I find that one way more believable
Chained Prometheus
Member
No, it didn't.
They were casual friends from the get-go and Orihime became progressively more prominent in interacting with Ichigo as the series went along. Hell, by the time of the Fullbringer and Quincy Arcs, I'm pretty sure Orihime was the friend that Ichigo interacted the most with. Their type of friendship was something more subdued than the banter that Ichigo and Rukia had, but to say they went from "nothing" to "romantic" is a falsehood.
Orihime had a crush on Ichigo from the start, yeah, but that doesn't change the fact that she was still his friend too.
Where do you get that?
Chained Prometheus
Member
Just from what I remember of the Fullbring and Quincy Arcs. More solo scenes with Ichigo and Orihime or with Ichigo, Orihime and Chad. Not necessarily notable scenes, but they shared more time together- i.e. Orihime visiting Ichigo and talking with him in his bedroom alone at the start of the FB Arc, the two of them visiting Ryuuken's hospital, Orihime being present during his training with Ginjo, that whole bit where Chad and Yoruichi teased Ichigo about Orihime's new outfit, Orihime tag-teaming with him during the first part of the final battle, et cetera.
Granted I skipped a decent portion of the Quincy arc, but it sounds like Ichigo still had more scenes with Orihime and maybe Chad than anyone else in the core group of friends (Ichigo, Rukia, Orihime, Chad, Ishida and Renji).
I never really got a romantic vibe from Ichigo and Rukia, myself. They felt more like close friends, the sort who can bicker like an old couple but don't have any romance between them, sorta thing.
While with Orihime, at least in the much later volumes, I do recall at least a few indicators of some interest (memory serves, his reaction to Orhime's dress with the cleavage in the War arc).
While with Orihime, at least in the much later volumes, I do recall at least a few indicators of some interest (memory serves, his reaction to Orhime's dress with the cleavage in the War arc).
it's less that there weren't obvious signs that ichigo and orihime would hook up and more that they have no chemistry, in large part because ichigo's character has been the most generic shonen protag ever written and orihime has been little more than a pair of tits that says "kurosaki-kun" for the past couple hundred chapters
Aaronrules380
Member
pretty much this
Ichigo is pretty boring, but is he really more generic than say Nastu.
This. After SS arc, Inoue lost her personality from the initial arcs.
WrenchNinja
Member
how do ghosts have kids
HypnoDarkrai
Member
Viz's translation released today and Kazui says that he is a shinigami too not "kind of"
for anyone that was wondering
for anyone that was wondering
I legit though in the beginning of the series how can a ghost and a human get together in the case of Rukia and Ichigo shippers. That being said, Rukia is infinitely much more cooler than Orihime.
Lots of fucking....something something reiatsu....
Can't they use the artificial bodies? That's how Isshin had Ichigo, Karin and Yuzu with Masaki I assume.
Permanently A
Junior Member
That's why I said it wasn't realistic to expect IchiRuki. But when I say "nothing" I'm basically saying what little chemistry they had together was basically nothing compared to Ichigo and Rukia's relationship. It felt like nothing.
SigmasonicX
Member
I can understand people being blindsided by the series not ending with Ichigo and Rukia together, especially since the anime added a ton of romantic hinting, particularly through endings and movies, and actually removed scenes with Orihime from the early stories.
Plus, Ichigo became a blank slate during the Rescue Orihime arc, making it difficult to tell if his relationship with anyone was developing.
Plus, Ichigo became a blank slate during the Rescue Orihime arc, making it difficult to tell if his relationship with anyone was developing.
That's what Isshin used. My post was referring to my thoughts in the beginning of the series when we knew at the time that Ichigo was full human.
Now we know he is a quincy/shinigami/hollow mutt.
Wheeljack539
Member
Agreed. When I first started watching back in 2007 I had thought they would the be the series couple especially after the SS Arc but nothing in terms of romance or even hints (to the reader) that they liked each other more than just friends never materialized.
Final nail in the coffin that they would never be an item, to me at least, was when she reappeared after Ichigo got his powers back and she slaps him up the head and they argue. After 18 months of not seeing each other this is how their relationship boils down to, and it would have been this bit here that should have showed if there was something more than friendship if there was.
Orihime went from crush to a love confession but I would say that I realized that she really was in love with him was during the Fullbringer Arc when under Tsukishima's influence should could feel Ichigo's emotions and was in tears over it.
At that point I realized that when the series would end it would be either Ichigo and Orihime or he would remain single due to that for the series romance wasn't on Ichigo's list of immediate priorities.
Personally, as mentioned above, I just dont' think Ichigo really cared much about overly persuing a relationship. We knew from his reactions to women (trying to peek at Rangiku when she tried to flash him) that he was interested in some fashion or at least repressed. If anything, one could say the stress from everything and that it was over came to a head at the end as if Kazui is 9 then Orihime was pregnant by the time they graduated.
SporeCrawler
Member
Hinata >>> Sakura
BKatastrophe
Member
More like "shitty 3D hallway brawler"
I haven't watched it yet based on me still being salty that it wasn't a full reboot.
One Piece, Soma and My Hero.
Though Big 3 is a weird term that never exist in the Japanese fandom and more used by western fans, OP ALWAYS outclassed the others.
Eariler this year I would say: One Piece, Soma and Assassination Classroom.
Chained Prometheus
Member
Eh, I still have to disagree with you there. Ichigo and Orihime had pretty decent chemistry with each other in the earlier arcs of the series, before Kubo's writing turned sour and robbed them of their personalities. Ichigo was the lovable punk and Orihime was the Girl Next Door that actually had a really fun and zany personality to her.
Ichigo and Rukia's relationship had the benefit of being at its most prominent when Kubo was still writing at his best quality. Even though the two didn't interact much at all during the Soul Society Arc, their arcs and goals were connected and were at the forefront of that timeframe. And as Kubo's writing started to falter, Rukia became increasingly less relevant and had less opportunities to interact with Ichigo altogether.
Had we been seeing the Ichigo and Orihime of the earlier arcs in the final two arcs, I think there would be less criticism about lack of chemistry or personality. That just comes down to the fact that Kubo gave up on those elements altogether in his writing.
Considering Renji's speech to Ichigo just before the two of them took on Ywach for the last time, I actually think he might have been the one to name Ichika. Dude gives Ichigo a big "Thanks brah for bringing Rukia back into my life" spiel.
Just_myles
Member
One Piece and that Hero one everybody seems to be talking about.
Linkstrikesback
Member
One Piece obviously still has it's place.
Fairy tail and from what I hear about Hero Academia, they probably fill the other 2 slots for what I'd call the 'long running shonen junk food' manga now, though I've never touched the hero thing since I never want to start reading another long running shonen again.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
Soma isn't very big at all anymore, Haikyu sells better and much more consistently. Soma isn't even in the Top 10 anymore only AssClass is deserving of a big 3 from Jump and that's dead.The current big 3 overall would be One Piece SnK and Haikyu, but you can swap that with Kingdom or seven deadly sins, depending on switching current popularity.
Related to this, a few days ago I got confused as to the name of Ichigo and Orihime's son, thinking it was Karui, and felt so smart when I realized it was Rukia rearranged!
...then I looked it up and went "oh, that's a z, not an r...nevermind." Heh.
I do think its cute to name her daughter after Ichigo though, honestly. Nothing wrong with naming a kid after someone close to you.
SigmasonicX
Member
I'm pretty sure "Big 3" as an American anime/manga term will exclusively refer to Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece. Even after Naruto ended, no series magically replaced it in common usage of that term. Though in a few years time, people will be confused as to what Bleach is.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
Pretty much though that's also partly because hasn't been as definitively popular shounen since. SnK would be undisputedly the second biggest manga/anime in anime and probably up there in ters of biggest anime in the west, but it does weekly episodes and not really what most people from US etc really refer to as shounen
Look at that face. I really want Kubo to continue drawing.
Uzumaki Goku
Junior Member
What the hell is with this adoration Hinata gets? She really isn't anything special.
To be fair, niether is Sakura.
Uzumaki Goku
Junior Member
Yeah right there, see? I don't get it, every time you mention Hinata, people just bring Sakura into it and go "Oh, Hinata is so much better than that bitch Sakura" I just find it... perplexing.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
There are none. Nothing will replace Naruto or even Bleach in terms of global popularity from the current series. I think the volleyball show is doing well though.
At least Sakura helped win some fights. Hinata getting jobbed is almost a running joke at this point in the series.
Linkstrikesback
Member
Sakura is a idiot who deliberately wanted to be part of a horrible relationship with a person who on multiple occasions would have killed her if others hadn't intervened.
Hinata is the polar opposite of her, where she put herself in harm's way for naruto when he needed help, be it simple stuff like the answers to the quiz in the chunnin exam, risking her life fighting pain to protect naruto or throwing herself in between naruto and the wooden spears attack that was going to kill him.
Despite the much reduced screentime Hinata has far more clear character development over the course of the manga , while I'm honestly not convinced sakura got much beyond what she started out as as a person .
Hinata is the shy, quiet girl that treats everyone with kindness. I imagine that plus her being one of the very few females who never showed interest in Sasuke and liked Naruto when he was a "loser" contributed to her popularity.
Personally I think she's a pretty crappy character but that goes for a lot of the female characters in the series.
Uzumaki Goku
Junior Member
Honestly, the only character Hinata ever treated kindly was Naruto. She didn't give two shits about the fact that her clan basically treated Neji and the side branch like slaves. And she didn't even care about the fact that system
got him killed in the end.
SolVanderlyn
Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
Those three came at a prime time for American fans coming off of Toonami shows. Fansubbing and the internet allowed us to watch them as they came out in Japan, and they hit all the right notes for people coming off of "classic" shonen like Dragon Ball, YuYu Hakusho, Kenshin, etc. The Big Three was lightning in a bottle. 2003-2009 or so was such a hype time to be a teenage anime fan, haha.
Stone Ocean
Member
She's kind and basically the only character from Naruto's generation that gave two shits about him before he started bodying people. Not much of a fighter but constantly throws herself at harms way to help people she cares about.
Plus she's cute.
It was always subtle, but note how Ichigo treats every female character EXCEPT Orihime.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Bleach Heat the Soul? I remember playing those. They were freaking awesome. I would play the PSP version. Good graphics, and the gameplay was great.
Right. And she grows as a character compared to Orihime. She goes from being a Shy ninja, to standing up for herself, to standing in the way of danger for friends-Kinda emulating Naruto because she looked up to him.
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