Bleach: My Favorite Character

Whenever the series Bleach comes to mind, I'm left with a sense of disappointment and thoughts of what could have been. Bleach used to be one of my favorite series that I would always look forward to every week. Apparently, Tite Kubo, who is the writer for Bleach, began to fall ill during the last five years that he wrote Bleach and so he wanted to end the series quickly since it was taking away from his health. As an unfortunate result, one couldn't help but to feel a sense of the series end being rushed as Bleach progressed through its final stages. Its ending left many plot holes, unanswered questions, and a bitter disappointment of how many of the long foreshadowed mysteries played out in the end. I had forgotten how awesome Bleach was at times. I had some free time the other day so I looked back at some old issues and was given a reminder of how bad-ass it could be. Bleach had a lot of potential because the show had many likeable characters and mysteries surrounding those characters that Bleach did well in foreshadowing. One of these mysteries surrounded one of my favorite characters, Zaraki Kenpachi. Shinigami use their zanpakutos to fight which are katanas in their most basic forms. These zanpakutos are capable of achieving a higher level and more powerful form called shikai and then beyond that is the most powerful form, the bankais. In most cases, only ranked officers are capable of using shikai and only the most powerful shinigami such as the captains can use bankai. For the majority of the series, Zaraki Kenpachi was the only captain class character who couldn't use bankai, or even shikai for that matter. He was powerful enough to be a captain with just his brute strength and zanpakuto in its basic sword form. On top of that, he usually fought with only one hand and an eye patch so that restricted an abundance of his energy so that he could enjoy his fights longer. He was a total bad-ass character. Many wondered just how powerful he would be if he had a bankai. Thankfully, this question was answered for the fans before the series ended and to me, it didn't disappoint. I'll link a video of him in action with his bankai below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTmkOpAYXBk