ah, happy birthday, bella. :P

*chibi haineko* You know, with your hair done that way, it looks almost like a beard!

*Haineko* Hey! Thats not nice!

*chibi haineko* Well it does! :P

I always hated when anime/manga did that. Showing them get started fighting then suddenly the next you see is its already over is bad form. If your looking to have plot twists, good authors will use better methods. I do, unfortunately, have to admit that bleach...uses a lot of the plot manipulation tools that an amature writer would use, rather than one that actually knew what he was doing writing a story. Which I think is sad, because kubo has proven on several occasions he can do it right and do it good, when he tries. I wonder why he stoops to these methods on occasion? It seems he's capable of much better, so I dont see why he'd step into bad form like that. Are his publishers rushing him too fast, perhaps, and robbing him of the time he needs to think and do it right? :/

That said, I do want to see what happened with that. I think it sucks that it just skips it all like that. He was the only one who even came remotely close to old man (when he takes his eyepatch off) in power. (Note I"m not saying skill or strategy here.) He still couldnt win against him, (even if old man threw strategy to the wind and went raw power vs raw power,) but of them all he comes the closest when he goes all-out. And he doesnt even HAVE a bankai to steal, no less, so how'd he beat him like a child? -_- I mean, I'd just say superior skill/strategy but that's moot if all attacks just kinda shrug off or bounce...so somethings up here.

I still say I want to see what happens with ishida and his dad...

hahaha I like that page at the end...I'm guessing they photoshopped that. The bleach...on the bleach jug..."cleans and removes hollows!" XD nice.

ok, jokes aside, so it seems that either old man is a powerful morale boost/motivator, or else he's actually able to effect the powers of other shinigami in the area. Or both.

and 1000 years....then I'm guessing these quincy are not human anymore, otherwise they'd have at least died of old age if nothing else. then again, if they were hiding in someplace like hueco mundo, then they would have had to have their bodies converted to spiritual form in order to be there anyway, which might have halted or severely slowed their aging process. dunno. either way, this means its *the* quincy from back then. this isnt a simple case of a few decendants getting ticked off about what happened before.

 Worse yet, sounds like they were planning this for quite some time...so they'v been busting chops to get stronger for 1000 years while the shinigami basked in their victory and got lax...and only had like a year or so to start trying to improve seriously while they dealt with the arrancar...and learned their lesson from that incident and probably continued to do so since. thats...not exactly a good scenerio, and would explain why they are tearing appart shinigami like childs play.

also...if they KNEW the bankai's were being stolen...why did they have the captains use theirs anyway? why not stop at shikai and, you know, NOT hand over the bankai to the enemy? that seems like a fail plan to me...unless they'r trying to figure out HOW they are stealing them so that they can either prevent them or even get back the ones that were already lost.

I wonder if the vaizard's still have their hollow abilities...if so, that'd give them a major edge, because those ones could stop at shikai, use hollow powers, and tear them a new one. :P

and last but not least...I have to wonder whats going to happen with ishida and his dad...his dad seemed to, ever since his revelation, try to pull him away from the shinigami, yet at the same time a few scenes made it appear that perhaps that was a bit of reverse psychology to take advantage of how he'd rebel against such demands. so I dunno, it could be that his "hating the quincy" might have actually been related to how the quincy went bad and he refused to join them.

As badly as they are tearing through SS, I think even if they manage to repel the attack, they might not actually succeed in wiping out the enemy in a single battle :/ it seems they likely have a backup plan or means to retreat if all else fails.

did all the vaizards rejoin the gotei or did some remain rogue? if the latter, what happened to them?

I highly doubt hiyori (sp?) rejoined them...she seemed to hate them and resent them something fierce.

*chibi haineko barges into the hospital room seker is in* HOW ARE YA, DRINKY?! *cannonballs in the middle of him in typical "little kid" fassion* I heard you got hurt! Huh? What was that snapping noise...? Oh well. Get well soon! *she leaves a card on the table by his bed and bolts off before he can properly reply*

*haineko* That...was that even accidental...?

ichigo said something like that then he didnt die.

he could just be severely  maimed and THINK he's gonna die.

hahaha kenpachi doesnt have bankai...so of course they cant steal it. or weaken him.

this is going to be interesting. didnt he still have his eyepatch on? so that means he can still cut loose yet...

no, I doubt ishin would have his sword at kisuke's neck like that.

It could be any number of people, really. Someone new entirely, or someone from before.

If it WAS grimmjow, it could even be his blade there. He might want to brawl ichigo one on one.

though judging from the fact it was a black blade, I doubt it, grimmjow's was standard.

So that suggest perhaps a vaizard. After all, I dont think all of the vaizard were shown to rejoin SS....on the flip side, we dont actually know for sure that all of them like urahara like shinji does. Shinji showed before that he felt he owed him one, but that doesnt mean the rest follow that feeling.

not to mention, we have no idea what all aizen toyed around with while he was hiding in hueco mundo, he might'v messed with more shinigami...maybe even swayed some to his side. it wouldnt be hard to do, since he was a well-loved captain before.

course the above are all just theories. I'll let you all think on that. :)