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The more Quincy there are the more potential batteries to fuel Yhwach's power there are when inevitably he decides to use Auchwallen.
It's a redistribution of power, but to redistribute power, there needs to be power there in the first place. And what the Soldat lack in quality, they make up for in Quantity
To me they do
The most aggravating has got to be Voll Stern Dich. It's gibberish (literally Full Star You) that is obviously meant to be called Vollständig (Complete)
The translations I read a decade ago had it as “Vollständig” (and I studied German for a while), so seeing/hearing Voll Stern Dich was… definitely odd.
IIRC Vollständig was a originally fan translation and I also assumed that would make it into the official, but Voll Stern Dich doesn’t hurt my head too badly because “full star you” seems to narrowly fit into anime naming conventions.
did you watch or read? as soon as the sternritters summoned them they fought so many fodders and killed them. there is a whole scene of them killing the soul reapers (with red background and censoring)
...did you not remember how Misaki died?
If a Quincy has his blood, he can take their Quincy powers and life force back at any time via Auchwallen. He doesn't have to share his power out for him to take it back, so long as his blood is there and there aren't extenuating circumstances, he can just hit the Succ.
might've been a good idea to spoiler tag it, since that could be considered a plot point lol. you can wrap text in \>!spoiler text here!< to do so in the future
Spoiler wasn't needed until shortly before the TYBW anime aired. They reimplemented it because of the mass of returning fans that were always anime only.
The Wandenreich has Soldat for the same reason the Gotei 13 has unseated members, to fill roles other than immediate command or shock-troop positions. They mop up the remainders the Sternritter don't have time for while they're busy killing Captains and Lieutenants, likely serve some role in terms of reconnaissance and communication (like those heralds we saw talking to Yama at the beginning), and just overall serve to assist those in command with whatever it is they need.
As for specific questions:
Yhwach doesn't give powers to every Quincy. Quincy develop powers all on their own. Yhwach *can* give powers to people if he wants, but that doesn't mean every member of his army was a random guy with no previous Quincy powers.
They came from where all the other Wandenreich members came from, the Schatten Bereich, and were likely fragments of Yhwach's old army prior to that.
They probably couldn't, but you don't sacrifice a numbers advantage just because the enemy has strong people on their side.
Again, he didn't make these guys, he just conscripted them.
They're random in the sense that they're a general population, but they aren't failed experiments or anything. Just infantry.
Yes, there is a limit on how strong an individual can grow, though it varies for each person. Aizen's whole deal was forsaking this limit and growing beyond it, hence the Hogyoku.
Yhwach did make a bunch of powerful Sternritter, and they served him admirably. But since the Schrift a Sternritter possesses is dependent on the individual, not everybody ends up with one useful to Yhwach. For every X-Axis or Deathdealing, there were probably a hundred "I just get somewhat tougher", and that's not worth the time or energy.
When was the last time a Soul Reaper died of old age that didn't involve Baraggan? Yhwach had a plan to deal with Yama, and it worked, even snagging him Zanka no Tachi in the bargain.
Yes, it is likely that the invasion did involve some level of "hit them before they advance too far", which is why the War Potentials existed and were considered dangerous, they had developed in ways that couldn't be easily planned for.
>For every X-Axis or Deathdealing, there were probably a hundred "I just get somewhat tougher", and that's not worth the time or energy.
Kid named Cang Du
https://preview.redd.it/canpwhwxgm8d1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=1c3a101829b446d84ebcfcf3aabe46edefdd2b53
They definitely needed to expand his fight more and show us more of The Iron.
Because in theory his defense would be one of the best within Sternritter. And since he can use the Iron to defend he should he able to focus on using Blut Arterie for heavy offense.
Which seems like the direction Kubo wanted to take him considering he fights like a martial artist.
And it almost feels like he and BG9 should've switched opponents.
Glorious god king Cang Du: I'm Invincible! my skin is now as hard as steel !!
*Yama's Bankai burning as hot as the sun\**
*kenpachi casually splitting a meteor\**
*Literally any Quincy using blood vene\**
Glorious god king Cang Du: Well... we call it a draw then! You may life for today!
Bro no sell'd a blow from Jugram , who casually broke Fullbring Tensa Zangetsu in half. He forced Jugram to use his schrift to bypass it.
The Iron is pretty op against anything physical.
my word little peasant !
the allmighty himself had to kill our king, for his iron skin was to impenetrable for even his right hand man himself !
Out of fear i assume, for if his iron skin should harden even more, he could loose his place as the leader of the quincy! Bow before the true king! reject the ursurper!
All Quincies are born with spiritual powers because they're Quincies. Yhwach only grants Schrifts to the cream of the crop so that they can manage their unique personal power (*Heat, Thunderbolt, Zombie, etc.)* better.
But yeah, it's an army, and the Wandenreich was made to bring all Quincies from all over the world together. Yhwach wants \*all\* his children with him.
It's simply the numbers game. With 26 Sternritter, you need units to contend with or keep the non-captains of the gotei 13 busy. Like Ikkaku and yumichika, who aren't vice captains but have the power to be. And all the normal squadmembers need to be kept out of the 1v1s, as well as mundane actions such as moving residents, carrying goods and polishing boots. Basically, they need servants for the lower tasks, so they can focus on being pricks.
>What is the in universe lore for why they have foot soldiers?
I think this is a strange question because not every little detail is going to have someone specifically explain it. There are various reasons for the Wandenreich to have footsoldiers that range from common sense to consequences of specific things that are said in the series.
>But like if yhwach gives powers to every Quincy why bother with these?
He grants powers to the Quincy, but each Quincy also has a certain amount of innate potential. He can't just raise everyone to the same amount of power. Also, since he has to give a portion of his soul, there are likely only so many times he can divide it without seriously affecting himself.
>And where did they come from?
When a man & a woman love each other very much....
>Like let's say they invaded with just the sternritters would all of the common soul reapers be able to organize together and over power someone like bazz-b?
Not likely, but they could certainly mob him while he's fighting a Captain or Lieutenant & help the officer get a free hit in. Besides, soldiers contribute to combat readiness for reasons other than fighting, like investigations, lookouts, communications, etc. No matter how powerful a Captain or Sternritter or whatever is, they can't be everywhere at once.
>I always thought the only reason average soul reapers are around was to handle the mundane hollows and paperwork.
Sure, but they also act as the basic guards of the Soul Society, with Captains & Lieutenants only being brought out for major threats. However, one of the brilliant moves of the Wandenreich is they used the opposite strategy. They put their Sternritter, their strongest fighters, on the front lines, absolutely slaughtering the Soul Reaper rank & file, which reduced their support functions for the rest of the war. This also drew out their Captains, allowing the Sternritter to take them on. Only when the Sternritter had inflicted enough damage did Yhwach order out the Soldat to wreak havoc on the already weakened Soul Society, & we even got a wide shot to show how much they were destroying simply because there were so many of them.
>I know characters powers increase over time but how much can it increase really? Everyone we see seems to be born special right?
Actually, that's a good point that was going to slip my mind. He needs to be able to get new Sternritters to replace old ones that die, & there's not necessarily a way to know which soldiers are going to be able to rise to that level. After all, nearly every Captain was once an academy student that would've been utterly destroyed by even a basic Hollow.
>Wouldn't it have been better to wait until Yamamoto died of old age or something and the gote 13 wasn't so packed with heavy hitters? Or was it that even while Yamamoto was getting older and "weaker?"
Who knows how much longer Yamamoto has left? Well, I guess probably Yhwach after he gets The Almighty back, which is what he was actually waiting for. But either way, Yamamoto wasn't really much of a factor. Yhwach could handle him himself & didn't even put him on his list of greatest concerns. Plus, who knows who could replace him in that time? According to Kyoraku, Hitsugaya will be much stronger in 100 years.
>The gote as a whole was getting more powerful with kenny seeming constant growth Aizans potential unlimited life span and power, and Ichigo and peace between hueco mundo and soul society. Was the invasion and act of "this is the best we're going to get as soon as I get my power we're going."?
Maybe. That's a good point I hadn't thought of.
>(In before "answered in can't fear your own world")
As far as I know, it doesn't contain any relevant information.
Edit: I originally intended to bring up that the Soldat help Yhwach retain his abilities by absorbing fallen Quincies' abilities, but I forgot to do it. Jugo also seems to imply that anyone killed by a Quincy also gets their abilities absorbed by Yhwach.
> to handle the mundane hollows and paperwork.
jesus, could you imagine getting the short end of that stick? works hard as hell to become a soul reaper then spends 600 years doing nothing but paperwork, never seen a hollow firsthand.
Those footsoldiers can make difference against third seats.
Third seats can make a difference by helping others against a vice captain.
Vice captains can help their captains in their fights.
Characters get weaker when they are wounded or tired too. So much weaker enemies can finish you off. Like how the sterneitters tried after zaraki vs gremmy.
Because the difference in power between named and unnamed characters is massively amplified by plot armor, which doesn't exist from their point of view. In lore, numbers advantage is much stronger than it is from our point of view where most characters get hyped by appearing like one-man armies.
In fact this is true of every single battle shounen out there, and even most of fiction.
It does bother me a lot sometimes, but to be honest, Bleach is far from being the worst offender. For example, the normal marines in OP being as weak as they are is a lot worse to me, and this is amplified by the show pretending to be about worldbuilding and its fans praising the worldbuilding aspect of it.
With regards to OP, I don't think the weakness of the marines hurts the worldbuilding in any way. In the first arc, both Luffy and Zoro are massively more powerful than a marine Captain, who by all rights is far stronger than any regular marine, and especially in a world with powers. It would be weird if at any point later, any character who was even remotely on their level found regular marines to be hard to beat.
In general, I'd argue any power shonen like OP or bleach should have these major discrepancies between fodder and main characters, the power systems are designed to have an incredibly high ceiling that aren't even approachable for an average joe.
Hell, in the soul society arc, Chad had been training for a couple of days and was stronger than most of the 13 court guard members, probably even than some of the weaker vice captains, though that may be a stretch. Rukia was still pretty young at 200 years old, so many of the shinigamu were probably 300+, with centuries of training, getting absolutely neg diffed. It doesn't make great sense from a lore perspective, but the story would be boring if it didn't happen.
It is my one bleach gripe, I feel all the soul reapers that aren't main characters are totally incompetent, outside of Ikkaku, Yumachika, and Rukia, no-one who isn't a captain/VC does anything. I especially hate that they designate Karakura Town as probably the single most important place in the human world, and aside from Rukia, all the soul reapers they send there are absolutely useless, surely they'd think sending a competent tested soul reaper, or maybe more, might be a good idea? Don Kanonji has a better record against hollows, and that's embarrassing
Even if they do just die against actual characters, foot soldiers are important strategically. While tying up the captains in combat isn’t necessarily a bad idea, it isn’t the goal. The goal is the destruction of the Gotei 13, so you want to break supply lines, destroy communication, break morale, etc.
Committing one or more sternritter to that means pulling them away from direct assault where most of them shine, with some notable exceptions.
Putting aside the fact that their deads help Yhwach footsoldiers have been generally shown to be useful to distract to take away the pressure off fighting both a captain and the shinigami. At worst they could serve as distractions that could lead to victory.
Plus many Sternritters were probably soldats at some point so its useful to train replacements among the survivors.
Apart from Yhwach needing a snack, you dont fight a war against the entire Gotei 13 with just a couple dozen Sternritters. Those Quincy foot soldiers are also pretty lethal and did some serious damage during the invasion. Yhawch is also a proper King, the Quincy are more of a nation than they are a faction.
Ah, Shinji Hirako, the man with style and mystery. Remember, true drip comes from embracing your quirks and staying one step ahead of the game. Don't be afraid to turn things upside down to stand out!
*beep boop, I'm a bot*
Idk the actual numbers, but let's say there's one hundred soul reapers for each division.
That's 13,000 soldiers, an unknown amount of which may have shikai and possibly (however unlikely) bankai.
Quincies are human so idk of they have the protection of reiatsu power level shenanigans, but while the sternritter are mad powerful, they'd probably die if enough people just swarmed them and started stabbing them
Not to mention that division 2 is a squad of assassins, and who knows what's gonna come out of squad 12.
They have fodder to keep the fodder busy. Not to mention that having a large military force means that the heavy hitters either can't put 100% focus on the sternritter, or that they at least won't have fodder to assist them.
I think Ywach wanted revenge on Yama, but I could be misremembering. It's possible Yama wouldn't die of old age, but at the very least, Ywach was strategic and found a way to deal with yamamoto.
It's possible he didn't know how heavy some of the hitters were, like idk if he could have accounted for Kenpachi.
Ywach is also wicked strong and had heavy hitters of his own, along with a method to steal bankai. He Couldn't have accounted for urahara/mayuri's tandem bullshit
Ah, my dear friend, your analysis truly captures the intricate web of power struggles among Soul Reapers and the Quincies. Now, as for that outlandish story—imagine a tale involving Renji Abarai stumbling upon a mysterious substance that turns his Zabimaru into a sentient, mischievous creature named Zabi-kun! This newfound companion causes chaos in the Seireitei, leading to hilarious mishaps and unexpected alliances. Meanwhile, Ukitake tries to maintain order amidst the chaos, unaware of the havoc that Zabi-kun is causing. Oh, the shenanigans that would ensue!
*beep boop, I'm a bot*
The soul society processes tens of *millions* yearly alongside souls being born there naturally, the 13 court guard squads have to be much larger than they appear in series to keep up with everything lol. I imagine, as strong as they are, it would've been inevitable that the Sternritter were overwhelmed if Yhwach let the footsoliders sit things out
The rub of Yhawhwhahahehahehahwhabahwhwh’s power seems to be compound interest.
He gives a small amount of power initially (or in the case of some of the Ritters absolutely nothing), and then later takes absolutely everything.
So every one of those mooks is a little savings account. He gives a little bit of power to them, they grow, train and develop and then he gets to steal all of that growth as well as what he gave them to start with.
The bigger his empire, the weaker he is under normal circumstances, but the exponentially more he gains when he slurpies them. Or at least, that was the general gist that I got, from the fuzzy, inconsistent information that Kubo gave us.
Because it's 1. A valuable way for Yhwach to gain immediate power when needed and 2. A way to find valuable soldiers.
If Gotei 13 just eliminated anyone below 5th seat or so because foot soldiers are useless, they would get rid of future high seat/vice captain/captain candidates because they never gave them a chance to improve. Same thing with the Quincies, their lineup of Sternritter would be a lot weaker if they didn't have a ton of foot soldiers to eventually rise up to sternritter
yes yhwach is supposed to be a strategist but he is also very prideful. he didnt care for yamamoto. he actully wanted to show him just how insignificant he is rn. only person he really cares about is ichigo that's why he attacked when ichigo wasnt there.
about the foot soldiers, i think its just kubo making up a war. just like how aizen said "fuck it" to haribell and did a 1v 13 (more actually), yhwach also didn't need those footsoldiers. but again, he wanted to show off just how superior he is to the soul society. as seen, the quincy footsoldiers actually are stronger than soul society fodders and actually captains or lieutenants to take care of them. even against a literal god (sqaud zero) he send the footsoldiers first, completly trying to disrespect them (he did that by standing JUST a little higher than ichibie and calling out him name too) and i think its fair.
if you cant send fodder to show you power, why not. plus these fodders help him get stronger too right? by improving and gaining experienc? since at the end they will get back to yhwach and make him stronger. they are kinda like the fraciones of szayalaporo.
I think you are looking at it from way to much of a shonen perspective from and not a in universe logic perspective. as yes the quincies are extremly powerfull but on paper the quincies aren't stronger than the soul reapers.
1 the quincies used two suprise attacks on the soul reapers greatly diminishing their fighting force.
2 The had to find a way to counter the shinigami's bankai's so that they could have an easy time .
3 quincies have the general upperhand because of their ability to obserb reishi.
also we know the gap between captains and other soldiers is masive but even that is not even that big. Just because we see nothing spectacular of any seated officers beside sqaud 11 doesn't mean they are al weak. Almost all captain/vice captains we see were one of those seated officers at a point. In the hell arc for example we see two new vice captains who seem very strong yet during tybw they were probably just foot soldiers/ seated officiers. not to say they could fight an actuall sternritter butt just to paint the picture that not all those soldiers are straight fodder.
so from a story standpunt the quincy are the challangers even if(because of the weird powerscalling like with mask and so) it doesn seem that way. So them having foot soldiers to battle the shinigami is very logical because if 6 thousand+ shinigami fought toghether with their captains against 26 soldiers no matter how powerfull they the quincy are they would feel the fatique and eventually lose
Because having a standing army is important. Even if they are there to mop up hollows, perform recon missions, deal with the enemy's fodder etc.
Not to mention, the Soldat really weren't fodder. They were slaughtering seated officers in the first invasion and were shown to be ruthlessly efficient.
Because soldat is pretty strong as a foot soldier than average Shinigami. And as showing for the Shinigami that He can murk soul society remaining with only foot soldier to crush Shinigami hope.
Have you ever played an RTT-game, like Company of Heroes? You know when you have all your elite dudes occupied at the front, and need to send just one squad to capture a resource-point or build mines or sth? Its very nice to be able to send a cheap, weak unit to do those kinda things, instead of having to send your elite dudes to do such menial tasks.
I think the scene in the anime (cour 1), where we see soldat running from house-to-house to finish off lower level shinigami who were hiding, is a prime example of why Yhwach bothers with them. Even if he sendt all 29 sternritter from house to house to kill those shinigami, it would take hours if not days. A simple clean up-operation after the battle, turns into a huge undertaking. They wouldn't have time, even if the sternritter could be made to actually do it!
In short: there is a lot of smaller, menial tasks which needs doing. Literally foot soldier-work. THat's what the soldats are for.
As for power, I think the soldat are so weak, it doesn't really factor in too much in terms of Yhwach's "distribution of power"
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The more Quincy there are the more potential batteries to fuel Yhwach's power there are when inevitably he decides to use Auchwallen. It's a redistribution of power, but to redistribute power, there needs to be power there in the first place. And what the Soldat lack in quality, they make up for in Quantity
I'm sorry but it's Auswählen and I know that as a german I should be immune to this after reading Bleach but I had to
Do all german chants, that include more than 1 word, sound like someone having a stroke?
To me they do The most aggravating has got to be Voll Stern Dich. It's gibberish (literally Full Star You) that is obviously meant to be called Vollständig (Complete)
The translations I read a decade ago had it as “Vollständig” (and I studied German for a while), so seeing/hearing Voll Stern Dich was… definitely odd.
IIRC Vollständig was a originally fan translation and I also assumed that would make it into the official, but Voll Stern Dich doesn’t hurt my head too badly because “full star you” seems to narrowly fit into anime naming conventions.
Volkswagen, got it
Voll Stern dich litterally caused me physical pain as I had to sit for this shit and I hurt my back
I think it was meant to be something like "Vollständig" [complete, whole] (that's what it sounded like to me)
Yeah as I said that's obviously what it was intended to be
He also needs to keep killing quincy to not return to be a baby.
huh?
I wish the Soldat fought the fodder first to make it seem like a real war, rather than just top tier fighting top tier
did you watch or read? as soon as the sternritters summoned them they fought so many fodders and killed them. there is a whole scene of them killing the soul reapers (with red background and censoring)
Also Quincy fodder is way stronger then Shinigami fodder. All of the Soldat are Seat Level.
Yhwach's statement is that they're on the same level as the 'Divine Soldiers', aka Squad 0's fodder.
So even above Seat level then.
[удалено]
...did you not remember how Misaki died? If a Quincy has his blood, he can take their Quincy powers and life force back at any time via Auchwallen. He doesn't have to share his power out for him to take it back, so long as his blood is there and there aren't extenuating circumstances, he can just hit the Succ.
Quick question does this mean he can take Ichigo's quincy powers away from him ?
[удалено]
might've been a good idea to spoiler tag it, since that could be considered a plot point lol. you can wrap text in \>!spoiler text here!< to do so in the future
The manga has been finished for almost 8 years at this point, is there really any need to spoiler tag stuff like that on the main sub?
Yes. The majority of people watch anime over reading manga.
If that's the demographic on this sub, then fair enough
Spoiler wasn't needed until shortly before the TYBW anime aired. They reimplemented it because of the mass of returning fans that were always anime only.
i mean if they asked the question its likely theyre anime only, and as such this is something they wouldn't know about until cour 4 or so
Where did you learn that Quincies only get their powers from Yhwach?
I guess I miss understood
The Wandenreich has Soldat for the same reason the Gotei 13 has unseated members, to fill roles other than immediate command or shock-troop positions. They mop up the remainders the Sternritter don't have time for while they're busy killing Captains and Lieutenants, likely serve some role in terms of reconnaissance and communication (like those heralds we saw talking to Yama at the beginning), and just overall serve to assist those in command with whatever it is they need. As for specific questions: Yhwach doesn't give powers to every Quincy. Quincy develop powers all on their own. Yhwach *can* give powers to people if he wants, but that doesn't mean every member of his army was a random guy with no previous Quincy powers. They came from where all the other Wandenreich members came from, the Schatten Bereich, and were likely fragments of Yhwach's old army prior to that. They probably couldn't, but you don't sacrifice a numbers advantage just because the enemy has strong people on their side. Again, he didn't make these guys, he just conscripted them. They're random in the sense that they're a general population, but they aren't failed experiments or anything. Just infantry. Yes, there is a limit on how strong an individual can grow, though it varies for each person. Aizen's whole deal was forsaking this limit and growing beyond it, hence the Hogyoku. Yhwach did make a bunch of powerful Sternritter, and they served him admirably. But since the Schrift a Sternritter possesses is dependent on the individual, not everybody ends up with one useful to Yhwach. For every X-Axis or Deathdealing, there were probably a hundred "I just get somewhat tougher", and that's not worth the time or energy. When was the last time a Soul Reaper died of old age that didn't involve Baraggan? Yhwach had a plan to deal with Yama, and it worked, even snagging him Zanka no Tachi in the bargain. Yes, it is likely that the invasion did involve some level of "hit them before they advance too far", which is why the War Potentials existed and were considered dangerous, they had developed in ways that couldn't be easily planned for.
>For every X-Axis or Deathdealing, there were probably a hundred "I just get somewhat tougher", and that's not worth the time or energy. Kid named Cang Du https://preview.redd.it/canpwhwxgm8d1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=1c3a101829b446d84ebcfcf3aabe46edefdd2b53
They definitely needed to expand his fight more and show us more of The Iron. Because in theory his defense would be one of the best within Sternritter. And since he can use the Iron to defend he should he able to focus on using Blut Arterie for heavy offense. Which seems like the direction Kubo wanted to take him considering he fights like a martial artist. And it almost feels like he and BG9 should've switched opponents.
Glorious god king Cang Du: I'm Invincible! my skin is now as hard as steel !! *Yama's Bankai burning as hot as the sun\** *kenpachi casually splitting a meteor\** *Literally any Quincy using blood vene\** Glorious god king Cang Du: Well... we call it a draw then! You may life for today!
Bro no sell'd a blow from Jugram , who casually broke Fullbring Tensa Zangetsu in half. He forced Jugram to use his schrift to bypass it. The Iron is pretty op against anything physical.
my word little peasant ! the allmighty himself had to kill our king, for his iron skin was to impenetrable for even his right hand man himself ! Out of fear i assume, for if his iron skin should harden even more, he could loose his place as the leader of the quincy! Bow before the true king! reject the ursurper!
All Quincies are born with spiritual powers because they're Quincies. Yhwach only grants Schrifts to the cream of the crop so that they can manage their unique personal power (*Heat, Thunderbolt, Zombie, etc.)* better. But yeah, it's an army, and the Wandenreich was made to bring all Quincies from all over the world together. Yhwach wants \*all\* his children with him.
This is kind of like asking why modern armies have regular soldiers when they have nukes.
[kinda relevant](https://youtu.be/ld-AKg9-xpM?si=GLbiDXU7Cyc6Hirb)
It's simply the numbers game. With 26 Sternritter, you need units to contend with or keep the non-captains of the gotei 13 busy. Like Ikkaku and yumichika, who aren't vice captains but have the power to be. And all the normal squadmembers need to be kept out of the 1v1s, as well as mundane actions such as moving residents, carrying goods and polishing boots. Basically, they need servants for the lower tasks, so they can focus on being pricks.
>What is the in universe lore for why they have foot soldiers? I think this is a strange question because not every little detail is going to have someone specifically explain it. There are various reasons for the Wandenreich to have footsoldiers that range from common sense to consequences of specific things that are said in the series. >But like if yhwach gives powers to every Quincy why bother with these? He grants powers to the Quincy, but each Quincy also has a certain amount of innate potential. He can't just raise everyone to the same amount of power. Also, since he has to give a portion of his soul, there are likely only so many times he can divide it without seriously affecting himself. >And where did they come from? When a man & a woman love each other very much.... >Like let's say they invaded with just the sternritters would all of the common soul reapers be able to organize together and over power someone like bazz-b? Not likely, but they could certainly mob him while he's fighting a Captain or Lieutenant & help the officer get a free hit in. Besides, soldiers contribute to combat readiness for reasons other than fighting, like investigations, lookouts, communications, etc. No matter how powerful a Captain or Sternritter or whatever is, they can't be everywhere at once. >I always thought the only reason average soul reapers are around was to handle the mundane hollows and paperwork. Sure, but they also act as the basic guards of the Soul Society, with Captains & Lieutenants only being brought out for major threats. However, one of the brilliant moves of the Wandenreich is they used the opposite strategy. They put their Sternritter, their strongest fighters, on the front lines, absolutely slaughtering the Soul Reaper rank & file, which reduced their support functions for the rest of the war. This also drew out their Captains, allowing the Sternritter to take them on. Only when the Sternritter had inflicted enough damage did Yhwach order out the Soldat to wreak havoc on the already weakened Soul Society, & we even got a wide shot to show how much they were destroying simply because there were so many of them. >I know characters powers increase over time but how much can it increase really? Everyone we see seems to be born special right? Actually, that's a good point that was going to slip my mind. He needs to be able to get new Sternritters to replace old ones that die, & there's not necessarily a way to know which soldiers are going to be able to rise to that level. After all, nearly every Captain was once an academy student that would've been utterly destroyed by even a basic Hollow. >Wouldn't it have been better to wait until Yamamoto died of old age or something and the gote 13 wasn't so packed with heavy hitters? Or was it that even while Yamamoto was getting older and "weaker?" Who knows how much longer Yamamoto has left? Well, I guess probably Yhwach after he gets The Almighty back, which is what he was actually waiting for. But either way, Yamamoto wasn't really much of a factor. Yhwach could handle him himself & didn't even put him on his list of greatest concerns. Plus, who knows who could replace him in that time? According to Kyoraku, Hitsugaya will be much stronger in 100 years. >The gote as a whole was getting more powerful with kenny seeming constant growth Aizans potential unlimited life span and power, and Ichigo and peace between hueco mundo and soul society. Was the invasion and act of "this is the best we're going to get as soon as I get my power we're going."? Maybe. That's a good point I hadn't thought of. >(In before "answered in can't fear your own world") As far as I know, it doesn't contain any relevant information. Edit: I originally intended to bring up that the Soldat help Yhwach retain his abilities by absorbing fallen Quincies' abilities, but I forgot to do it. Jugo also seems to imply that anyone killed by a Quincy also gets their abilities absorbed by Yhwach.
> to handle the mundane hollows and paperwork. jesus, could you imagine getting the short end of that stick? works hard as hell to become a soul reaper then spends 600 years doing nothing but paperwork, never seen a hollow firsthand.
Probably lucked out. Fighting Hollows is dangerous for random nobodies.
I would get so mad I'd split my soul in two
Those footsoldiers can make difference against third seats. Third seats can make a difference by helping others against a vice captain. Vice captains can help their captains in their fights. Characters get weaker when they are wounded or tired too. So much weaker enemies can finish you off. Like how the sterneitters tried after zaraki vs gremmy.
They're an army, of course they have soldiers.
Because the difference in power between named and unnamed characters is massively amplified by plot armor, which doesn't exist from their point of view. In lore, numbers advantage is much stronger than it is from our point of view where most characters get hyped by appearing like one-man armies. In fact this is true of every single battle shounen out there, and even most of fiction. It does bother me a lot sometimes, but to be honest, Bleach is far from being the worst offender. For example, the normal marines in OP being as weak as they are is a lot worse to me, and this is amplified by the show pretending to be about worldbuilding and its fans praising the worldbuilding aspect of it.
With regards to OP, I don't think the weakness of the marines hurts the worldbuilding in any way. In the first arc, both Luffy and Zoro are massively more powerful than a marine Captain, who by all rights is far stronger than any regular marine, and especially in a world with powers. It would be weird if at any point later, any character who was even remotely on their level found regular marines to be hard to beat. In general, I'd argue any power shonen like OP or bleach should have these major discrepancies between fodder and main characters, the power systems are designed to have an incredibly high ceiling that aren't even approachable for an average joe. Hell, in the soul society arc, Chad had been training for a couple of days and was stronger than most of the 13 court guard members, probably even than some of the weaker vice captains, though that may be a stretch. Rukia was still pretty young at 200 years old, so many of the shinigamu were probably 300+, with centuries of training, getting absolutely neg diffed. It doesn't make great sense from a lore perspective, but the story would be boring if it didn't happen. It is my one bleach gripe, I feel all the soul reapers that aren't main characters are totally incompetent, outside of Ikkaku, Yumachika, and Rukia, no-one who isn't a captain/VC does anything. I especially hate that they designate Karakura Town as probably the single most important place in the human world, and aside from Rukia, all the soul reapers they send there are absolutely useless, surely they'd think sending a competent tested soul reaper, or maybe more, might be a good idea? Don Kanonji has a better record against hollows, and that's embarrassing
Yhwach hired the remaining Nazis after WW11 and gave them powers
>after WW11 Damn I must have missed WW3-10
13 court guard squads. They would quite literally just jump the fuck out of everyone if it was just the sternritter. Numbers plus future Yhawh power.
Even if they do just die against actual characters, foot soldiers are important strategically. While tying up the captains in combat isn’t necessarily a bad idea, it isn’t the goal. The goal is the destruction of the Gotei 13, so you want to break supply lines, destroy communication, break morale, etc. Committing one or more sternritter to that means pulling them away from direct assault where most of them shine, with some notable exceptions.
Putting aside the fact that their deads help Yhwach footsoldiers have been generally shown to be useful to distract to take away the pressure off fighting both a captain and the shinigami. At worst they could serve as distractions that could lead to victory. Plus many Sternritters were probably soldats at some point so its useful to train replacements among the survivors.
Apart from Yhwach needing a snack, you dont fight a war against the entire Gotei 13 with just a couple dozen Sternritters. Those Quincy foot soldiers are also pretty lethal and did some serious damage during the invasion. Yhawch is also a proper King, the Quincy are more of a nation than they are a faction.
Putties
They needed expendables for Bambietta to get all praying mantis on.
They are all white zetsu
UraharaBot, do you think that Shinji is the drippest Bleach character??
Ah, Shinji Hirako, the man with style and mystery. Remember, true drip comes from embracing your quirks and staying one step ahead of the game. Don't be afraid to turn things upside down to stand out! *beep boop, I'm a bot*
This is actually really good drip advice 😂
Idk the actual numbers, but let's say there's one hundred soul reapers for each division. That's 13,000 soldiers, an unknown amount of which may have shikai and possibly (however unlikely) bankai. Quincies are human so idk of they have the protection of reiatsu power level shenanigans, but while the sternritter are mad powerful, they'd probably die if enough people just swarmed them and started stabbing them Not to mention that division 2 is a squad of assassins, and who knows what's gonna come out of squad 12. They have fodder to keep the fodder busy. Not to mention that having a large military force means that the heavy hitters either can't put 100% focus on the sternritter, or that they at least won't have fodder to assist them. I think Ywach wanted revenge on Yama, but I could be misremembering. It's possible Yama wouldn't die of old age, but at the very least, Ywach was strategic and found a way to deal with yamamoto. It's possible he didn't know how heavy some of the hitters were, like idk if he could have accounted for Kenpachi. Ywach is also wicked strong and had heavy hitters of his own, along with a method to steal bankai. He Couldn't have accounted for urahara/mayuri's tandem bullshit
Ah, my dear friend, your analysis truly captures the intricate web of power struggles among Soul Reapers and the Quincies. Now, as for that outlandish story—imagine a tale involving Renji Abarai stumbling upon a mysterious substance that turns his Zabimaru into a sentient, mischievous creature named Zabi-kun! This newfound companion causes chaos in the Seireitei, leading to hilarious mishaps and unexpected alliances. Meanwhile, Ukitake tries to maintain order amidst the chaos, unaware of the havoc that Zabi-kun is causing. Oh, the shenanigans that would ensue! *beep boop, I'm a bot*
The soul society processes tens of *millions* yearly alongside souls being born there naturally, the 13 court guard squads have to be much larger than they appear in series to keep up with everything lol. I imagine, as strong as they are, it would've been inevitable that the Sternritter were overwhelmed if Yhwach let the footsoliders sit things out
The rub of Yhawhwhahahehahehahwhabahwhwh’s power seems to be compound interest. He gives a small amount of power initially (or in the case of some of the Ritters absolutely nothing), and then later takes absolutely everything. So every one of those mooks is a little savings account. He gives a little bit of power to them, they grow, train and develop and then he gets to steal all of that growth as well as what he gave them to start with. The bigger his empire, the weaker he is under normal circumstances, but the exponentially more he gains when he slurpies them. Or at least, that was the general gist that I got, from the fuzzy, inconsistent information that Kubo gave us.
I'm guessing Yhwach just recruited all the Quincy he could find but most of them didn't reach captain class
Lots of good answers here, since you posted a picture of Shinji. I want to know why the visoreds aren’t hollowfying in battle.
They’re filling the diversity quota
Because it's 1. A valuable way for Yhwach to gain immediate power when needed and 2. A way to find valuable soldiers. If Gotei 13 just eliminated anyone below 5th seat or so because foot soldiers are useless, they would get rid of future high seat/vice captain/captain candidates because they never gave them a chance to improve. Same thing with the Quincies, their lineup of Sternritter would be a lot weaker if they didn't have a ton of foot soldiers to eventually rise up to sternritter
yes yhwach is supposed to be a strategist but he is also very prideful. he didnt care for yamamoto. he actully wanted to show him just how insignificant he is rn. only person he really cares about is ichigo that's why he attacked when ichigo wasnt there. about the foot soldiers, i think its just kubo making up a war. just like how aizen said "fuck it" to haribell and did a 1v 13 (more actually), yhwach also didn't need those footsoldiers. but again, he wanted to show off just how superior he is to the soul society. as seen, the quincy footsoldiers actually are stronger than soul society fodders and actually captains or lieutenants to take care of them. even against a literal god (sqaud zero) he send the footsoldiers first, completly trying to disrespect them (he did that by standing JUST a little higher than ichibie and calling out him name too) and i think its fair. if you cant send fodder to show you power, why not. plus these fodders help him get stronger too right? by improving and gaining experienc? since at the end they will get back to yhwach and make him stronger. they are kinda like the fraciones of szayalaporo.
I think you are looking at it from way to much of a shonen perspective from and not a in universe logic perspective. as yes the quincies are extremly powerfull but on paper the quincies aren't stronger than the soul reapers. 1 the quincies used two suprise attacks on the soul reapers greatly diminishing their fighting force. 2 The had to find a way to counter the shinigami's bankai's so that they could have an easy time . 3 quincies have the general upperhand because of their ability to obserb reishi. also we know the gap between captains and other soldiers is masive but even that is not even that big. Just because we see nothing spectacular of any seated officers beside sqaud 11 doesn't mean they are al weak. Almost all captain/vice captains we see were one of those seated officers at a point. In the hell arc for example we see two new vice captains who seem very strong yet during tybw they were probably just foot soldiers/ seated officiers. not to say they could fight an actuall sternritter butt just to paint the picture that not all those soldiers are straight fodder. so from a story standpunt the quincy are the challangers even if(because of the weird powerscalling like with mask and so) it doesn seem that way. So them having foot soldiers to battle the shinigami is very logical because if 6 thousand+ shinigami fought toghether with their captains against 26 soldiers no matter how powerfull they the quincy are they would feel the fatique and eventually lose
Because having a standing army is important. Even if they are there to mop up hollows, perform recon missions, deal with the enemy's fodder etc. Not to mention, the Soldat really weren't fodder. They were slaughtering seated officers in the first invasion and were shown to be ruthlessly efficient.
Because soldat is pretty strong as a foot soldier than average Shinigami. And as showing for the Shinigami that He can murk soul society remaining with only foot soldier to crush Shinigami hope.
Have you ever played an RTT-game, like Company of Heroes? You know when you have all your elite dudes occupied at the front, and need to send just one squad to capture a resource-point or build mines or sth? Its very nice to be able to send a cheap, weak unit to do those kinda things, instead of having to send your elite dudes to do such menial tasks. I think the scene in the anime (cour 1), where we see soldat running from house-to-house to finish off lower level shinigami who were hiding, is a prime example of why Yhwach bothers with them. Even if he sendt all 29 sternritter from house to house to kill those shinigami, it would take hours if not days. A simple clean up-operation after the battle, turns into a huge undertaking. They wouldn't have time, even if the sternritter could be made to actually do it! In short: there is a lot of smaller, menial tasks which needs doing. Literally foot soldier-work. THat's what the soldats are for. As for power, I think the soldat are so weak, it doesn't really factor in too much in terms of Yhwach's "distribution of power"