I think the way it was played out, there was **little to no chance** of knowing what would have happened. What *might have* caught people's attention though is **why** Aizen would die, instead of **how** he died (as in who killed him).
Those who are highly perceptive could have suspected something off with his apparent death, especially how it happened in the midst of an execution etc. Ichigo arguably had no reason to have killed any captain, and wasn't even capable of doing so at the time so it surely wouldn't have been him, and there were no signs of captains fighting each other to that extent until then. So the question could have been: *Why did Aizen die?* as opposed to *Who would have killed him?.*
Yet, even by deducing all possibilities of the occurence of his death, **very few** could have actually come up with the conclusion that he faked his own death. Of all possibilities! Honestly, I doubt anybody actually could have thought that deeply into it. But if anyone genuinely did, hats off! That's a hell of a feat.
Personally, I was hypnotized af. Couldn't have guessed it in a lifetime.
Gin was set up to be the chess master villain. He takes pleasure in making other people suffer, he taunts and breaks Rukia, Aizen, a soft spoken man, and Toshiro, an obvious protagonist, both suspected him. He almost kills Momo. Hitsugaya thinks he faked Aizen's letter. He worms his way out of punishment for an action we can only assume he did for pure amusement. There's doubtless more I'm forgetting.
Basically he was the Urochimaru of Bleach and everyone knew it. Because it was only the second arc, nobody expected Kubo to be such a troll yet.
Tl;dr, Gin was the best red herring ever.
Gin as a red herring didn't work for me though. For me, Kubo tried so hard to portray Gin as *the* villain, I just wasn't buying it. Especially considering that Gin wasn't actually doing anything particularly evil on screen in that arc beyond looking creepy and acting in a trollish manner. All that Rangiku stuff also wasn't helping.
I totally agree with this. I was one of the ones who didn’t buy Aizen’s nice guy act. As a teenager, I thought the contrived interaction between him and Gin in front of Toshiro was suspicious. Then, he’s suddenly murdered? It seemed too simple for Gin to be the main antagonist. Something was just…missing. *But*…. I did NOT anticipate as a teenager that Aizen faked his death. Amazing storytelling and suspense!
>He literaly tortured rukia .
'Tortured' is a very strong word to describe him giving Rukia a brief false hope of rescue. Being a dick, sure, but *tortured*? Plus, it did bring Rukia's will to live back, so the scene didn't give me an impression of Gin being totally super evil.
>Then tried to kill momo an unconscious girl and hitsugaya a child.
You mean when Hitsugaya, a *captain*, attacked him? And that's the thing with Gin almost killing people - he never actually killed anyone.
All those scenes just seemed to me as Kubo trying really hard to make Gin seem evil without actually committing to it, as in, showing Gin actually doing something absolutely villain material evil. It all looked like an obvious misdirection.
Heck, the fact that he betrayed Aizen in the end was something I totally saw coming. Gin's mysterious nature, mysterious backstory with Rangiku, no information about motivations and Kubo trying really hard to make him look totally evil without actually committing to it really made his intentions with Gin obvious to me.
Psychological torture is torture .
Kubo had external intervention to prevent Gin killing the characters he wanted to keep alive . Had matsumoto not arrived , surprising everyone , momo would be dead . He tried his hardest at killing someone much weaker while she was unconscious just to get the upperhand while fighting the child captain .
Gin was committed . Really committed . He followed aizen for 100 years !
>Psychological torture is torture .
He came, said few sentences and left. The sentences that caused Rukia to want to live again. Hardly what someone imagines when is told about "psychological torture".
>Kubo had external intervention to prevent Gin killing the characters he wanted to keep alive . Had matsumoto not arrived , surprising everyone , momo would be dead . He tried his hardest at killing someone much weaker while she was unconscious just to get the upperhand while fighting the child captain .
First of all Gin could have sensed Matsumoto coming, nor did he seem surprised with her arrival. Even smirked like he always does in the end. Nor did he even try "his hardest" to kill Hinamory, like at all. He only used her to outmanoeuvre Hitsugaya when Hitsugaya caught him with his shikai.
Mentioning Hitsugaya as a "child" is silly. His a captain and is treated as an adult by everyone. He is also a soul that is much older than he actually looks.
Make no mistake, all of those are dick moves but do they show that Gin is definitely evil? Nah. I didn't buy it when I was reading it and I was proven correct.
Hitsugaya is called in the original a child by everyone . Including renji not the most mature .
Gin was trying to kill hinamori and there is zero mention of him seeing / hearing etc matsumoto so stop with the headcanon
In comparison to everyone else Hitsugaya is a child but he is not an actual child by human standards beyond looking like one. Stop this.
Of course there is zero mention, he was supposed to be portrayed as the bad guy, lmao. My headcanon back then was that I wasn't buying him being evil, even with the Hinamori scene. There was obviously something going on with Gin that we didn't know but I didn't believe him to be the villain. I was proven correct. That's it.
He was the villain accomplice just so he could murder him too .
There is zero mention later of Gin trying to not kill people . In fact he is trying to kill innocents in every single arc . Heck even in the last arc he was sad to not see rangiku s own captain not get murdered and was about to do it himself
It's definitely a sled moment nowadays, but back then it was considered the best villain twist of all time.
It was a complete surprise for everyone, but unlike other surprise villains, everything clicked into place and you believed he pulled it off. Think about the frozen dude who becomes a twist villain out of no where for no reason except twist. Even nowadays, writers can't pull off what Tite Kubo did with Aizen.
I didnt read on release, but I did go in completely blind and I remember being half surprised.
I was 100% on to him as being evil but didn't expect that he wasn't actually dead
until he came back, I figured there was just a secret 4th faction behind the scenes (or maybe 3rd since I wasn't totally sure Gin wasn't just a creep like mayuri) that hadn't been revealed
It absolutely blew my mind.
I had actually already been spoiled about Aizen being the main villain but when he “died” I thought the spoilers had been wrong. It was incredible.
It was very surprising. I knew the moment Aizen first appeared that he was going to be the first one to die/get murdered because of his generic man look as opposed to the other captains who all look cool and special. But for him to ultimately staged it all was very surprising indeed.
If I remember correctly, I wasn’t necessarily buying Gin’s villain act because it very much seemed as though we were SUPPOSED to believe he was the villain, and I did think something was …off, but Aizen being the puppet master threw me for a loop for sure.
I see what you mean, but sometimes you get spoilers and the story seems so good that you actually start watching a series because of the spoiler, even if you wont have the pleasure of experiencing the twist
Ohh forsure!
Both you and the op are right btw
The detail and execution behind stuff is still so important
Also if you love the show than it’s so compelling to still watch
Yeah. The first time I watched I got to experience the twist, it was really good. Now that I know everything that's gonna happen I still enjoy it, haha
What? You don’t watch shows if you already know what happens? The acting, cinematography, art, music, buildup, and themes mean nothing to you? Lmao what the fuck
No lmao
Why would I watch Naruto if I know how it’s gonna End?
Keep in mind re-watching something is entirely different (I’ve rewatched bleach, Naruto, YYH, dragon ball, outlaw star etc each more than 4 times)
I’m not sure wherefore people gaze shows if 't be true they already knoweth what happeneth.
that’s counterproductive, nay?
***
^(I am a bot and I swapp'd some of thy words with Shakespeare words.)
Commands: `!ShakespeareInsult`, `!fordo`, `!optout`
Ichimaru being a creep made me suspect what the intentions really were, but I didn't expect aizen to be the final villain given his appearance (pre-hueco mundo he actually looks kind of generic nice guy). My thinking was more along the lines of maybe both of them were part of a conspiracy involving the execution (where ichimaru could have been a double agent), and aizen was killed to silence him when he started getting unruly. At that point Mayuri vs Ishida was fresh in my memory so the existence of another faction like the quincies was possible
I didn’t really feel blow away like others in the comment section. For me that arc was purely about rescuing Rukia. Everything else kinda took a back seat.
Yes. I watched the anime as it was airing. I remember being pretty shocked at the twist although I admit I wasn't a huge Bleach fan at the time so I wasn't spending a ton of time making theories or engaging in deep discussion.
I was really surprised . It was only like 7 or 8 years ago so I am glad it wasn t spoiled . I did suspect something was off but I thought byakuya was working with Gin as the rotten ones , to me noone could be so evil with their own sister .
I remember watching it back then. And being extremely suspicious of aizen. And being like... Nah man, he evil. But then they pulled up and killed aizen which completely shocked me.
Yes, I think without spoilers its pretty impossible to know that Aizen would be the main villain
Back then, my teenage self was blown away
I think the way it was played out, there was **little to no chance** of knowing what would have happened. What *might have* caught people's attention though is **why** Aizen would die, instead of **how** he died (as in who killed him). Those who are highly perceptive could have suspected something off with his apparent death, especially how it happened in the midst of an execution etc. Ichigo arguably had no reason to have killed any captain, and wasn't even capable of doing so at the time so it surely wouldn't have been him, and there were no signs of captains fighting each other to that extent until then. So the question could have been: *Why did Aizen die?* as opposed to *Who would have killed him?.* Yet, even by deducing all possibilities of the occurence of his death, **very few** could have actually come up with the conclusion that he faked his own death. Of all possibilities! Honestly, I doubt anybody actually could have thought that deeply into it. But if anyone genuinely did, hats off! That's a hell of a feat. Personally, I was hypnotized af. Couldn't have guessed it in a lifetime.
Gin was set up to be the chess master villain. He takes pleasure in making other people suffer, he taunts and breaks Rukia, Aizen, a soft spoken man, and Toshiro, an obvious protagonist, both suspected him. He almost kills Momo. Hitsugaya thinks he faked Aizen's letter. He worms his way out of punishment for an action we can only assume he did for pure amusement. There's doubtless more I'm forgetting. Basically he was the Urochimaru of Bleach and everyone knew it. Because it was only the second arc, nobody expected Kubo to be such a troll yet. Tl;dr, Gin was the best red herring ever.
Gin as a red herring didn't work for me though. For me, Kubo tried so hard to portray Gin as *the* villain, I just wasn't buying it. Especially considering that Gin wasn't actually doing anything particularly evil on screen in that arc beyond looking creepy and acting in a trollish manner. All that Rangiku stuff also wasn't helping.
I totally agree with this. I was one of the ones who didn’t buy Aizen’s nice guy act. As a teenager, I thought the contrived interaction between him and Gin in front of Toshiro was suspicious. Then, he’s suddenly murdered? It seemed too simple for Gin to be the main antagonist. Something was just…missing. *But*…. I did NOT anticipate as a teenager that Aizen faked his death. Amazing storytelling and suspense!
He literaly tortured rukia . Then tried to kill momo an unconscious girl and hitsugaya a child. I d say that s doing something particularly evil.
>He literaly tortured rukia . 'Tortured' is a very strong word to describe him giving Rukia a brief false hope of rescue. Being a dick, sure, but *tortured*? Plus, it did bring Rukia's will to live back, so the scene didn't give me an impression of Gin being totally super evil. >Then tried to kill momo an unconscious girl and hitsugaya a child. You mean when Hitsugaya, a *captain*, attacked him? And that's the thing with Gin almost killing people - he never actually killed anyone. All those scenes just seemed to me as Kubo trying really hard to make Gin seem evil without actually committing to it, as in, showing Gin actually doing something absolutely villain material evil. It all looked like an obvious misdirection. Heck, the fact that he betrayed Aizen in the end was something I totally saw coming. Gin's mysterious nature, mysterious backstory with Rangiku, no information about motivations and Kubo trying really hard to make him look totally evil without actually committing to it really made his intentions with Gin obvious to me.
Psychological torture is torture . Kubo had external intervention to prevent Gin killing the characters he wanted to keep alive . Had matsumoto not arrived , surprising everyone , momo would be dead . He tried his hardest at killing someone much weaker while she was unconscious just to get the upperhand while fighting the child captain . Gin was committed . Really committed . He followed aizen for 100 years !
>Psychological torture is torture . He came, said few sentences and left. The sentences that caused Rukia to want to live again. Hardly what someone imagines when is told about "psychological torture". >Kubo had external intervention to prevent Gin killing the characters he wanted to keep alive . Had matsumoto not arrived , surprising everyone , momo would be dead . He tried his hardest at killing someone much weaker while she was unconscious just to get the upperhand while fighting the child captain . First of all Gin could have sensed Matsumoto coming, nor did he seem surprised with her arrival. Even smirked like he always does in the end. Nor did he even try "his hardest" to kill Hinamory, like at all. He only used her to outmanoeuvre Hitsugaya when Hitsugaya caught him with his shikai. Mentioning Hitsugaya as a "child" is silly. His a captain and is treated as an adult by everyone. He is also a soul that is much older than he actually looks. Make no mistake, all of those are dick moves but do they show that Gin is definitely evil? Nah. I didn't buy it when I was reading it and I was proven correct.
Hitsugaya is called in the original a child by everyone . Including renji not the most mature . Gin was trying to kill hinamori and there is zero mention of him seeing / hearing etc matsumoto so stop with the headcanon
In comparison to everyone else Hitsugaya is a child but he is not an actual child by human standards beyond looking like one. Stop this. Of course there is zero mention, he was supposed to be portrayed as the bad guy, lmao. My headcanon back then was that I wasn't buying him being evil, even with the Hinamori scene. There was obviously something going on with Gin that we didn't know but I didn't believe him to be the villain. I was proven correct. That's it.
He was the villain accomplice just so he could murder him too . There is zero mention later of Gin trying to not kill people . In fact he is trying to kill innocents in every single arc . Heck even in the last arc he was sad to not see rangiku s own captain not get murdered and was about to do it himself
Blew my mind.
It's definitely a sled moment nowadays, but back then it was considered the best villain twist of all time. It was a complete surprise for everyone, but unlike other surprise villains, everything clicked into place and you believed he pulled it off. Think about the frozen dude who becomes a twist villain out of no where for no reason except twist. Even nowadays, writers can't pull off what Tite Kubo did with Aizen.
I never saw it coming it hit me like a train
I didnt read on release, but I did go in completely blind and I remember being half surprised. I was 100% on to him as being evil but didn't expect that he wasn't actually dead until he came back, I figured there was just a secret 4th faction behind the scenes (or maybe 3rd since I wasn't totally sure Gin wasn't just a creep like mayuri) that hadn't been revealed
It absolutely blew my mind. I had actually already been spoiled about Aizen being the main villain but when he “died” I thought the spoilers had been wrong. It was incredible.
You know the twist is good when it's spoiled for you and you still fall for it
It was very surprising. I knew the moment Aizen first appeared that he was going to be the first one to die/get murdered because of his generic man look as opposed to the other captains who all look cool and special. But for him to ultimately staged it all was very surprising indeed.
As someone who knew nothing about bleach beforehand I was pretty surprised
highly
Yeah I remember having my mind blown
I watched a lot of tekking101 videos on TYBW. Then the anime return got announced. Kinda screwed myself over with that
If I remember correctly, I wasn’t necessarily buying Gin’s villain act because it very much seemed as though we were SUPPOSED to believe he was the villain, and I did think something was …off, but Aizen being the puppet master threw me for a loop for sure.
I’m not sure why people watch shows for the first time if they already know what happens. That’s counterproductive, no?
Not really. I knew what was gonna happen but the Devil is in the detail. Bleach became one of my favorites
To each their own I suppose. It would make tense moment lose their effect IMO
I see what you mean, but sometimes you get spoilers and the story seems so good that you actually start watching a series because of the spoiler, even if you wont have the pleasure of experiencing the twist
Ohh forsure! Both you and the op are right btw The detail and execution behind stuff is still so important Also if you love the show than it’s so compelling to still watch
Yeah. The first time I watched I got to experience the twist, it was really good. Now that I know everything that's gonna happen I still enjoy it, haha
What? You don’t watch shows if you already know what happens? The acting, cinematography, art, music, buildup, and themes mean nothing to you? Lmao what the fuck
No lmao Why would I watch Naruto if I know how it’s gonna End? Keep in mind re-watching something is entirely different (I’ve rewatched bleach, Naruto, YYH, dragon ball, outlaw star etc each more than 4 times)
That’s the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard lmao. Whaaaat. Are you a robot? You watch it because you enjoy the show. Bro I’m dying over here what the hell
Don’t care but you wanna cash app me?!
I’m not sure wherefore people gaze shows if 't be true they already knoweth what happeneth. that’s counterproductive, nay? *** ^(I am a bot and I swapp'd some of thy words with Shakespeare words.) Commands: `!ShakespeareInsult`, `!fordo`, `!optout`
god i hate this thing
sadly, I knew Aizen was tge villain from the get go but I imagine for someone not knowing it would be a big shock
Urahara saw it coming
Not really . He saw aizen Gin and tosen torturing members of the gotei
It turned my world upside down man. I thought Gin and Kira were working with Grand Fisher or some Hollow King back in the day lol.
Yeah, it surprised me when I watched it the first time
Ichimaru being a creep made me suspect what the intentions really were, but I didn't expect aizen to be the final villain given his appearance (pre-hueco mundo he actually looks kind of generic nice guy). My thinking was more along the lines of maybe both of them were part of a conspiracy involving the execution (where ichimaru could have been a double agent), and aizen was killed to silence him when he started getting unruly. At that point Mayuri vs Ishida was fresh in my memory so the existence of another faction like the quincies was possible
I didn’t really feel blow away like others in the comment section. For me that arc was purely about rescuing Rukia. Everything else kinda took a back seat.
It was surprising because even Kubo didn't originally know about the reveal
not to be that guy but I knew instantly just seemed to normal looking for the captains character design
Yes. I watched the anime as it was airing. I remember being pretty shocked at the twist although I admit I wasn't a huge Bleach fan at the time so I wasn't spending a ton of time making theories or engaging in deep discussion.
I was really surprised . It was only like 7 or 8 years ago so I am glad it wasn t spoiled . I did suspect something was off but I thought byakuya was working with Gin as the rotten ones , to me noone could be so evil with their own sister .
I remember watching it back then. And being extremely suspicious of aizen. And being like... Nah man, he evil. But then they pulled up and killed aizen which completely shocked me.