Kubo's BIGGEST MISTAKE (With The Sternritter) | Bleach Discussion 

I really wanted them to be a lot more nuanced. Some stern ritters could have made friends with Uryu for example. One could have known his grandpa. I wanted Uryu to ask himself if he should still support the shinigami. It would have been better if there was no clear good side. How cool would it have been if the stern ritters had a moral code and had genuine critiscism of the Soul Society ?

I think Kubo wanted to go bigger with the war. They were recruiting arrancar in hueco Mundo. Which makes sense cause there 26 captains and vice captains but also Ichigo his friends kisuke yorouichi etc.

It's very sad, it's clear that Kubo wanted to make this arc an all-out war arc, and have a flashback of the actual 1000 year blood war, however, I don't despise him, taking his health conditions at the time into consideration and pressuring (Especially in the final chapters) to end the series, we can only hope the anime fix these things.

I personally thought Lille Barro was vastly overpowered. To me I thought the correlation and back story between Kyoraku and Nanao was amazing, however I never understand how disappointing the zero squad was facing him. Like the fact Lille wasn’t even in his second form and blew away Oetsu like nothing greatly disappointed me. I mean for the royal guard, THE God’s who guard the soul king and are inventors of key parts of the soul society, especially for Oetsu creating the zanpaktou. Just doesn’t right with me, even to this day.

I think your solid on your analysis. If they had done pairs or something would have helped set expectations.

It's really not that different from the Arrancars if you think about it, yes the Espadas were the main threat, but there were also their fracciones and the Privaron Espadas too, so there were way more than just them, Aizen, Gin and Kaname included. The Sternritters all share the same rank, but they are not at all equal, far from it in fact, the Elites are clearly the strongest among them and mirror the top 4 Espada, Haschwalth is their Leader, Gremmy is clearly on a level above all the normal ones, Bazz B is up there too. So all the rest of the Sternritter are like the equivalent of the lower ranked Espada and Fraccion. I think the reason Kubo decided to go with the alphabet instead of numbers was so the reader didn't have preconceived notions about them, like oh this guy is a higher number so he must be stronger, and therefore be less predictable.

The problem for me is that the sternritter are just the arrancars revamped. Dress in white, check. Almost all of them are bloodthirsty psychopaths, check. They all seem to hate each other and only work with one another because they have to, check. Turning into some kind of monster at some point, check. Boss who wants to kill the soul king, check. OMG its the same enemy! Except this time its kind of threat! I think the sternritter were a huge missed opportunity to do a different kind of villain group. The quincy are supposed to have some form of pride in their race and what they are. Not only that they're supposed to be humans. Kubo could have made them more of a close knit group with some loyalty, companionship or camaraderie towards each other, instead of making them despise and back stab one another constantly through the arc.

It was rushed. I remember after Renji beat Mask de Masculine the Underbelly Sterntitter (Lil Wayne lookalike) analyzed Renji's weaknesses at the end of the chapter but nothing ever came of it.

An entire mini arc following the Wandenreich from their perspective would have been greatly appreciated and could flesh out this characters and they're motivations.

For me, the biggest mistake was having them constantly kill each other. Most of their deaths came from the hands of their comrades and not the enemy. I guess it is supposed to show how ruthless they are by having them kill their "friends." When you think about it, I think every attack they used on each other was fatal. And when they actually killed any Shinigami it was just for shock value because all of a sudden you had a worthless zombie maker.

Yeah Cang-Du and BG9 I really like. I mean BG9 is a robot quincy fighting against gods of death in a feudal Japan era setting.

Dude you need collab with Tekking when the anime comes back Yeah, you pretty much nailed the issue with them, there was no clear system I thought they should just rank term of letter like the Espada,or give us some linguistic pattern like maybe the vowels are the strongest or have it be double meaning like the Japanese / Spanish stuff with the Arrancar. To me Kubo greatest talent is him as a poet

You'd think that the female sternritters outside of Bambietta to be fodder. But Bami got taken out first.

I like to break up the TYBW into a Sternritter arc and a Schutzstaffel arc. Somewhere in between there should have been a Turn Back the Pendulum 2 so we could actually get a feel for these characters, and give the Schutzstaffel a proper introduction To get a proper TYBW arc just covering the things Kubo hinted at but never fleshed out, plus building proper dramatic tension, we would have needed at least another hundred chapters and probably more. Hopefully the anime can really flesh this all out but I worry about Shueisha’s commitment

The first part of the final saga until everything but the rain is perfect, the problem come after that.

the problem with them was they were too strong, and pretty much all the captains job to them except for Kenpachi and Yamamoto. Their abilities also have nothing to do with anything that relates to the abilities that Kubo established in arcs prior.

Personally, I wish Kubo had gone in a slightly different direction with the Sternritter: 1) have there be 30 letters, taking into account the German alphabet, and having all the epithets be in German (yeah, it would have probably been gratuitous as all heck, but it would have been better than just doing what he did with the Fullbringers). 2) Have those epithets be related to war and holy themes. Some of their powers were either underwhelming (the Question? Seriously?), made no sense (Askin De Lak Nevar), or were stupidly overpowered (The Visionary) 3) Have certain Sternritter be under direct orders to target specific Shinigami based on their known skills and abilities, with the ones sent against Kenpachi being ordered to keep him distracted, rather than try and kill him (more or less an impossible task for anyone but Ywhach). Make it clear that while Spiritual Pressure can be a factor in winning, in this particular instance, actual tactics and strategy will be what wins the day. 4) make it so that they had a back up plan in case the Shinigami found a way to reclaim Bankai's - namely, a self-destruct mechanism on their medallions. That way, they don't feel pointless. 5) With all this in mind, I wanted the Shinigami, in turn, to come to realize this as they were being their *sses kicked, and be forced to make several concessions to the other Visoreds, Espada, etc., (all their former enemies, basically) to gain as many allies as they could just to have a chance of defeating the Vandenreich, and finally start acting like an actual military

Cang Du and BG9's fate was the first time I had ever felt anger towards a written story, or maybe frustration rather. I remember wanting King of Lightning to rant about it and I never got that validation. So thank you for this video lol Edit: Rob for sure got a raw deal lol homie got skeletonized immediately by the auswahlen

I think Cang Du ( Tsan Tu is the true pronunciation) was Bazz-B"s rival and is one of the strongest members ( he stopped the blade from Haschwald). I hate Kubo that he gave Pepe more screentime than Cang.

I personally like the final arc but I will change a few things (mostly the Quincey) 1.) Dont have the qunicy steal the bankais just have them just overpower them in the beginning 2.) have the quincys minions have bow and arrows and rather then have them stand around, make them fight the random shirgami soldiers so it look like an actual war 3.) have ichigo have a random mini battle before having him fight ywhach (have the Quincy with the thunderbolt be op and have him fight her.) 4.) give grimmjow more screentime 5.) give Nel an actual battle have her vs Strernitter P “the Power” and “G the Gluttony” 6.) changes some sternritter forms 1.) Bazz b release is disappointing two floating rods?🤦🏽‍♂️ have him have fire angels wings with a flame halo like come on his powers is call “The Heat” 2.) Cang Du, in stead of stealing Toshiri bankai just have an epic Iron vs Ice fight or change his letter “I” into “The Ice” and have an Ice on Ice fight 3.) Lille Barro “X” his second form just look sloppy to me Instead turn him into a huge owl with four wings (like the owl in the library in avatar the last air bender) but make him more holy and put a halo on top

My biggest issue with the Sternritters is the fact that they lack motivation. The Arrancars hated the shinigami in an instinct level, even though they didn't really faced many shinigamies durring the ages in Hueco Mundo. The Sternritters may have a gruge against the shinigamies because of the genocide against them, however it was also not cleared that who is 20 years old, and who is 200 years old. They lacked the backstories as well. The whole arc was rushed. I think maybe it would be a better decission to make a sequel manga (e.g. Boruto). Maybe it would be a solution to the problem that the publisher wanted to finish the story. And yes, they were overpowered for the sake of shock factor. If I recall it, Game of Thrones gained popularity back then and every longrunning show started to kill of main characters.

Subbed after two videos! Great bleach channel that hits a lot of topics that aren’t normally talked about.

Kubo's biggest mistake: making tensa zangetsu pretty much useless (Also zero squad rip)

at first i was skeptical that you were just pumping out videos to take advantage of bleach hype of the series coming back... i was wrong, good content, well done, kept me invested, good job finding new talking points that others like tekking havent really touched on, subscribed.

I think that kubo had planned at least 2 more arcs because all the things we are barely learning from the novels. Sadly he was forced to finish in a crazy short period of time he had to change the history.

I think it was fine in terms of writing. It kind of keeps the audience on its toes because you dont know if this sternritters going to be kinda a jobber or hax. Its a lot like real world military organizations too as some people of lets say "colonel" rank are going to be vastly more competent or powerful than another who got there through luck/reference/nepotism etc.

really good video and I appreciate your analysis on the issue you see with the sternritter because i remember reading the TYBW arc for the first time and having gripes that I couldn’t articulate about the arc and the sternritter for some reason. However my opinion on the final arc has changed quite a lot and I’ve actually become a much bigger fan of it, until it gets to the end where everything had to be rushed. i think one of the biggest issues with the relations between bleach fandom and kubo is that we all have these expectations when reading the arcs, and sometimes Kubo doesn’t really get across his intentions for characters very well at first glance. we have these preset notions of what the characters are meant to be that can end up leading to disappointment when we they don’t necessarily meet them. in retrospect, after reading TYBW again and taking it in a different light now that i know about it and have no more expectations, i appreciate it far more this time around and that includes the sternritter. the thing about the sternritter that’s much different from the espada that’s necessary to factor in is what their abilities are meant to be. the espada are beasts who lay their battle approach off of instinct, like hollows. most are very powerful, raw strength fighters who aim to destroy the opponent through their levels of reiatsu and strength(barring guys like zommari, szayel, and Barragan to a certain degree). the sternritter are very hax, ability focused fighters who have specific quirks that give them an edge in battle which is why there is such a vast difference in ability to me. not only do a good number of them get matchups with characters who are suited to be put up against their hax(i.e.Rukia v As Nodt, Kisuke v Askin, Senjumaru vs Weizol, Kenpachi vs Gremmy, Mayuri vs Giselle, post heart surgery Sajin v Bambietta), but the effectiveness of these abilities can really range from very OP to occasionally useful and then mostly useless. and with quilje he is shown to be the head of the Hueco Mundo Holocaust division so i think Kubo was showing him that way to indicate that his status is surely more important than the normal class of sternritter. that is why i believe the sternritter have such a vast difference in perception of their powers and why i do not mind the difference in power among the average sternritter as much in retrospect and think they were better antagonists than most give them credit for. i think your personal enjoyment of them can also depend on how big a fan of the espada you are and how you feel about characters who are more hax or ability focused. and in a straight up war like the TYBW, casualties are going to happen fast on both sides which was kubo’s intention with the invasion to me. but your point about them not using much of the techniques Quilje showcases is really solid as that is kinda annoying.

I think there is definitely some truth here to what you say. The main thing I wonder about though is which sternritters were done away with quicker than planned due to time constraints or whatever other issue(s) Kubo had at the time. Robert Accutrone feels like the biggest one to me, but you could probably add several others in as well like NaNaNa, Candice, Pepe, and I'd even throw Meninas in there since Kubo never even tells us what happens to her (or Candice for that matter I think?). I personally wanted way more from Cang Du and BG9 as well. I remember when BG9 was talking about how "We were able to live thanks to releasing our vollstandig" but they never actually got to fight in it. So we never get to see them at full power, and that has always bugged me. There are other things that bugged me as well. I actually have this big gripe with how Kubo handled Bambietta after her battle with Komamura, but this comment is already long enough, lol.

Watched your Sternritter videos, in backwards order. Sure made it neat!

Whenever I hear a manga creator get criticism for their work,I always feel bad for them. Kubo tried his hardest to make the final arc feel big and important but his health and the demands from editors forced him to rush things. Most people do not understand the struggle manga creators have to go through every day to make their stories. It is very stressful

Nice video, I appreciate your analysis and effort, I think the biggest issue with the sternritters is how Kubo set them up, most of them were dominating the shinigamis in the first invasion, but then most of these characters that were already set up to have high expectations were flushed in order to include the rest of the sternritters, the way kubo almost middle fingured everyone with how Bambietta, Haschwalth, Robert and Uryu were just passed by with pretty horrendous conclusion to their lifes or almost no contribution to the verdict of the war.... I mean Uryu is supposed to be one of the main cast and with him and Ichigo begin Quincy we should've had much more interaction between the two and other characters, in fact the whole arc should've been built to conclude the story of each of them considering how finally they learned the truth about themselves, maybe things will be better in the anime but I don't think the way Kubo went with the arc from the start indicate that he wanted to go that way

My beef with the Sternritter is that most of them don't have redeeming qualities like most of the Espada and they (mostly) never interact with each other on panel. This is why Bazz-B and Jugram Haschwalth ended up being the best, because they actually had history together and clear motivation, plus they weren't psychos. Pretty much everyone else are just evil maniacs for the captains to chew on while Ichigo trains / makes his way to Yhwach. Their introduction however is great! I loved seeing all the good guys get their asses whooped / slaughtered in the beginning of the arc. Unfortunately, like the top 3 Espada (not counting Yammy), the payoff in the end was lackluster. The Schutzstaffel were the worst of all -- just walking asspull dragons who were unkillable, had multiple forms, secret techniques that perfectly counter every technique their opponent happens to have, yet more insane personalities and deranged thirst for blood (except for maybe Askin).

I love how you make your thumbnails!!

My problem with the final arc had more to do with the ridiculously broken abilities a lot of the sternritters had. Many of them are clearly defeated, beaten to a pulp, roasted, cut into pieces, broken to bits, and they come back to life with absolutely no damage, in fact usually stronger than they were before. And it just makes certain shinigami characters get screwed over who obviously should have won their respective fights, or at least done some heavy damage, but it’s like in retrospect they didn’t do jack shit and got screwed over from majin buu level enemy plot armor

I don't know about Hierachy but there were characters below the Sternritter working for them. They appeared after the major forces eliminated the power houses and then overwhelmed the remaining characters with sheer number. We have seen those nameless characters few times. One got one shotted after having s*x with Bambie. Kubo focused more on the Sternritter but considering they were so many in numbers, and ended the story faster for a drying fan, I can see why so many got killed like nothing. In fact, YH and Harschwald killed most Sternritter themselves.Oh, and there were some Arrancars that were bestowed with Quincy powers. What happened to them? The two we saw early one got killed immediately but Kirge did hunt for more. I wonder if Kubo forgot or if they only existed to have a conflict in Hueco Mundo with Ichigo. IMO the Sternritter were fine for the most part. But the Top Tier ones are handled pretty badly. They had to shine and they did before being defeated by stupid ways like Sternritter X or YH getting tired and killing everyone himself. What I figured is that only a handful Quincy used Quincy techniques. Obviously Kirge and YH. Others used their Vollständig, sometimes a bow, a bankai stealing device or their unique power. Oh, some did use Blut Vein but that was just a recently introduced technique. No Sprenger, no Seeleschneider, no Lichtregen, no Kirchenlied, besides Kirge no Sklaverei, no Reishi manipulation. Regardless, they were handled better than the Vizards to me. There was a major distinctive between Vizards to Arrancar. Over the course of the series, we see them get shafted and devalued. Vizards aren't Shinigami that archived Hollow powers. They are discount Arrancar. Arrancar are, as the series progressed, either Hollow that archived Shinigami powers or Shinigami that archived Hollow powers. Tousen and Ichigo are the later. They showcased those techiques like resurreccion or Sonido. What did the Vizard do? Hatchi beat Barragan which is a big feat but it didn't feel like anything special. He is only remembered as that guy who defeated Barragan. Shinji pressured a weakened Grimmjow. After that, he lost all the time. The big OMG moment in Fake Karakura Town was them killing Gillian. Menos that at that point of the series meant nothing. Speaking of the Gillian, such a shame the giant eye monster that got hyped up gets killed with one hit. One of the most disappointing moments in Bleach for me alongside Aizen not getting enough Vasto Lorde for the Espada, the Vizards and the Orihime plot point being dropped where she wanted to stop the Hougyoku with her powers aka. Aizen using her power to actually accelerate the evolution. The last one bothered me because it felt like it's done just to have a plottwist like many other moments in Bleach such as Yammy being Espada No 0.

I think the Stern Ritter not having explicit ranks is fine- Kubo appeared to be relying on subtext for us to discern which of them would be more relevant or powerful, rather than outright numbers like the Espada/Fraccion, which made things more unpredictable. The problem was when the subtext wasn't followed up on appropriately, like with Robert Accutrone. The main issue with the Stern Ritter was a lack of depth and characterization, and the gimmicky combat which featured little of the Quincies' base skills (except the occasional bow) which were introduced in the Quilge fight, making the remaining Sternritter barely feel like Quincies.

This was truly the arc that could’ve have been, imagine if bleach had the same amount of support as one piece, Kubo could’ve gone crazy with it!

I like the description here being "Let's hit 1000 subs!" when you are now on almost 200.000. Well earned Tommo! (but good thing you got a better mic than here ;))

I dont fully agree with you, although i do agree about the part about them missed labeled/ranked, but the thing is, it seems like Kubo was actually setting up the first invasion sternritters like Cang Du, Bg 9, Bambi, Robert as major forces, but winded up getting scrapped during the second half of the arc. Heck, the elites felt like this too to a certain degree, even Hashvalt since most of their fights and defeats were rushed and anti-climatic. To be honest, i thought majority of the sternitters overall were handled poorly with the exceptions of Askin (best sternrittter dont care what anyone says) As Nodt, Bazz-B, and Kirge. A lot of them were just wasted. It does not help that a lot of their fights were pretty poor too. Personally, i think there should have been 52 sternritters, 26 Capital Case Letters for the Captains, Ichigo's group, royal guard and other relevant characters, and 26 Lower Case Letters for the Vice Captains and lesser important characters at least, most of the reacurring characters and get a fight and a victory to end their stories on, plus, it could have been used to build up lesser characters like Iba, Isane, and Lisa, so whenever they became captains, it would not feel like its coming out of nowhere, and it would more earned.

Damn 1k subs one year ago? Your channel has grown a lot great job!

Great video

A disappointment I had was with the bankai stealing, at first i thought it was a way for the quincy to fight equally with the captain without using the quincy final form and losing their power, but no they steal a bankai and can't go into this new holy form with no drawbacks. I also didn't like that Bayakuya and Kenpachi survived the first invasion, Bayakuya from the beat down we saw and Kenpachi was at ground 0 of Yama's bankai after his crushing defeat by fake Yuha when Hashwalt thought about how he would be dead without blutvien.

I'd like to see a video of this format covering each major Arc

There's only so much a author can add in an Manga after all, with the limit a Volume book can contain. I imagine Kubo wanted to add in more to some characters, but was pressured to finish it. This is another reason why I'm looking forward to the Anime returning. Because despite what people say about which is better Anime or the Manga, each side has there own pros and cons. One of the pros for the Anime is that they can add in more they couldn't in the Manga, the author plays a role when it comes to the Anime, Kubo even designed the characters for the Filler Arcs. And here are two past examples I wanted to bring up: - Remember Ashido from the Menos Forest, he was a filler character but Kubo revealed he wanted to originally add to the Manga but couldn't due to time issues. - And the Fullbring Arc, people say how bad it was, I didn't mind it, but if you read it through the Manga it does seemed rushed in a sense like how Ichigo made his decisions to get his powers back too quickly. But when you watch it in the Anime, it makes it more developed and things seem more rationalized and I liked it more like that. So that is something to take in consideration, I was disappointed like you with how some Sternritters were treated but I'm hoping the Anime has a chance to fix that.

Yoo, Cang Du is one of my favorite characters in terms of characters design...just the fact he stole Toshiro's bankai at the beggining of the war was savage but sadly Kubo screwed it up Hope Bleach anime fix the arc and make it better than its manga edition

I completely agree with this analysis. I think having a solid ranking for the Sternritter would have been much better. The more important Sternritter would be the captain class rank, like Bazz-B, Bambietta, As Nodt, Giselle, Mask. I know this will seem similar to the Espada and Fraccion ranking, but I like the idea of these more important Sternritter having an entourage of lieutenant level Quincy with them. Unlike the Arrancar, all the Sternritter have a group of weaker Quincy with them. Like how Bambietta, Giselle, and Liltotto seem to be stronger than Meninas and Candice. Or how Bazz-B and Mask seem stronger than BG9, Cang Du, and Nanana. And I wished the Schutzstaffel were introduced during that period between the 1st and 2nd invasions. Showing all five members (I included Gremmy in them). I think Jugram as the Grandmaster works to show his high rank above all Sternritter. If I had to pick which Quincy to be the "Espada" I'd pick Bazz-B, As Nodt, Bambietta, Mask, Liltotto, Royd, the Schutzstaffel, and Jugram. I think forming groups would also be more organized as well. Have Bazz-B and As Nodt be the leaders of the first group with Cang Du, BG9, and Nanana as the lower. Than have Bambietta and Giselle as leaders with Liltotto, Meninas, and Candice as lower. And so on and so fourth. I also personally would have preferred Asguairo Ebren and Luders Friegen to be normal Quincy but who are Lieutenant lenses them being Arrancar never came up again. Jugram even has an aid that fulfills a similar role to this idea, that black eyed woman.

My major complaint with the Sternritter was how far they strated from the established Quincy style. I was expecting archers with a side of magic items, not robots and the Hand of God.

Considering we'd heard Uryu say they only use bows I was expecting much more you know...ranged combat from them. But we have people imagining things into existence, their boss who uses a sword, some dude who's poison based, someone making zombies and I felt lied to. As people mentioned the Gotei 13 was started by thugs and in a way still kind of are. It would have been really cool to see an actual tight nit group who were much more ranged base to give a nice shake up.

They are the walmart versions of the Espada. If the Espada were the villains in the TYBW, Then no one wouldve minded

I Have two problems with the Sterniritter - first, they have very little build up.Yes, we know the quincy ever since the beginning, but not the sterniritter as a faction. They show up, attack the soul society, steal bankai and leave. Then their entire realm teleports into soul society and they attack again...and after that it's only fight after fight. We never hear of them before that, never fear them Their lore is not explained. Bazz-B village seem medieval, but other guy was recruited from a modern day hospital...so...are those quincy immortal? are they alive or are spirits like the shinigami?....how did no one notice their "kingdom in the shadows" in soul society during a thousand years? With the arrancar we learn what hollows are, visit Hueco Mundo and las notches...they make sense in the world...the sternritter do not. And the second problem is their habilities. They are very inconsistent. They always feel too powerfull and to have some new or hidden ability capable of turning the tables. The one ichigo fought in hueco mundo, for instance - he was fast...and strong...and had an ability that made his skin impervious to damage...then he absorbed Ayon...then shown another transformation.Then they shown they could steal Bankai during the attack... always amping up, always some new form. Lille Barro and Gerard's fights felt awful, for me, because of that kind of thing. They felt so very powerful ...and then the captains started to win and it felt like they suddenly were not that powerful... Their power level was all over the place. That made the whole war feel empty to me, to the point I only kept reading because...well... I went until that point...I should at least see how it ended

among the top 3, the only war arc that is done properly with actual military/war tactics and tricks between each party is marineford war.

Really loving the content here recently. You mainly focused on the TYBW arc as of late, are you planning on discussing something from earlier in the series?

Knowing the history of the Quincy, they've been through annihilation together, operated in a secret dimension together, etc. They should have a lot more camaraderie and loyalty to their King. They should've been modeled after the Knights of the Round Table. Also I don't understand the recruiting of Arrancars because that did nothing. They have their Sternritters who outnumber the captains AND Their Schuttstafell or whatever to rival the Zero Division. (Not to mention Bankai stealing badge) There are no capable Arrancars that pose a threat sans Haribel and Grimmjow. The Arrancar Arc was done very right, villains were developed and introduced slowly, the Espadas ranks revealed one by one, and the Final top 3 Espadas revealed the right way. The broken Abilities were done right (Rank 2: Decay) and was reserved for their emperor. But i think the main problem is making the villains too powerful without proper hype. (Specifically the regular Sternritters/ Ex: Mask the Masculine) They should've reserved the OP villains for the Ywach, the Elites and Blondie. Maybe a few others like Gremmy & As Nodt. They hyped the wrong individuals with As Nodt and Bazzbee (hyped but weak) Also they killed Yamamoto for some fodder Sternritter.

I agree. Knowing it was rushed does explain it but I think if there had been clearly defined ranks before they appeared it would have helped manage expectations.

I agree so hard with this... I think the number of villains is totally appropriate for the final arc, but It seemed like neither us nor Kubo knew who to focus on. It would have been so much better if from the get-go we learned a way to distinguish fraction level quincies from the espada level... In terms of design as well, the sternritter really just seem like by far the most poorly designed between the quincies, captains, and espada. I thought they had a coherent design motif with the german uniforms and the buttons and straps and boots, but then there are designs like asking (which admittedly is a sick design in isolation) and Gerard with nothing of the sort. Like visually Gerard has literally zero indicator to tell us he's a quincy... I was hoping they would've had certain signifiers with their own twist on it, like the Espada with their number tattoos, unique hole placement, and unique hollow mask fragment. Their volstandigs were so odd, like some of them would just get reishi wings/halo while others got full transformations, it was so weird to see. I was wondering if maybe having a unique halo or wing design as their default would help with the design indicator issue? And them with volstandig Kubo can actually go crazy like he did with like As Nodt or Askin. Like another comment (by TheTurtleWolf) said- I think having a more cohesive theme for the powers would work so much better, like a war or holy/biblical theme. That would help so much with the issue of Quincies having random or generic powers. Imagine if like there were powers like F for the Flood- bathing the battlefield in an ocean of reishi (kinda similar to Kyroraku's Bankai) or P for the Plague, or S for the Seraphim for Lille so his goofy as transformations would actually make sense. It would also just be such a good, finale worthy dichotomy of Eastern mythos vs Western Mythos and the different interpretations of the afterlife.

What you are describing is true and we got signs of that happening during the fake karakura town arc. Characters like Kensei, Stark, Rose and Love got shafted in screen time. The real problem is that Kubo had a huge idea but did not had enough chapters to go full scale with it.

TYBW in general - You think have the upper hand.......but I just activated my trap card!

Its like as soon as they went to train. All of the sternritters except yhwach right hand man, his elite guard and uryu are basically reduce to least of a threat now

I never realized this but totally agree. Also I think with the massive amount of villains there should have been better character moments for all of the other characters the captains, vice captains, vizards, and the main cast.

I was among those who felt there were too many, but your reasoning is sound. Just like with the Gotei 13, I found my favorites among them and got excited when those few were featured. The lack of rank was indeed an issue for me, but I simply didn't realize it was at the time, or at least I couldn't pinpoint what was bothering me then. I suppose I took it as the Gotei 13 having limited intel on the enemy, as a result of them being in hiding for so long. In the end I guess I took it as anyone who wasn't instantly killed, or managed to revive, or made a strong shinigami struggle, was a big deal.

Hopefully it’s redone for the anime’s return to fix all the inconsistencies and rushed aspects.

1 year ago... "We're close to a thousand..." In 2022 just passed 120k. Congratulations 🎉

I think the hierarchy thing made it hard for me to believe how some of this guys were just bodying captains left and right.

i completely completely agree to the point that when i was thinking before i watched that “well you have the same numbers as the arrancar including the Espada and their fracciones but... oh wait Stern Ritter don’t have any ranks and it was confusing and i also remember not liking that”

Then there's As Nodt, who was the only one beside main character ritters(BazzB and Jugram) that got a flashback of some sort, something about him being a survivor from an incident. It was very Bleach-like, the enemy getting a flashback right before dying

I was expecting this video to be a 12 minute rant about Cang Du. I'm not sure why anyone would hate him that much, but I'm all for new Bleach content

I always kinda saw it as the Sternritter being the equivalent of the Gotei 13 and the Schutstaffel being the equivalent of Squad 0.

Interesting thinking.

Solid analysis but I have to say not having rankings made it interesting. Less predictable. There was no way to predict how fights or scenarios would play out because we didn't have a gauge on their power levels. It was a great way to build tension

I really hope they take there time with the anime, and I hope they change some things and stream line or expand what they need to, maybe get more time with the Quincy before they go to war

Wow, you explained perfectly why they felt so underwhelming. In the first invasion they felt powerful, but as the story went on I felt less and less impressed and more bored.

The main problem with bleach is two fold. 1. The predictability of the plot. It's always one random group versus the captains + ichigo running point. The plot details dont really matter. 2. In each arc, a move that used to be super cool and hyped in the previous arc becomes nothing short of a burrito fart forcing the character to "power up". And because of the sheer size of the characters, not only ichigo gets a powerup, other 20 characters do too. Its hard to keep track off. I believe there are better ways to develop a character. Generally you have two options. Either pull out some newly learnt move from your ass as a writer(the easy way) or reveal something new about the character that the character knows but the audience(us) is unaware about. There is also a third option where the character tries something new and logical in the middle of a battle that helps them develop. We saw this in the fight between Nnoitra and Kenpachi and that felt really good. Unfortunately kubo always goes for easy one i.e. making new move on the fly that these characters are itching to try out on a new enemy. It was painful and unappealing to watch for me. One final issue I have is with ichigo. I find his motivation for put his life on the line somewhat fake, remember all this shit started because some hollow shoved his sister. I feels he doesnt have the right motivation for a main character. He almost feels like a side character forced to be a main character. If i were to move the role around, I'd pick Urahara Kisuke

I feel like the 4 biggest issues with the Sternritters goes as follows: 1. With the exception of Star Knight "J", the rest of the Star Knights doesn't display other Quincy abilities besides spamming their letter. 2. We still don't know the abilities of certain letters 3. Not all of them were fleshed out enough if at all. 4. How the hell do you even turn an Arrancar into a Quincy ? Especially given that we learned about soul suicide. How does that procedure work, and why weren't they utilized more in the war?

Let's hope they could solve the problems you mentioned in the anime adaptation

Honestly, Kubo shouldve excluded the Fullbring arc and instead dedicate that whole arc + the final arc for the Sternritters. Kubo could have had more time to flash out all of the new and old characters' backstories, developments, bankais and fights. What a waste....

I definitely liked that the Stern Ritter had a more homogenic standing between each other, meaning that there would be more chances for cooperation and rivalries between fellow Quincies (the Quincy Girls and everybody ganging up on Ichigo to get to be the one who kills him are good examples). But Kubo really gave certain Stern Ritters more grandiose powers while others had a gimmick and that was it, which meant that the cooler Stern Ritters would have no reason to cooperate with the less battle-heavy, gimmicky comrades or that rivalries would have a clear winner on people like Bazz-B or Haschwalth. Which results in a Stern Ritter you might be really curious about to get one-shot because Kubo had clear favorites and the reason for said one-shot might be really dumb. For me, I really wanted to see more Meninas. I like her design and her power would be something cool to go against a power-heavy Shinigami like Zaraki, Komamura, Renji or Kensei, but she gets mind controlled by Pepe for no reason and begrudgingly chomped down by Litollo.

you're so right!!!!!

I would have liked to have been challenged on my perception of who's in the right or wrong. I would have liked to have read a tragic story behind the sternritters as to why they feel so passionate to take down soul society or soul king. At least with the arrancars we felt sympathy for some like Stark. Basically what we lacked was context or backstory to feel anything for them. That followed with how cut down the fights were. I wouldnt have cared how long it was, I wanted to read every single fight with every single character.

Now that you point this idea, well, yeah... I felt this way very VERY early on during this arc. Just around when some Sternritter appeared at Ichigo's house, some chapters later an 'Aizen-kinda-look-alike-arrancar(?)-sternritter' arrived to report something to Yhwach and the dude just finished him off like f-ing nothing. I was like "Holy sh!t! Did he just kill a wouldbe Grimmjow/Starkk/etc like f-ing nothing?!" I didn't understand anything since I just had been living in a world where hierarchical distinction was THE THING for everything. It caught me offguard, and so I felt Bleach for a while. I gladly catched up, but the lack of hierarchical distinction between the Sternritter definetely was what "ruined it for me" back in the day. I think if I read it now, knowing whom to be weary of, I may enjoy this arc better. Great video, Tommo! Subbed in a heartbeat. Just an after though: What if Kubo made all of the messy drastic decisions in the Fullbring arc to kind of prepare us for the final changes in the TYBW arc, but many people already was leaving for the messy decisions of the previous arc so not as many people 'got it'. Just came to my mind. Maybe it's useful to you as a video idea.

It would be cool to know at what chapter Kubo started to rush the story due to the upcoming cancelation. Quite a few times I’ve wondered about the weird choices he made and figure he was rushing.. but idk

Hopefully the anime adaptation expands upon the manga, make it take it's time and allow the story to develop the same punch as Kubo's wicked cool designs.

I have to agree with this. I just didn’t really understand how strong any of them were in relation to any other of them.

good video.

Soldat are crying in the background

Simple solution, capitol and lower case letters

And triple agent that could give ichigo info... Like the renegate that were the shiba. The ichigo family

Two main things are stopping them from having a power hierarchy: their power level depends on Yhwach's favour, and they're meant to die. Quincies are humans first and foremost, making them glass cannons within Bleach. Yhwach giving them Schrifts gives them a huge power boost, but it's likely there's a limit to that. I'm imagining him filling a number of cups to an equal level, regardless of how full they were before. He could presumably boost some more than others, but why would he? His powers depend on people dying, specifically those he's imbued with power. Considering he uses Auswhalen on every Sternritter/Schutzstafel alive at those respective points, he has no reason to supercharge any of them - at least, not during the general Invasions. He does boost the Schutzstafel upon reaching the Royal Palace, but only them (don't remember Haschwalth or Uryu getting osted at that time). They're usually mentioned as being stronger than the other Sternritter, but we only see them do anything (besides die) AFTER receiving the powers of the other Sternritter. Even they get drained when it comes time for Yhwach's final plan to take fruition. Auswhalen means selection, and considering he was always planning to hit the Royal Palace, the whole Invasion arc seems like it also serves as a test for the Sternritter

Kubo's direction aside; from a narrative point, this kind of makes sense in some ways as a decision. Taking this from the mindset of Yhwach for how he regards the Sternritter as a whole, in thought, is similar to Aizen; these people are nothing but numbers, tools for his majesty and upon the time of calling, fuel for his almighty's grace. In that way, it makes sense as to why he would give most the same rank. The rank and following schrift itself is actually meaningless and if anything, it gives the Quincy under his tutelage the false sense of pride. That they've been selected by their majesty to be part of his ranks. More than the common Quincy. In a battle though, it also has purpose to have them all in the same rank. The enemy will have no idea how to gauge the opponent properly because you have no clue if the person in front of you is someone truly powerful or just a mere soldier. Whereas if they were given specific ranks and titles like the other factions (shinigami, hollow) it would be clear who is actually in charge or is a real, credible, threat. It keeps things a mystery on the battle field and raises the tension further when the enemy has no idea just exactly what they're dealing with. I also feel like this is what helped to contribute to the longevity of the war and as to why the shinigami lost so much in the first place. You could send out a lieutenant out to fight someone like Gremmy, thinking that it's just a kid (that wasn't apparent at first but let's go with it.) but then are horribly surprised to see how wrong that decision was in the end. Truthfully, it was somewhat of a brilliant strategy in some ways but flawed in others. Once the enemy figures out who is powerful and who's not, it doesn't take much to weed out the ones you need to be concerned about and then the rest is fodder. It's sort of like Kage Bushin, yes, it makes multiple shadow clones but in the end, once you figure out which one is the real one and take them out, that's the end of the clones. Even if the clones somehow stay, they will never be as powerful as the real body. Having select Quincy with a higher rank than the Sternritter, that Yhwach took with him to the Soul Palace was a mistake. in that it sets those Quincy as being more powerful when in reality, they are not. But again, that was all in strategy because Yhwach did not care for their fates as long as they were useful for what he needed. At least, that's what I've gleamed out of all of this anyway.

Apologies but what’s your Audio and Video setup? I’m thinking of getting a channel and I like the quality of yours. Also your editing software would be lovely. Thank you and keep up the great work.

In my own opinion this is in many ways more of a problem with manga readers lack of reading comprehension. If you need the creator to spell out, using specific titles and labels, that Bazz-B is more important than Cang Du then that’s on you. A lot of manga readers put way too much importance on power scaling.

Well I think it was fair to have sternritters having the same rank but different power levels; the same thing applies to captain after, where we have soifon and kyoraku sharing the same title but having very different power levels. As for the screen time point, I still think kubo had problems dealing with the finishing of bleach. We got a rushed ending so he couldn't show many things he wanted to.

I’m here thinking the sternritter predictions are coming back Bc that’s the road to go for more subs tbh

They had so many last resort plays that kubo had too much on his plate. 25 sterns with some stolen bankais then each with a holy form with sub set Quincy abilities

Lower rank - Sternknabe, squires of the Star Knights.

My Top 10 favorite Sternritter: Gremmy Candice As Nodt Bambietta Pernida Gerard Valkyrie Bazz-B Uryu Driscoll “The Overkill” Giselle “The Zombie”

I wish there were group fights like chapters of kenpachi fighting 3 Quincy at thg e same time. Show casting all there abilities without having to have 3 different 1v1 fights. Shove rhen all in a few chapters and show case teamwork

Here is my personal Wandenreich military ranking system; 1 Grandmaster: Jugram. 5 Schutzstaffel: Lille, Gerard, Pernida, Askin, Gremmy. 12 Sternritter: Uryu, Bazz-B, Giselle, As Nodt, Mask, Bambietta, Quilge, Cang Du, BG9, Liltotto, Pepe, Robert. 14 lieutenant ranked: Driscoll, Candice, Nanana, Meninas, Royd, Jerome, Berenice, Nianzol, Lloyd, Gueneal, Shaz, Black eyed maid, Asguairo, Luders.

You are right, the problem maybe was not the introduxtion to all of them, the problem was not to be advertised from the beggining... With the ESPADAS you got an idea of their power based on the number, so if a character like aaroniero appears with the number 9, you easily later realized that a number 4 like ulquiorra is way more powerful, and thats awesome cause kubo let your imagination fly (specially with the 3 espadas fpollowing aizen on the karakura battle).... On the sternriter you didn’t have a guide, you didn’t know if the power level is based on alphabet or something, if, from the beginning kubo says something like "from all the sternriter there are a royal guard"... Well, at least that works, but no thing, and that would be amazing for the arc because a character like valkyrie, definetely is a better introduxtion to his power.

If they were supposed to be militaristic then they should have played into the ranked system. Like all can be called sternritters but the highest like Jurgram, urya , and the royal guard can have rank 5 which are the highest or they can have their own personal rank due to their importance. Rank 4 to 3 are captain level sternritters like Bazz b, bamietta, as nodt and the rest. Then with ranks 2 and 1 are vice captains alike some of the femritters, bg-9 and others.

The Sternritter were cool at the start, I mean, our introduction with Quilge is great, Hueco Mundo has been completely surpassed by this guy, Urahara, Ichigo and some others have to come as aid for Harribel and her Fraccion and Quilge was ultimately killed because of a surprise attack, the only that Kubo had to do was saying something on the line of "Hey, this guy was just a regular member", establish an easy rank system, Bambietta has her girls, that's a group, then Bazz-B is another "captain" and so on, let's put some 5 captain-like character, so Bambietta, Bazz-B, Askin, As Nodt and Gremmy, then introduce Uryu as a 6th captain, and the Schutzstaffel stay as always, Askin becomes a member later and Haschwalth is Juha's Right hand man, so the thing would be: Juha > Haschwalth = Schtzstaffel > "Captains" (Bambietta, Bazz-B, Askin, As Nodt and Gremmy) > Everyone else > Pepe Perfection PS: Kubo, why did you have to kill my favorite members like nothing? And then why such an amount of screentime for damn Pepe?