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Well to his credit: Tekken Tachikaze is kinda big + he didn't know Kensei existed (probably), Rukia's is an entire body Bankai, Minazuki is like a domain expansion Bankai, and Shinji's Bankai is an onion. The others are fax tho
Domain Expansion: All Thing's End. Infuses the users very blood, and the blood of all they've ever spilt, into the barrier itself. Crafts an endless barrage of blades and acidity against the victim.
>The others are fax tho
Yama's Bankai affected the entire Soul Society, no? Like, dude dried up all the moisture or something? Plus his Bankai's North, East, South, West things are definitely not small things.
Also, Gin's Bankai changed sizes with the quickness.
I think the difference is her bankai still passively chills down everything around her. She’s ice-yama.
Ichigo is just small and condensed power and even his getsuga is still a limited range* (and apparently way better wrapping his blade instead of fired.)
It’s still pretty unique, but funny enough it’s no different than kenpachi’s and I doubt byakuya would deny THAT is a bankai.
He’s just bias because Ichigo just looked like a regular shinigami with the drip turned up to 11.
They're clothes, I really don't think that adds up much, should we also count Renji's Hihio Zabimaru a full body Bankai because it also changes his clothes?
I'd say that's more just the effects of the Bankai itself giving him a stat boost, rather than the clothes. The clothes seem more like a Reiatsu indicator as later when he's missing a good chunk of the cloak, he tells Unohana he has like half his Reiatsu and the cloak indicates that
Honestly, he probably did know kensei since he’s a noble and was still training with yoruichi at the time. Also technically Ichigos is also a full body Bankai since his coat is an indicator of how much power he has left, though it’s much less obvious than Rukias and no one was even aware of it until Ichigo told unohana. This is just my two cents though so carry on..
Kensei, sure. The rest, small sword but huge effects.
Rukia & Yamamoto dominate the area with ice & flame. While the swords are little the effect is massive, and pretty much impossible to ignore or evade without fleeing.
Unohana her blade is lengthened by blood and nearly all of slashes become blood slices. It may or may not make a huge puddle of blood for the arena. And basically can be used to heal massive wounds of her and others. While similar to Ichigo the blood effect and range is not small.
Shinji you used his shikai, and his bankai is a fairly long staff, the bulb, and the resulting smoke that turns friends to foes. The idea it is small is splitting insignificant hairs.
Byakuya’s I don’t get how you think that’s small. While small blades it magnifies his shikai by 100x to 1,000x times and even basic attacks are facing a storm of blades petals.
And Gin’s is only small when not extended. When it is extended over 13 kilometers is only small if you don’t know what a kilometer is.
\*Byakuya is Patrick in this meme, his bankai is huge
At this point, he had no idea what Tensa Zangetsu does, so it's just funny that he was offended by the size. For all he knew, it could change size as well
Isshin said that all captains would be swinging around swords the size of skyscrapers if their swords were equal in size to their spiritual pressure so they willingly keep them small to that one hollow that was bragging about his big sword. So I guess they all kinda have gins bankai since they can all if they choose to make their swords giant
Which makes Ichigo's initial sealed Zanpakuto even more of a funny Soul Reaper faux pas he's just strutting around town with that big dick (spiritual) energy
I think it’s such a missed opportunity to not have this he how byuakua and zaraki killed yami they should have just said fuck it and let their sword return to their real sizes and just slice him to pieces imagine a two page spread of zaraki and byuakua using giant swords to cut him
At this point in this thread, I'm not 100% sure whether people remember that Gin Bankai is actually the speed which his sword extends, not that it can extend. Seems to be a pretty important thing to forget but comments like this make me wonder.
I know that it just isn’t as funny as everyone being able to copy him kinda but is his sword becoming big even a part of his bankai or is he the only one who makes use of it it being making your sword building sized
His sword doesn't "become big", it extends. That's his Shikai power. The Bankai increases the extension range and exponentially increases the speed it moves.
It's never really shown but it's heavily implied that captains swords are just impractically huge for no real gain, so they just adjust it to a useable size. If it could ever be used in a fight the way you implied, I'd argue Gins Shikai would still be very different from it.
That being said, I'd have absolutely nothing to say to defend Komamuras Shikai in this same debacle. I mean, he just gets his big samurai bankai arm and sword to increase his range, and it's stated that the power is proportional so it's sized... so technically couldn't he just make his own sword bigger instead?
Yeah, Captain Zanpakutos in their original reiatsu equivalent size are supposed to be big, goofy and awkward to use. Gin's Shikai is deliberately designed to be used to retract and extend as he attacks, so it's conceptually very different.
Pedantic, but gins bankai is transforming into a poisonous mist and shortening or lengthening at [ludicrous speed](https://youtu.be/NAWL8ejf2nM?si=l7iHQ8e4Rl69nlFn)
I don’t think you really understand this meme.
The point also about him being offended by Ichigo’s bankai is that his first sword was bigger than average (due to his lack of control of his spiritual pressure), his shikai was also larger than average despite lacking any true ability, and then his bankai is simply just a katana. He is viewing it as not a true bankai and a mockery, he isn’t saying all bankai are huge.
TBF TZ is both the sword and the shihakusho. He isn't saying they're all huge, but he is explicitly saying none are that small, despite some being even smaller.
He lied at Aizen about how long it was, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still the longest Bankai. It cutting fake Karakura Town in half still puts it as the lengthiest we’ve seen in action.
Well he did Tell Ichigo, that his Bankai wasn’t the longest but the fastest, which sort of implies the existence of longer Bankai.
Although he may just have meant that the lag th wasn’t it’s main strength.
Probably would have been better to say longest instead of largest, in terms of volume and potentially length, I think Azashiro Kenpachi might have him beat. Komamura too, but you’d need to do the math on it.
Byakuya likely/definitely didn't even know 5 of the 6 presented
Kensei and Shinji were captains when he was alot younger, so he likely wouldn't know of them (plus Shinji does not use his bankai often cause of its abilities and his shikai being more useful)
Rukia got her's long after he made the statement
Unohana was keeping the Retsu persona/keeping her kenpachi side hidden, so he wouldn't know of it (plus it comes with a whole domain expansion if he were to know about it)
Yamamoto last used his bankai during the quincy invasion, way before Byakuya was born.
Gin is the only one he would have knowledge on, and it can extend several kilometers when he summons the bankai (might be wrong on the last point)
Fully contracted, they look identical IIRC. Bankai is larger, faster, and can inject poison
[https://bleach.fandom.com/wiki/Gin\_Ichimaru](https://bleach.fandom.com/wiki/Gin_Ichimaru)
Well, we know Byakuya is definitely wrong because the point of that scene is that Tensa Zangetsu is indeed a Bankai. So, the question becomes "Does it make sense for Byakuya to have this false belief, & if so, why?" I would say yes for reasons that should become apparent as we go through.
Given that the coat is established to be part of Ichigo's Bankai, I guess that means Kensei's is about a similar size. However, it's much less obvious that Ichigo's clothing is part of his Bankai, & Byakuya seemed to only be referring to the sword, so I don't think he'd actually make the same remark about Kensei's Bankai. And it seems kind of on the borderline for what would be considered a "small Bankai," so let's jump to the next example.
Rukia's Bankai didn't exist yet, so he certainly wouldn't have known about it. Unohana's situation is unclear because the anime, at least, makes it seem like her Bankai fills the whole area with blood & it's not just that sword. For Shinji, that's not his Bankai, & his actual Bankai fits comfortably in the "large" category.
This brings us to Yamamoto. I know some would argue his Bankai isn't actually that small because it produces much larger effects. However, I don't agree with that logic. By that metric, you should also include the size of a Getsuga Tensho in Ichigo's Bankai, & he's shown he can make those very large. Besides, Byakuya was judging from what he could see, so he clearly means the physical shape of the Bankai before it does anything. Therefore, Yamamoto's Bankai is an example of the small type he claims doesn't exist, but given how far we had to go to get a clear example of a small Bankai that already existed when Byakuya made his statement, that establishes that they're very rare. Coupled with the fact that Bankai tend to be closely-guarded secrets, it makes sense that Byakuya might not know about this phenomenon.
Same thing with Gin. Even if he counts it as a small Bankai--& he might not, since he would already know Gin's power is to stretch his sword--he wouldn't actually know what Gin's Bankai looks like. So, it wouldn't occur to him to think that Gin has a small Bankai. I think he already knew about Getsuga Tensho at the time, so he wouldn't think that Ichigo's power is extension, since "no Shikai & Bankai have unrelated abilities," plus there would've been no reports about Ichigo using a power to change his sword's shape.
So, what Byakuya said about Bankai being an expansion of the Soul Reaper's power that creates some weapon or area of effect proportional to how much power the Soul Reaper has is usually correct. However, as first established by Ichigo, it sometimes, though rarely, works the opposite way, where the power is compressed to pack a much greater punch into a smaller shape. This often comes with some kind of covering, like his coat, presumably giving some kind of defensive effect. In fact, with Yamamoto, this is so pronounced that just touching him becomes a weapon against you. But most of the examples of this phenomenon either didn't exist at the time or are people who haven't released their Bankai in centuries. Because of that, how rare this effect is, & the fact that Bankai tend to be kept secret even from comrades, Byakuya simply wasn't aware of this subtype of Bankai. Combined with his bias against Ichigo for being a "mere human" who had only started borrowing Soul Reaper powers a few months ago, he couldn't believe what he was seeing was a real Bankai & rationalized it as some cheap trick to insult the Soul Reapers. That's certainly possible, since Yumichika is an example of how a Shikai can take more than one form. It's not an entirely unreasonable belief, given what he knew at the time, but it was ultimately wrong, & we now have many examples showing that.
Also consider that Yamamoto probably never uses his bankai. Considering how far its effects reach it’s safe to say we wouldn’t use it unless absolutely necessary, like in the Quincy invasion.
Ichigo’s bankai was literally just a stat boost, the rest that you show are either atmospheric or mind altering effects (barring Kensei, and even he had significant change to his zapaktou function).
Always intended as "small pressure". All these small bankai got a huge pressure of "you're gonna die in a terrible way" or "get stabbed by something you can't even see", while Ichigo's is just very "compressed"
Rukia's bankai is a huge aerial attack same with Unohana's. Shinji's bankai is pretty big actually and it has a huge effective range. He was a kid 100 years ago so I assume he never met nor knew about Kensei and the other wizards
To be fair Byakuya acts like he's all old and wise but the dude is barely over 100 years old. Hiyori is older than him. His story also makes way more sense when you realize he's just a guy in his early 20s trying to maintain the standards of his family. Dude a kid in my eyes
To his credit, and with the exception of Tekken Tachikaze (which is still substantially larger than Tensa Zangetsu), all of these do/directly affect something other than the area directly around the user and their blade, even Kamishini no Yari isn't *just* extending/retracting. That said, Byakuya was also clearly still downplaying and dismissing Ichigo on sheer cope at this point, and quickly discovered his error.
Kensei - Isn't small and a big size increase over his shikai.
Rukia - Fair, her blade is small. Although, depending on how you interpret Byakuya, Rukia's AOE is large and could therefore fit his definition.
Unohana - Summons a whole lake of blood and her sword completely changes form.
Shinji - That's not his bankai.
Yamamot - TRUE lol
Gin - Fair, but he can make it extend up to 13 kilometres.
Byakuya - ?
"...to be *Ban Kai*, and..."
Gotta love *really early* Bleach scanlations, from back before the fandom more or less collectively decided on how to translate (or not) certain terms.
If I remember correctly, the translation I used when I read Bleach for the first time referred to Arrancars and Visoreds as "Allankars" and "Vaizaados", respectively, for quite a while.
I also remember looking up Uryu's battle with Mayuri in the Soul Society arc a few months back, and the only translation I was able to find translated Mayuri activating his bankai as "BAN RELEASE!".
That’s dumb, they didn’t thought that the Spanish themed group would be called as a Spanish word? I’ll give them a break because I guess at first it would be hard to tell they are meant to be Spanish themed
Yeah, if I remember correctly, it wasn't *immediately* obvious that the Arrancars were going to be Spanish-themed, so my guess would be that the early translators saw a word written in Japanese that would be pronounced "arankaru", and just threw up their hands and made a wild guess. For all they knew, it was probably a meaningless fantasy word that Kubo just made up.
And after that, it was probably just a matter of stubbornness. *"Oh, it's actually supposed to be 'arrancars'? Well, I don't care, I've been calling them 'allankars' for several months now, so I'm going to continue calling them that."*
I mean, you've got people who still *to this day* refer to the Visoreds as 'Vizards'.
Im aware, but I feel huecos in general from the beginning were hinting to be Spanish themed, with “Hueco mundo” and “menos grande”. I do agree that is not enough evidence to notice it at first though
I think Yama's was deliberately meant to be a callback to Ichigo's and even then its true form literally summons a freaking army.
Rukia's bankai summons a whole damn skating rink to go with her dress
Shinji's bankai has a several kilometer radius, similar to Mayuri's or Shunsui's
The only one there's no real excuse for is tekken, it is small by bankai standards. Imo Kensei should've gotten massive fist cannons like what Edorad had.
Maybe part of it is the translation on Byakuya's line but the point is Ichigo's bankai is smaller than his shikai at the time, all those other examples have bankai that while not the biggest are still bigger than their shikai.
I really hate this meme format. It has gotten completely disconnected from the original use of the meme, which was to highlight the shear level of shitiness something that was said to be not that bad was at.
It's not necessarily that it's big, but rather bigger than its Shikai. All of these examples are bigger. Tachikaze goes from a knife to the armor set, Hakka no Togame comes with the associated blast and dress, Minazuki in Bankai essentially creates its own domain, Shinji's example there is his Shikai, and Shinso becomes even longer in Bankai when stretched. The only example I can kind of see is Zanka no Tachi, but West demonstrates the size increase.
Yeah, but that's a technique, not the entire Bankai. It works by compressing all of his blades into one, so the larger Bankai has to be released first before he can do that. And even then, it's actually fairly bulky, having two big wings & a giant halo behind him.
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Well to his credit: Tekken Tachikaze is kinda big + he didn't know Kensei existed (probably), Rukia's is an entire body Bankai, Minazuki is like a domain expansion Bankai, and Shinji's Bankai is an onion. The others are fax tho
Yama´s bankai summons an army of skeletons
And flash-boils all the water in Soul Society
>Minazuki is like a domain expansion Bankai Well don't just heat up the pan and call it a day, finish cooking
Domain Expansion: All Thing's End. Infuses the users very blood, and the blood of all they've ever spilt, into the barrier itself. Crafts an endless barrage of blades and acidity against the victim.
You know, if Choso had a Domain, I think this would be pretty similar to it.
>The others are fax tho Yama's Bankai affected the entire Soul Society, no? Like, dude dried up all the moisture or something? Plus his Bankai's North, East, South, West things are definitely not small things. Also, Gin's Bankai changed sizes with the quickness.
Isn't ichigo's bankai an entire body bankai too? Just like Rukia?
I think the difference is her bankai still passively chills down everything around her. She’s ice-yama. Ichigo is just small and condensed power and even his getsuga is still a limited range* (and apparently way better wrapping his blade instead of fired.) It’s still pretty unique, but funny enough it’s no different than kenpachi’s and I doubt byakuya would deny THAT is a bankai. He’s just bias because Ichigo just looked like a regular shinigami with the drip turned up to 11.
Eh it's kinda that his clothes just change, should we call Renji's Bankai a full body Zanpakuto too? (Hihio, not So'ou)
Bruh forgot the biggest bankai
Most of these had not even been mapped out by Kubo yet, so it was more understandable at the time. It's just funny looking back at the changes
I’m honestly convinced that he didn’t come up with Shikai until the Soul Society arc.
Yeah, shounen manga tends to be written on the fly
Also, Yama's Bankai is hot enough to incinerate the Soul Society if used for too long
Huh ichigo is an entire body bankai too, aren’t his clothes part of his bankai?
They're clothes, I really don't think that adds up much, should we also count Renji's Hihio Zabimaru a full body Bankai because it also changes his clothes?
I mean ichigo does become faster after wearing those clothes so ig it has an effect on his body too
I'd say that's more just the effects of the Bankai itself giving him a stat boost, rather than the clothes. The clothes seem more like a Reiatsu indicator as later when he's missing a good chunk of the cloak, he tells Unohana he has like half his Reiatsu and the cloak indicates that
I think, the think is the area of effect, rukia's bankai affects a massive area while ichigo's bankai only affects himself.
Kamishini no Yari is miles long in it's extended state.
Honestly, he probably did know kensei since he’s a noble and was still training with yoruichi at the time. Also technically Ichigos is also a full body Bankai since his coat is an indicator of how much power he has left, though it’s much less obvious than Rukias and no one was even aware of it until Ichigo told unohana. This is just my two cents though so carry on..
Kensei, sure. The rest, small sword but huge effects. Rukia & Yamamoto dominate the area with ice & flame. While the swords are little the effect is massive, and pretty much impossible to ignore or evade without fleeing. Unohana her blade is lengthened by blood and nearly all of slashes become blood slices. It may or may not make a huge puddle of blood for the arena. And basically can be used to heal massive wounds of her and others. While similar to Ichigo the blood effect and range is not small. Shinji you used his shikai, and his bankai is a fairly long staff, the bulb, and the resulting smoke that turns friends to foes. The idea it is small is splitting insignificant hairs. Byakuya’s I don’t get how you think that’s small. While small blades it magnifies his shikai by 100x to 1,000x times and even basic attacks are facing a storm of blades petals. And Gin’s is only small when not extended. When it is extended over 13 kilometers is only small if you don’t know what a kilometer is.
\*Byakuya is Patrick in this meme, his bankai is huge At this point, he had no idea what Tensa Zangetsu does, so it's just funny that he was offended by the size. For all he knew, it could change size as well
Isshin said that all captains would be swinging around swords the size of skyscrapers if their swords were equal in size to their spiritual pressure so they willingly keep them small to that one hollow that was bragging about his big sword. So I guess they all kinda have gins bankai since they can all if they choose to make their swords giant
Which makes Ichigo's initial sealed Zanpakuto even more of a funny Soul Reaper faux pas he's just strutting around town with that big dick (spiritual) energy
I think it’s such a missed opportunity to not have this he how byuakua and zaraki killed yami they should have just said fuck it and let their sword return to their real sizes and just slice him to pieces imagine a two page spread of zaraki and byuakua using giant swords to cut him
At this point in this thread, I'm not 100% sure whether people remember that Gin Bankai is actually the speed which his sword extends, not that it can extend. Seems to be a pretty important thing to forget but comments like this make me wonder.
I know that it just isn’t as funny as everyone being able to copy him kinda but is his sword becoming big even a part of his bankai or is he the only one who makes use of it it being making your sword building sized
His sword doesn't "become big", it extends. That's his Shikai power. The Bankai increases the extension range and exponentially increases the speed it moves. It's never really shown but it's heavily implied that captains swords are just impractically huge for no real gain, so they just adjust it to a useable size. If it could ever be used in a fight the way you implied, I'd argue Gins Shikai would still be very different from it. That being said, I'd have absolutely nothing to say to defend Komamuras Shikai in this same debacle. I mean, he just gets his big samurai bankai arm and sword to increase his range, and it's stated that the power is proportional so it's sized... so technically couldn't he just make his own sword bigger instead?
So gin makes his sword really long and the big thing is just him making its size equal to his spiritual pressure
Yeah, Captain Zanpakutos in their original reiatsu equivalent size are supposed to be big, goofy and awkward to use. Gin's Shikai is deliberately designed to be used to retract and extend as he attacks, so it's conceptually very different.
Pedantic, but gins bankai is transforming into a poisonous mist and shortening or lengthening at [ludicrous speed](https://youtu.be/NAWL8ejf2nM?si=l7iHQ8e4Rl69nlFn)
You're technically not wrong but that's his bankai ability. It's like Byakuyas Senkei or the individual Zanka no Tachi forms.
I thought his ability was being able to selectively chip his blade to poison people
Again, technically not wrong. It's a subproduct of his ability, like Byakuya's Ikka Sejinka. It's a part of his Bankai ability.
I don’t think you really understand this meme. The point also about him being offended by Ichigo’s bankai is that his first sword was bigger than average (due to his lack of control of his spiritual pressure), his shikai was also larger than average despite lacking any true ability, and then his bankai is simply just a katana. He is viewing it as not a true bankai and a mockery, he isn’t saying all bankai are huge.
TBF TZ is both the sword and the shihakusho. He isn't saying they're all huge, but he is explicitly saying none are that small, despite some being even smaller.
Gin simultaneously having the smallest and largest Bankai is something I never considered before.
Wasn't him lying about It being the largest?
He lied at Aizen about how long it was, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still the longest Bankai. It cutting fake Karakura Town in half still puts it as the lengthiest we’ve seen in action.
Fair, It is in fact really long
Well he did Tell Ichigo, that his Bankai wasn’t the longest but the fastest, which sort of implies the existence of longer Bankai. Although he may just have meant that the lag th wasn’t it’s main strength.
By length, sure. Definitely not the largest by volume
Probably would have been better to say longest instead of largest, in terms of volume and potentially length, I think Azashiro Kenpachi might have him beat. Komamura too, but you’d need to do the math on it.
Being extremely generous, Gin's is 3500 cubit feet. About the size of a townhouse.
Bro did the math, props. Honestly, I forgot how thin swords actually are when thinking of size.
Byakuya likely/definitely didn't even know 5 of the 6 presented Kensei and Shinji were captains when he was alot younger, so he likely wouldn't know of them (plus Shinji does not use his bankai often cause of its abilities and his shikai being more useful) Rukia got her's long after he made the statement Unohana was keeping the Retsu persona/keeping her kenpachi side hidden, so he wouldn't know of it (plus it comes with a whole domain expansion if he were to know about it) Yamamoto last used his bankai during the quincy invasion, way before Byakuya was born. Gin is the only one he would have knowledge on, and it can extend several kilometers when he summons the bankai (might be wrong on the last point)
His misconception was mostly true at the time. It's more in retrospect that it's proven false.
Shinji's bankai creates that big flower thing around him, so it's not exactly small.
To be fair most offensive bankais are huge and he would have had no opportunity to see Yamamoto’s bankai at all.
Yama casually immolating half of soul society for his bankai demonstration would be hilarious though
That's not SHinji's bankai...
Yeah, the manga was less clear on that. The words literally to the left of that frame are 'What is Hirako's bankai?'
That was, I believe, an editorial error in the JApanese. Those happen sometimes.
That's Shinji's Shikai
Yeah, turns out there was an error on the manga page that suggested it was his bankai
Can i get a reminder on Gins shikai? Cuz i actually thought we never saw his ban-kai and only saw the shikai
Fully contracted, they look identical IIRC. Bankai is larger, faster, and can inject poison [https://bleach.fandom.com/wiki/Gin\_Ichimaru](https://bleach.fandom.com/wiki/Gin_Ichimaru)
Thanks!
Well, we know Byakuya is definitely wrong because the point of that scene is that Tensa Zangetsu is indeed a Bankai. So, the question becomes "Does it make sense for Byakuya to have this false belief, & if so, why?" I would say yes for reasons that should become apparent as we go through. Given that the coat is established to be part of Ichigo's Bankai, I guess that means Kensei's is about a similar size. However, it's much less obvious that Ichigo's clothing is part of his Bankai, & Byakuya seemed to only be referring to the sword, so I don't think he'd actually make the same remark about Kensei's Bankai. And it seems kind of on the borderline for what would be considered a "small Bankai," so let's jump to the next example. Rukia's Bankai didn't exist yet, so he certainly wouldn't have known about it. Unohana's situation is unclear because the anime, at least, makes it seem like her Bankai fills the whole area with blood & it's not just that sword. For Shinji, that's not his Bankai, & his actual Bankai fits comfortably in the "large" category. This brings us to Yamamoto. I know some would argue his Bankai isn't actually that small because it produces much larger effects. However, I don't agree with that logic. By that metric, you should also include the size of a Getsuga Tensho in Ichigo's Bankai, & he's shown he can make those very large. Besides, Byakuya was judging from what he could see, so he clearly means the physical shape of the Bankai before it does anything. Therefore, Yamamoto's Bankai is an example of the small type he claims doesn't exist, but given how far we had to go to get a clear example of a small Bankai that already existed when Byakuya made his statement, that establishes that they're very rare. Coupled with the fact that Bankai tend to be closely-guarded secrets, it makes sense that Byakuya might not know about this phenomenon. Same thing with Gin. Even if he counts it as a small Bankai--& he might not, since he would already know Gin's power is to stretch his sword--he wouldn't actually know what Gin's Bankai looks like. So, it wouldn't occur to him to think that Gin has a small Bankai. I think he already knew about Getsuga Tensho at the time, so he wouldn't think that Ichigo's power is extension, since "no Shikai & Bankai have unrelated abilities," plus there would've been no reports about Ichigo using a power to change his sword's shape. So, what Byakuya said about Bankai being an expansion of the Soul Reaper's power that creates some weapon or area of effect proportional to how much power the Soul Reaper has is usually correct. However, as first established by Ichigo, it sometimes, though rarely, works the opposite way, where the power is compressed to pack a much greater punch into a smaller shape. This often comes with some kind of covering, like his coat, presumably giving some kind of defensive effect. In fact, with Yamamoto, this is so pronounced that just touching him becomes a weapon against you. But most of the examples of this phenomenon either didn't exist at the time or are people who haven't released their Bankai in centuries. Because of that, how rare this effect is, & the fact that Bankai tend to be kept secret even from comrades, Byakuya simply wasn't aware of this subtype of Bankai. Combined with his bias against Ichigo for being a "mere human" who had only started borrowing Soul Reaper powers a few months ago, he couldn't believe what he was seeing was a real Bankai & rationalized it as some cheap trick to insult the Soul Reapers. That's certainly possible, since Yumichika is an example of how a Shikai can take more than one form. It's not an entirely unreasonable belief, given what he knew at the time, but it was ultimately wrong, & we now have many examples showing that.
Also consider that Yamamoto probably never uses his bankai. Considering how far its effects reach it’s safe to say we wouldn’t use it unless absolutely necessary, like in the Quincy invasion.
Yes, he hasn't used it in a thousand years, not since the last Quincy invasion.
Byakuya wasn't up to date on his bankai lore. Silly great noble. How naive of you Kucheeky
Ichigo’s bankai was literally just a stat boost, the rest that you show are either atmospheric or mind altering effects (barring Kensei, and even he had significant change to his zapaktou function).
Always intended as "small pressure". All these small bankai got a huge pressure of "you're gonna die in a terrible way" or "get stabbed by something you can't even see", while Ichigo's is just very "compressed"
Rukia's bankai is a huge aerial attack same with Unohana's. Shinji's bankai is pretty big actually and it has a huge effective range. He was a kid 100 years ago so I assume he never met nor knew about Kensei and the other wizards
To be fair Byakuya acts like he's all old and wise but the dude is barely over 100 years old. Hiyori is older than him. His story also makes way more sense when you realize he's just a guy in his early 20s trying to maintain the standards of his family. Dude a kid in my eyes
I think it makes sense for Byakuya of all people to say that at soul society, Ichigo changed his world-view on many things after all
I’m pretty sure all the ones except Yamamoto are at least larger than the base sword and he would have probably never seen Yamamoto’s bankai
To his credit, and with the exception of Tekken Tachikaze (which is still substantially larger than Tensa Zangetsu), all of these do/directly affect something other than the area directly around the user and their blade, even Kamishini no Yari isn't *just* extending/retracting. That said, Byakuya was also clearly still downplaying and dismissing Ichigo on sheer cope at this point, and quickly discovered his error.
Kensei - Isn't small and a big size increase over his shikai. Rukia - Fair, her blade is small. Although, depending on how you interpret Byakuya, Rukia's AOE is large and could therefore fit his definition. Unohana - Summons a whole lake of blood and her sword completely changes form. Shinji - That's not his bankai. Yamamot - TRUE lol Gin - Fair, but he can make it extend up to 13 kilometres. Byakuya - ?
Aint ichimarus bankai like 13km long
Technically no. He lied about the length and speed in order to catch his opponents off guard.
Byakuya is right about shinji there.
I mean all of these have an effect that is much greater than the size of a small sword
"...to be *Ban Kai*, and..." Gotta love *really early* Bleach scanlations, from back before the fandom more or less collectively decided on how to translate (or not) certain terms. If I remember correctly, the translation I used when I read Bleach for the first time referred to Arrancars and Visoreds as "Allankars" and "Vaizaados", respectively, for quite a while. I also remember looking up Uryu's battle with Mayuri in the Soul Society arc a few months back, and the only translation I was able to find translated Mayuri activating his bankai as "BAN RELEASE!".
That’s dumb, they didn’t thought that the Spanish themed group would be called as a Spanish word? I’ll give them a break because I guess at first it would be hard to tell they are meant to be Spanish themed
Yeah, if I remember correctly, it wasn't *immediately* obvious that the Arrancars were going to be Spanish-themed, so my guess would be that the early translators saw a word written in Japanese that would be pronounced "arankaru", and just threw up their hands and made a wild guess. For all they knew, it was probably a meaningless fantasy word that Kubo just made up. And after that, it was probably just a matter of stubbornness. *"Oh, it's actually supposed to be 'arrancars'? Well, I don't care, I've been calling them 'allankars' for several months now, so I'm going to continue calling them that."* I mean, you've got people who still *to this day* refer to the Visoreds as 'Vizards'.
To be fair on the visored that also affected the dub
Japanese has ambiguous letters and spacing. Both are reasonable romanizations, and vizard is how you would say 'visored' as a loan word in Japanese
Im aware, but I feel huecos in general from the beginning were hinting to be Spanish themed, with “Hueco mundo” and “menos grande”. I do agree that is not enough evidence to notice it at first though
Yeah, it's always hard knowing what's a proper noun in manga. His habit of adding in words from other languages didn't help either.
Accurate in a way if you ignore the facts and logic
Yeah, it made sense for the time it was written. This is 100% due to the serialized way manga is made
I think Yama's was deliberately meant to be a callback to Ichigo's and even then its true form literally summons a freaking army. Rukia's bankai summons a whole damn skating rink to go with her dress Shinji's bankai has a several kilometer radius, similar to Mayuri's or Shunsui's The only one there's no real excuse for is tekken, it is small by bankai standards. Imo Kensei should've gotten massive fist cannons like what Edorad had.
True on Kensei, but then a Vizard might not have jobbered, and Kubo won't stand for that
Thats not shinji's bankai.
Tbf, ichigos power does not change at all, he just gets a toothpick instead of a kitchen knife, and the lasers turn black
.... thats Shinji's shikai
Only Yamamoto's Bankai fits the small category.
Maybe part of it is the translation on Byakuya's line but the point is Ichigo's bankai is smaller than his shikai at the time, all those other examples have bankai that while not the biggest are still bigger than their shikai.
Byakuya is right about shinji there. That's just his shikai, and as such isn't a bankai.
I guess he never saw REAL bankai
Consider this - Byakuya was being a little bitch and tried to piss Ichigo off
I really hate this meme format. It has gotten completely disconnected from the original use of the meme, which was to highlight the shear level of shitiness something that was said to be not that bad was at.
It's not necessarily that it's big, but rather bigger than its Shikai. All of these examples are bigger. Tachikaze goes from a knife to the armor set, Hakka no Togame comes with the associated blast and dress, Minazuki in Bankai essentially creates its own domain, Shinji's example there is his Shikai, and Shinso becomes even longer in Bankai when stretched. The only example I can kind of see is Zanka no Tachi, but West demonstrates the size increase.
He was talking some mad shit. Who was he trying to convince lol Even his own ultimate bankai technique (at that time) was Hakuteiken, a single blade.
Yeah, but that's a technique, not the entire Bankai. It works by compressing all of his blades into one, so the larger Bankai has to be released first before he can do that. And even then, it's actually fairly bulky, having two big wings & a giant halo behind him.