#and then marching down to her jail cell and saying 'see you on Soukyoku Hill don't call me'

[recurring-polynya]

I was thinking about how it's cool Rukia and Renji's bankai are pretty complementary in terms of making a good battle couple. Renji has always been a straight-to-bankai sort of guy, which makes sense. In the grand scheme of bankai, his isn't the most powerful or the most destructive, but it doesn't have any detrimental area effects and he can use it for a long time. Rukia's on the other hand, is very powerful, but it's only good for a very short time, and it leaves her vulnerable. Fighting together, she can back up Renji with kidou support or her shikai attacks, and then he can give her cover while she transitions in and out of bankai, if needed. This is a lot more fun, imo, than say, Kyouraku and Ukitake, who are both so hesitant to go to bankai that we never even see Ukitake's. (and maybe this works for them, given that they are side characters and the most senior in Soul Society, that their powers get the super slow burn reveal)

That being said, Renji and Byakuya's partnership works much the same way-- Byakuya's bankai isn't quite as perilous as Rukia's, but he tends to save it (my headcanon is actually that he can't go straight to bankai, he has to sort of build up momentum, so to speak). I'm not gonna lie, the scene early in the TYBW anime where Renji pins As Nodt with Zabimaru and then Byakuya slams him in the face with petals was one of the most satisfying moments of the anime so far.

All this is to say that for the approximately 1,000,000 characters Kubo crammed into Bleach, it's a real shame that he couldn't have developed an interesting side character that we might say "hell yeah!" to see stepping into place as Rukia's lieutenant post-time skip. I mean, not to diss Sentarou, but 98% of his job seems to be clownery and the other 2% is carrying heavy things. Would it have killed Kubo to let him do something during the Blood War? (him and Kiyone both, tbh) I honestly don't think it would have been too much to ask to see his shikai, if he's going to eventually be the battle partner of the series' deuteragonist. I dunno, I also just think it would have been cool for Rukia to have another friend in Soul Society besides her love interest and her brother. There's Hanatarou, I suppose, and on one level, I would love to see him as Rukia's no. 2, but he so thoroughly attached to the Fourth, and also his shikai is too gimmicky for a serious character.

Flaming hot cheetos take I just came up with: Ganju should have had grudgingly join the Gotei after the Soul Society arc and come around on Rukia after learning what Kaien meant to her, and then eventually taking over his brother's job. I mean, Kubo liked him enough to write him into the TYBW, an arc that definitely did not need more characters in it than it already had.