I thought they'd already explained it. Hollows are human souls that didn't make it to soul society and were trapped on earth for one reason or another. Ichigo's father is a spirit, but his mother was a human. His spirit wasn't fully bound to earth, and a part of it (the shinigami one) wanted to go to soul society. But he remained on earth for so long, a part of him became hollowfied. But not enough to manifest. It was only after he unlocked his latent spiritual potential that his hollow self (which also feeds on his spiritual force), became strong enough to manifest itself, exacerbated by the ritual to force the reawakening of his shinigami powers in the beggining of the series. As he became more and more reliant upon his Hollow self, his shinigami powers were shrunk, until he defeated his hollow self and rebalanced his spiritual force, becoming a full fledged Vizard.
The way i see it, that's 2/3 of Ichigo explained. The other 1/3, his human part, has yet to be tapped to it's full potential, by using Quincy powers. Which from what i gather from SorO_LoSt, is already happening atm in the series.
That's all fine and dandy, but the Aizen arc was just TOO GODDAMN LONG. When it finally came to closure, EVERYONE expected it to *finish*, rather than go on. Nobody even expected that the series would go on after he lost his Shinigami powers.
It was just too perfect of an ending to the series... The big bad guy defeated, the balance on soul society restored, no more human meddling on soul society affairs, the three worlds fully separated once more, with just minor cracks that the ordinary shinigami could deal with, just like it was before Aizen. Ichigo as a human once more, living happily with his school life with his purpose fulfilled.
I thought to myself: What else could there be? I wouldn't even have thought of Ichigo *ever* gaining even a measure of Quincy power, or of ever attempting to regain his Shinigami powers again.
But of course, a Deus Ex Machina had to happen, because people had to make more money.
THIS is what irks me most. Aizen trapped was a perfect ending to a very good series. They could've rebooted the franchise with another protagonist, in the future, or made a prequel about the story of the soul society in it's begginings or hundreds of other things to make more money and new series...
But the cow was too fat, and it was still fattening, and so they had to keep it going. In my personal experience, this leads to BAD things. Just look at Dragonball GT. Heck, even the Majin Boo arc felt stretched thin.
If they wanted a ultra long term series, they had to go the way One Piece went: something like a neverending story. For all i know, the One Piece is just a MacGuffin Gol D. Roger invented to keep the pirate age going. But we don't know that. Actually, we don't know shit. All we know is that Luffy is going to find it, and kick over 9000 kinds of ass while doing it. And THAT'S the focus of the series. The overarching plot is so... overarching, that it fades out of focus to give way to the action in the series. Every arc is memorable, and every villain, too, and the world is just so vast and weird and strange we don't know what to expect next. Basically, everything goes.
But Bleach has a finite setting, just like Naruto does. And Bleach continuing after Aizen feels just like Naruto continuing after he becomes Hokage.
Would it feel natural? Would it feel O.K?
All the fans were expecting a "The End" screen after Aizen died. People were expecting *exactly* that for *YEARS*. Just like they're expecting Naruto to end after he becomes the undisputable hero of the Great Ninja War and becomes Hokage.
It's been over an year and i'm still full of rage over Bleach not ending with Aizen, but maybe i'll get over it, eventually, if i find that it has become any good. Maybe i'll even grab a few episodes and see what it's turning out like. But GODDAMN if i don't have my reasons for thinking the way i do.
