I have to say...

[meganbmoore]

...while I can never decide whether or not I like Byakuya in Bleach, I am always deeply appreciative of his ability to summon thousands of falling sakura petals at will.  And the noodle hair.  That's always impressive.

*rewatches the spontaneous cascade of sakura petals, just for the fun of it*

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I like his...sometimes I want to kill him for being a contradictory control freak.

Mostly, I just admire the fact that I can take him seriously despite the noodle hair and sakura petals.

[crumpeteer.livejournal.com]

I think those occassions of wanting to beat him about the head prove that I at least feel something deeply about him. There is no "meh" quality about me and Byakuya. I either like him or he makes me furious. And he is a deeply flawed character. Probably the most arrogant I've seen out of the good guys, yet you never really doubt that his heart is in the right place in the end. And while he treated Rukia terribly, I have a hard time thinking that he didn't love her sister deeply. Byakuya isn't just emotionally cold, a lot of times he feels emotionally dead, yet I think he did love Rukia's sister to the best of his capacity, which would make her death even harder to someone who is never emotionally vulnerable (Byakuya's "you have to put on a tough face" probably didn't even give him an opportunity to grieve).

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Where I start having problems with Byakuya is where we're to believe that he's such an amazing stickler for the rules that he would lead his sister to the gallows himself because of duty, yet it's also canon that he's sabotaged her chances of getting a high level seat in her squad. It takes him from "flawed but interesting" to manipulative control freak to me.