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Naruto's Villain Team vs. Bleach's Villain Team.
http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/170/espu.jpg

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Just a little comparison of which you liked overall more in the following areas:

1. Characters - Which team had the better and more interesting characters in your opinon?

2. Designs - Which team had the more unique and cool character designs?

1. I'm going with Akatsuki. The Espada were intereting, sure, but alot of them lack any character depth and we don't really know anything about them except for Ulq and Grimm. They mostly have one defining characteristic and thats it. Akatsuki on the other hand all have backstories and actual personalities that just make them more interesting characters. At the end of the day I only like about 2 Espada and pretty much all of Akatsuki.

2. I really like the crepy white theme of the Espada but again I give it to Akatsuki. I like their robes and all of their designs are cool. They don't have any lame designs like Yammi, Nnoitra or Zommari. Its close though.

1. I preferred the Espada, all of them had good personalities and backstory that I could actually care about (except Zommari and Harribel), while Akatsuki had a lot of characters I couldn't stand (Hidan, Kakuzu, Zetsu,) and a lot of useless members who don't do anything cool ever.

2. I like Akatsuki's costumes way more, but the Espada's released forms all had pretty cool and unique designs (again, barring Zommari). So unreleased, Akatsuki, released Espada.

espada for both. i like the espada in pretty much every way, more than akatsutski.

i like bleach way more than naruto though. maybe im biased

I like the Akatsuki personality's a lot more (a bunch of the Espada barely have any), while styles is pretty close, they're both fairly interesting.

I don't see why you think the Akatsuki have more personality... only a few Espada were that bland (Zommari, Harribel, maybe Aaronerio), but Akatsuki has it's own fair share of undeveloped ones (Konan, Sasori, Kisame, Kakuzu I thought was real dull as well).

Espada for both, for sure. Just look at the picture.

Originally posted by Pyron_Knight
Naruto's Villain Team vs. Bleach's Villain Team.
Just a little comparison of which you liked overall more in the following areas:

1. Characters - Which team had the better and more interesting characters in your opinon?

2. Designs - Which team had the more unique and cool character designs?

The only Espada that I found interesting as characters and liked, were Grimmjow (primarily because of his rivalry with Ichigo), Ulquiorra (badass, even if he looks emo), and Starrk.
The rest were just thrash, though Barragan with his air of pompousness deserves an honourable mention.

With the Akatsuki, I really liked Deidara & Sasori, and even the relationship they shared. I also liked Itachi & Hidan. Tobi is 50/50 for me.
Pein was interesting, but then his views were abruptly changed by Naruto's words, which ruined my view of the character.
Konan, Kisame & Zetsu are ridiculously underdeveloped, but the latter two are still a part of Akatsuki.
Kakuzu is crap.


I say, the Akatsuki.

Designs - Espada, if we take Releases into account since it is their 'true' form. Most of their releases look badass, with the exception of Aaronerie (**** his name), Zommari & Szayel.

as far as just characters, I like Ulq, Stalker, I think thats his name, and i am not going to check it, the dude with the guns. and not much else in the espada. akatski has much better stories and more interesting characters. and their all unique in their abilities to a much greater extent than the espada are. but as for design, i think that most of the espada look much cooler than most of naruto characters, they all look so tough, and powerful, and they just ooze evil, i love it.

def akatsuki when comes to clothing and looks, instead of plain white robes and random physical characteristics like the espada. i don't know as far as skill or power though. im not really bias on either.

Originally posted by menokokoro
as far as just characters, I like Ulq, Stalker, I think thats his name, and i am not going to check it, the dude with the guns.

Starrk, cool but not enough page time




Well, those are the Espada with the least development (though Aaroneiro had a boost from the Kaien thing to make it personal), but you also had Szayel suffering from a personality that's just a carbon copy of someone else who did it better. Barragan didn't have that much on his movies until he died, ditto Starrk (though he was cool when alive anyway). Yammy has page time and conversations but he's really simplistic.

Only 4 and 6 were major characters. Oh, and Neliel if we count former members.


Akatsuki has some that we didn't really get to know (Kakuzu comes to mind as the most minor), but even some of those you name have interesting interactions with others. Sasori had the whole Chiyo relationship and his spies play a role well after his death, he played a fairly big role in the history of things with the offing of a kage and ties to Orochimaru via Kabuto. How many Espada have as much background and effect? I think only 6, 4, and maybe 5 due to the Neliel history, and that's only Sasori, not a main character like Itachi or Tobi.

Plus, his and Deidara's conversations were fun.



The big difference for me is the Espada once introduced were all sent to separate rooms to wait for enemies. That kinda screwed them over in development. No Akatsuki had as little time as Zommari did. Even Konan has more! (No fight, granted, but she got the flashback stuff). Most of 'em were completely separate boss fights that might as well not be part of a team.

The Akatsuki being in partnerships always got conversations, and even talked with each other via remote link fairly often. All of 'em have reps and histories outside the team too ('cept maybe Zetsu, but he's still alive so we're likely to find out his deal).

We do see some inter-espada interaction though, there was Nnoitra/Ulquiorra, Ulquiorra/Grimmjow, Nnoitra/Neliel, and Yammy/Ulquiorra all talked to each other plenty.

but they always said the same things to each other. "im better than you" in a variety of different ways, pretty much. that or just scolding

I'll answer my own question now.

1. My favorite Akatsuki are Sasori, Hidan and Kakuzu. Sasori had excellent character depth - better than pretty much every other Akatsuki IMO - and it's made even more memorable by his short time being in the story.
Hidan and Kakuzu werel...well, cool. They interacted well and brought a great sense of awesome to the story.

Even though those are my favorites, I still like each of the rest of the Akatsuki in some way or another. Deidara vs. Gaara = epic ifght.

With the Espada, I like Ulquiorra more than any Akatsuki member but the Espada team as a whole just isn't as good as the Akatsuki. While each Akatsuki has at least something I like about them, characters like Zommari and Yammy just hav eno value.
I think Ulquiorra, Stark and Nnoitra have some of the best depth in all of Bleach, though.

2. Espada, definitely. I like the Akatsuki cloak as much as the next guy but the Espada's varied designs and their releases make them far more interesting. With the Akatsuki each of them (with the exception of Zetsu) at least looks pretty much normal.

With the Espada, you got a guy with an eyepatch and shark teeth, a cowboy, Jarhead, boobs and the rest. Each of their looks really suits their personality as well.

And when you take into account their releases...yeah, the designs of the Espada are just way more interesting IMO.

Also, I gotta give Kubo credit for the Aspects of Death thing for the Espada. I thought that was a nice touch.

Originally posted by King Kandy
We do see some inter-espada interaction though, there was Nnoitra/Ulquiorra, Ulquiorra/Grimmjow, Nnoitra/Neliel, and Yammy/Ulquiorra all talked to each other plenty.

Yea, some, but that's only half the team.

Every Akatsuki has conversations with at least one or two others, and several have quite a few.

Originally posted by Pyron_Knight
My favorite Akatsuki are Sasori, Hidan and Kakuzu.

Who am I supposed to like?

Itachi - Uchiha with AIDS
Zetsu - Is...really nothing at this point.
Kisame - Bland
Nagato/Pein - Whine whine whine OH GIVE UP DEAD
Konan - Sexy I guess.
Deidara - Cool but nothing else.

Sasori was the best developed of any Akatsuki.
Kakuzu and Hidan did something no other Akatsuki team did...
They used teamwork.

Crazy, I know.

Plus they were just awesome with their immortality abilities.

Then there's Tobi

I really liked Hidan in the anime...

Indeed. He's pure crazy fun.

Originally posted by Pyron_Knight
Indeed. He's pure crazy fun.
Hidan was a crazy badass, except when he was shouting about Jashin >__>. That was the only thing I did not like about the dude.

Originally posted by Q99
Then there's Tobi
The Tobi persona is awesome. The Madara one isn't. Hence why I said 50/50 in my earlier post .

Anyway, to comment on designs again, I think the Espada have the more attractive characters.

Not even including Harribel, I thought Pantera Grimmjow was yummy.
http://i668.photobucket.com/albums/vv44/demonnn_emd/renders/Panterableach.png

Originally posted by Pyron_Knight
Sasori was the best developed of any Akatsuki.
Even if you do think his personality was better, I don't see how you can say he had more character development, when in terms of the actual amount of exploration into personality obviously Itachi and Pein are ahead there (and I didn't like either of their personalities, but they clearly had a lot more effort put into showing why they acted how they did).

Not to mention Orochimaru!

The Akatsuki team!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v441/dawgstar/akatsuki.jpg

Orochimaru left the Akatsuki because he was too good of a villain for them.

And bad development is bad. Nagato abandoning his plans to save the world because Naruto tells him to? And conveniently having the power to revive everyone he killed?

Just plain bad storytelling.