I don’t know that this is an unpopular opinion, per se, but Yoruichi was treated very poorly in the manga and deserved vastly more panel time and attention.
We never got to see most of her backstory. That includes most of her history with Kisuke, Kuukaku, and Tessai. That includes her abilities, whether it be her zanpakutou, shikai or bankai, ability to transform, or ability to do hybrid/fusion states. That includes her parentage or family, or the Shihouin clan in general, and especially their role in Soul Society as, apparently, armorers and soldiers.
Her role was also neglected. Kisuke was Ichigo’s first teacher, and Yoruichi was his second, and that was… pretty much it. Kisuke shunned teaching (e.g., with Chad), claiming he was unsuited for it, but why not Yoruichi? She’s great at at least half of zankensoki. She could’ve given Ichigo the bootleg version of an Academy education.
The fights she was given after fighting Soi Fon and the shunko reveal were all lame. The fight against Yammy was barely a fight as she was burdened by protecting Orihime (the hierro injury was also stupid, to be honest, as it almost never came up again other than with Nnoitra). The fight against Aizen was also barely a fight as he’d already become a bullshit hacker. And the fight against Askin was also bullshit because just like the rest of the four Waffen SS, he could just no-sell abilities for no reason (and she was reduced to fan service during it). She wasn’t allowed to shine.
And that was on top of her randomly being excluded from arcs (e.g., the entire Xcution arc) and being reduced to Kisuke’s gofer half the time that she did appear (going to get Orihime in Karakura so Kisuke could tell her off, gathering the vials in TYBW, etc.)
Even her transformation gimmick got stolen. Like, let’s be super real here: pretty much everything in the Hueco Mundo arc is a cheap copy of Soul Society. Grimmjow = Renji, Dordoni = Ikkaku, Ulquiorra = Byakuya, Nnoitra = Kenpachi, Szayelaporro = Mayuri, and so on. But you even had Nelliel = Yoruichi. “Surprise, the innocent-looking [pet/kid] is actually a really strong and hot woman!” The difference is Yoruichi did a whole lot of useful things in the Soul Society arc, and Nelliel did exactly nothing other than delay Ichigo dying long enough for the actual Kenpachi to show up and murder his cheap copy.
I wanna know what the deal is with her abilities and history. I wanna know about her adventures back in the day. I wanna know what she was up to in the century she spent in the Living World (during WW2 no less, among other things!). I wanna see her have cool fights. (Like, hey, imagine if she’d fought that other cheap Sternritter copy of her, Candice Catnipp.) But we didn’t get any of that. And it was a fucking terrible waste of an interesting and strong character.
And that’s another thing: she is interesting. Another maybe unpopular opinion on her that I have is that most of fandom and the extended universe (e.g., BBS) don’t understand her and kinda treat her like shit too. She’s often presented as very one note: she’s mischievous, or lascivious, and that’s pretty much it. And like, Yoruichi in canon is a pretty complex and nuanced character? She has a lot of emotional range and she pretty clearly has a lot of opinions on things, even if she mostly keeps them to herself. But you’d never know it from the majority of how other people write her, where she’s usually just a prankster with a generous helping of tits and ass. (On that note, I do prefer her later look, but she was originally much more lithe; Kubo’s insistence on focusing on busts didn’t solely happen to Orihime.) In short, she’s so much more than just a sexpot.
This is probably unpopular, but I often get tired of how she’s shipped too, whether in canon or in AUs. I go back and forth on liking putting her with Kisuke in large part precisely because I don’t like how in canon she comes across as so deferential to him. A lot of the time she just seems to take orders from him, and it’s like, if anything she outranks him; when we see them interact in TBTP, it’s exactly reversed, with her clearly in charge, so what the hell happened there? Likewise, sometimes Soi Fon’s constantly overwritten obsession with her comes off as kind of gross. I occasionally feel like she’s too good for either of them, to be quite honest. And I despise when people put her with someone like Grimmjow, especially on the basis of something weak like, “They’re both cat-like.” (I’m going off topic, but I’m almost 100% of the mindset Grimmjow shouldn’t be shipped with anyone, period. Except maybe death, like Deadpool is.)
I mentioned this already, but in addition to having seen her train Ichigo, I think she should’ve gotten time with Rukia. In canon I can see this taking a number of forms depending on how you want to run with it: best friend, big sister, or surrogate mom. They have some similar personality quirks and attributes (fixation on a particular kind of animal, a bit mischievous and playful, tomboyish attitudes but still clearly feminine, etc.), and they have similar social stations as members of great noble houses. Like, pretty much no one in Bleach is allowed to be friends and just hang out, but I don’t think Rukia and Yoruichi even exchanged words in the whole manga, and that’s a crying shame. (But also just another one on a very large list of them.)
kaledo-art
origamiaround
baratheonpilled
yousharknotpass
ellievsbear
areudirty
theartofmadeline
romaincrisis
