Hot Take… Narratively, this team up:
Was more important to Ichigo’s character compared to this team up:
Orihime’s team up with Ichigo fulfilled her character arc.
She’d been beating herself up and wishing internally that one day, she would no longer hold Ichigo back and could fight beside him.
It’s not even about Ichigo, it’s about her own sense of inferiority. Her own self-consciousness.
Yhwach admittedly was the worst villian to try to fight against by Ichigo’s side, but she was still brave enough to do it. And for that she did feel proud.
As for Ichigo, this team up did absolutely nothing for his character. Actually, there are two perspectives to this fight.
Orihime, who feels as though she has worked up to this. She feels as through she is fighting on equal ground with Ichigo and Yhwach. She’s fulfulling her job as the support.
Ichigo, who can’t fight to his full potential until Orihime is out of his way. He has to instruct her when to throw up her shield because she doesn’t have the battle experience to know where Yhwach is going to attack from next.
I suppose it could be argued that this team up helped Ichigo to learn to rely on his friends, specifically Orihime, therefore it helped his character arc.
Though, the results of the battle negates that argument entirely + Ichigo has shown willingness to trust his friends in battle (namely, Uryuu and the Gotei, but I digress)
So, it’s pretty fair to say that Ichigo gained nothing from this battle beside Orihime. Orihime gained everything she wanted…. somewhat.
Now, his team up with Uryuu at the end of the Fullbring Arc is completely different.
It was mutually beneficial to both Ichigo’s and Uryuu’s character arcs at the time.
During the Full Bring Arc, Ichigo had none of his human friends to rely on. Uryuu was injured from the very beginning and was unable to aid Ichigo the way he usually does.
Previous arcs (and the rest of the manga) have proven that, out of his human friends, Uryuu is the only one Ichigo fully trusts to handle himself in a battle.
Uryuu was the only one from Ichigo’s human friends that Tsukishima (and honestly, Kubo) chose not to brainwash. Uryuu was excluded from Ichigo’s psychological torture and was lumped in with the fighters that are able to remain by Ichigo’s side no matter the circumstances. (Along with Rukia, Byakuya, Renji, Ikkaku, Kenpachi and Toshirou)
This team up against Ginjo was a sense of clarity for Ichigo. It is very fair to say, when it comes to his human friends, Ichigo’s faith in them was at an all time low towards the end of the Fullbring Arc.
But Uryuu was willing to endanger himself just to take out Ginjo and Tsukishima (even though Ichigo thought Uryuu had turned on him for a brief moment) and then he proceeded to fight side by side with Ichigo against Ginjo.
Uryuu didn’t try to pull Ichigo away from the fight, he didn’t think Ichigo was wrong in the fight, he did what Ichigo needed most. He stayed by his side, tried to help analyze the villian’s motives and fought by his side without holding him back.
What Ichigo has been shown to appreciate is honesty, and without it being prodded out of him, Uryuu revealed the one secret he was keeping from him, that he had sneaking suspicions about the Substitute Soul Reaper Pass, and Ichigo was quick to let loose and got comfortable with Ishida once again.
This comfort lasted the entire series, even through Uryuu’s “betrayal”. Hence why Ichigo, in the end, admitted that he’d known that Uryuu would never turn on them without a valid reason.
Ichigo’s team up with Uryuu helped Ichigo gain trust, knowledge, perspective, and comradery. It ended with a victory that Ichigo was proud of. He didn’t regret putting Ginjo down and he’d made his choice to stand by the Soul Society despite their transgression.
Ichigo’s team up with Orihime ended with Ichigo in absolute despair. His zanpakuto was broken, he didn’t have any will to fight left. Then, he proceeded to get his zanpakuto restored by someone else and he fought alongside Aizen in a more successful tag team and came out victorious against Yhwach.
Amongst his human friends, Uryuu will always be Ichigo’s first choice when it comes to reliability.
