Bleach vs ML: Ulquiorra vs Lila Rossi. Genuinely Dangerous Big Bad's Right Hand vs Tool, that practically don't exist when not in use.
Sorry, the mental image of Ulquiorra vs Lila is just, absolutely hilarious to me.
BLEACH VS MIRACULOUS LADYBUG, ROUND 5: Lila Rossi Vs Ulqiorra Cifer!
Lila Rossi is the epitome of Miraculous Ladybug's horrible writing, because she is just Chloe Bourgeois 2.0 back when they were pretending to give Chloe a redemption arc; there is literally no reason that Lila needs to exist in the first place, she's literally just an exact clone of Chloe's character. They've both bullied Marinette, gotten her in trouble in class, tried to get her expelled, manipulated the entire class, work with Hawkmoth actively, etc.
The only difference between them is:
1) Lila succeeded in getting Marinette expelled
2) Chloe purposefully crashed a train full of people
( I have a Chloe vs Lila post floating around my blog somewhere, pointing out that Lila's literally done the exact same things as Chloe has but is painted in a worse light, up until the writers changed their mind on developing Chloe's character because Status Quo Is God)
If the ML Writers were actually good at their job (writing, that is), Lila and Zoe wouldn't exist, because Lila is literally just "Chloe But Worse...but not really, and only when we remember she exists"
and Zoe is just "Chloe, if we actually cared about good writing and actually gave her a redemption arc and character growth in the first place like we planned on but then realized that would disrupt the status quo so now we're going to demonize her while we constantly show the middled aged man villain in a sympathic light"
So yeah, there really is no comparison between the two.
I haven't even like, discussed Ulquiorra, mostly because I don't remember a whole lot about him, other than the fact that he's actually competent, is an actual villain who is an actual threat to the main characters, he's not constantly forgotten by the plot, he's a well rounded character... oh, and he's fucking badass prettyboy emo and I love him.
[ID: A Screenshot from the Bleach Anime, showing a close up of Ulqiorra Cifer looking at the camera with a bored expression. He has grey skin, almost white, and has chin-length black hair which is half obscured by his mask fragment, which is pure white and shaped like half a helmet, which has a flaring protrusion towards the top shaped like a bat's ear. His eyes are large and dark teal, with slits for pupils, he has thick black eyeliner on, and teal streaks trail down his face from his eyes like permanent tears. His visible clothing is a ragged white cloak lined with black, which has a tall collar. The background is a large room of endless grey pillars. End ID]
[ID: A screenshot of the Bleach anime, showing Ulqiuorra Cifer in his Segunda Etapa, or Second Release form. Ulquiorra has lost his helmet mask fragment to be replaced with two bone white bat ears arcing out of black hair head like horns. His cloak has vanished, to reveal that he has turned into a half-bat, half-human creature, with his entire lower half from the waist down now covered in short black fur, all the way down his thin legs to his feet, which have gained black talons. There is a ruff of spikes behind his shoulders, where large bat wings are flared out, and a split, long ruff of fur at his lower back. His arms are black from just above his elbow downwards, and his hands are now black claws. His eyes are now golden, while the whites of his eyes are dark teal. The tear marks down his face have widened into black streaks. His Hollow hole has been revealed in the center of his chest, which has a large black streak going down to join the fur at his waist. He has a very long, thin black tail that ends in a tuft of fur. The background is the black sky of Hueco Mundo, with grey clouds visible in the dark sky. End ID]
I love Ulqiorra's Segunda Etapa form so much! If you want to see him in action with beautiful animation, you can just watch the fight scene at the beginning of the Bleach: Hell Verse movie :)
Once we reach the end of the canon anime, I'll do a better Lila comparison, because in this case I think Gin Ichimaru is a much better parallel, of a character trusted by the Big Bad who is doing it for their own gain and is playing a long con. Which is what Lila should have been, if the writers actually knew how to tell a story, but at this point I can gaurentee you, Felix is going to replace Lila as the new random teenage antagonist because nothing says "girl power" like forgetting your female characters exist!
