grant said:
Point on the last but as for Aizen/Urahara, you really misread me. Nothing I wrote was to make Urahara evil or Aizen justified (I was planning on showing his crimes in detail in the Arrancar arc). Urahara, in canon, acts like an idiot who doesn't actually do anything that a reasonable person would. Let's look at his actions:
1. Sent Ichigo and company off into SS with barely any information, an idiotic plan and no effort to warn them about the powers of their enemies. For all he knew they might have run into Tousen without Yoruichi, been taken in by his apparent reasonableness and that would have pretty much ended the series right there.
2. Told Orihime she was useless instead of the truth and made no effort to monitor her movements, despite the fact that his stated reason for this was to keep Orihime away from Aizen.
3. In the backstory IIRC he was experimenting on Hollowification for no given reason. Just 'cause.
4. We discover from the flashbacks that he has known about Aizen's powers and his conspiracy with Tousen for a century. We never see anything to suggest that Urahara was actually trying to do anything about it. Even in the final battle with Aizen, the part where you'd assume that Urahara would pull out all the stops for this battle he's been preparing for...we get effectively zip.
5. He left Mayuri as his second in command. Mayuri. Even if Mayuri technically hadn't done anything that we know of that seems fairly hasty.
So my response to 1 was to change it to Urahara being forced to agree to help because of a bad situation and trying to make it succeed, 2 was changed to Urahara being genuinely afraid that Orihime was either going to be kidnapped by some faction or actually go insane (mentioned mental problems earlier) and be a threat to all three worlds, 3 was changed to wanting to prevent a massacre of the sort he had to accept 300 years ago, 4 was changed to Urahara actively trying to build a force to fight Aizen and 5...he's still not a good judge of character.
In other words what you're interpreting as me bashing Urahara is actually me trying to make Urahara smarter and more reasonable*. Sure he's dark and manipulative, but that's because the situation is a very bad one that's calling for dark and manipulative action. In terms of actions really the worst he did was experiment on the souls in the backstory, something in the now-never-to-be-summarized Arancar arc he would have tried to blow himself and Aizen up over.
On Aizen, in canon considering the damage his forces took from Team Orihime's attack you would expect him to actually want to destroy the attacking force before he went to fight the Shinigami. Instead he just left Ulquiorra and a few idiots with predictable results. Not to mention there was no way he could have actually predicted that SS would react as they did.
Hitsugaya, well Hitsugaya wasn't a threat to Aizen. Ever. The only ones who ever seemed to be threats to him might have been Ichigo, Shinji (maybe), Urahara and Yamamoto. But instead of using his illusion powers to cut through everyone as he clearly is capable of doing he just sits there and watches his forces die off before he finishes the job for his enemies and then pointlessly gets a girl stabbed. And this is not a character who is shown as being completely sadistic and short sighted (at least in dialogue). This is a character who is supposed to have planned Ichigo's entire life.
So with Aizen I was actually trying to make him less of an informed ability genius and more a cunning man who makes mistakes.
*Ironic really.
I get that you're trying to make Urahara seem smarter and more reasonable. What I'm saying is that what you have right now does not do so.
They did run into Gin early on. They're just lucky enough that he's easy going and planning on killing Aizen. Tousen's personality is actually less reasonable than many others when you note how he acts after the betrayal. He is a real stickler for the justice and rules after all.
Experimenting on hollowfication was something Aizen did, not Urahara. Both of them developed a hogyoku around the same time for entirely different reasons. It isn't actually stated how the hogyoku are made, just that Aizen empowered his using thousands of souls forcibly taken from both shinigami and residents of Rukongai. It should be noted that both hogyoku are never fully awake, and that Aizen only nudges them awake for a moment to make Arrancar. Also, this brief awakening actually weakens the hogyoku and increases the length of its dormancy.
What Urahara's did with his hogyoku was stabilize the captains that Aizen experimented upon. Urahara actually seemed to have made his hogyoku just out of scientific curiosity because he never actually used it until he had to.
Urahara was sorta busy dealing with other Arrancar when Orihime was kidnapped.
Aizen's plan during the Arrancar arc was to split up Soul Society's forces using the Arrancar as canon fodder. His entire army existed solely as a diversion. After kidnapping Orihime, he stayed in HM long enough for SS to commit half their forces to aiding Ichigo and then moved to confront the ones in Fake Karakura. Even in Fake Karakura, Aizen wasn't on the offensive and used Arrancar to heavily damage SS's forces.
If you actually look at the entire arc as Aizen stalling for time so that he can reach beyond his own limits, it makes perfect sense. Everything he did kept people from actually harming him and by the time Isshin managed to push him to the brink of defeat, his powerup was ready. You'll note that he never actually gave himself hollow powers until the hogyoku was fully awakened, at which point he managed to blow past everyone's power.
Also note: Urahara did pull out all the stops against Aizen in Fake Karakura. He's actually the reason Aizen was sealed and powerless shortly after the Final Getsuga. The seal was actually placed on Aizen in the middle of their confrontation but didn't take effect until Ichigo wore him down to the point that the Hogyoku got annoyed. The one time Urahara's bankai is mentioned, its talked about in a way that makes it seem extremely dangerous to everyone around it.
About Hitsugaya.... He is a threat to everyone if he isn't in control. He's got the strongest ice based zanpakuto. Technically his bankai is on the same threat level as Yamamoto's. Both can effect the weather and moisture in all of soul society when activated. The major difference is that Hitsugaya has neither the experience or mastery of his sword that Yamamoto has. It is actually noted that Hitsugaya's bankai is still at an early level, and we see it has improved a good amount between his confrontations with Luppi and Harribel. Imagine if Aizen managed to get Hitsugaya to completely lose control of his bankai. He could flash freeze just about everyone on the battlefield while in a berserk rage. At that point, Aizen was just taking pot shots at everyone and letting them waste time while the Hogyoku awakened.
Mayuri despite being a criminal that was imprisoned in SS's superjail, is still one of soul society's
greatest minds. He's pretty much the complete opposite of Urahara in that he lacks morals of any form. On the plus side, the guy can look at Syazel's squickiness and just yawn before 1-upping him. Plus he's hard to kill, and so are his creations. We're also learning that the biggest example of Mayuri being a bad guy might not be such a clear cut case of good and evil.
