^no, there was never a panel like that. But if you consider the pairing perspective, Kubo drew a honeymoon color page featuring IR, wrote poems about IR, and even said that he liked them together. He named this chapter "Death and Strawberry" which had always been synonymous with IR, and it ended up being a slap in the face to the majority of his fandom. The story was terrible down the stretch in those last 5 chapters. It's just as bad.Wasn't their an old image where Naruto was thinking of Sakura, Ichigo was thinks of Orihime, and Luffy was thinking of meat? It was an official image of shounen jump for some valentine event a few years back. I think some of you have used it in your arguments before.
Come on. This isn't like the Naruto ending where they abandon the entire story for a pairing in hopes of appealing to the international fanbase. And it ended so they could have a month to advertise for a kitten movie.
Bleach was cancelled or at least as close to cancelled without admitting it. So Kubo cut the final boss fight short so he could have two chapter to focus on the epilogue on for the spirit world and one for the real world.
The story was concluded some may not like it but it is not the Naruto ending where executive and editorial meddling were the real writers of it. This as far as I can tell was kubo intended ending with or without the canceling.
Edited by AHK, 18 August 2016 - 01:30 PM.