This thread is gonna highlight how Kubo references Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy of the übermensch, which translates to over man, vs the last man. Kubo makes this reference through the characters of Aizen and Urahara.

Now Aizen and Urahara are very similar in which they both possess great intellect. That similarity ends once you get to how they both react to the revelation of the Soul King. The Soul King's sole purpose is to regulate the flow of souls into andoutofSoulSociety and keep the flow

stable. Without the Soul King, the balance is lost and Soul Society, as well as the Dangai, Hueco Mundo, and the Human World, will all collapse into one. He's not alive or dead. Basically, he's an vegetative state. Because of his god complex, Aizen didn't want to accept that such

a being was above him. That's why he sought out to change the system so that it would fit his ideals. This is where Nietzsche's philosophy of the übermensch or overman comes to play. The overman rejects the status quo, finds out that god is dead and that all values are fake.

Instead of falling into despair, he seeks strength by transcending from man to superman. Now tell me that doesn’t sound like Aizen who wanted to transcend above hollow and shinigami and overthrow the system of the shinigami so he could be "God" instead of the Soul King.

Nothing sodiflies Aizen's ideology more than his speech to Shinji. In Aizen's speech he basically tells him that people place their faith in someone more powerful than them and blindly follow that person or being. He ends off that speech by saying the hierarchy of faith and power

are how all gods and kings are born. Aizen here pretty much describing Soul Society. A group of beings that blindly follow the Soul King without a second thought.

Bleach manga volume 48 is titled “God Is Dead” which is the famous quote from Nietzsche himself. The beginning has quote that reads “All people, imitations of apes. All gods imitations of people”. This directly ties in with Aizen’s speech.

Urahara however, plays the role of the last man. The last man is similar to the overman in which he finds out the lies that dwell in this world. Instead of becoming a god himself, he accepts how the world works instead of going out of his way to change it.

That’s why Aizen was frustrated with Urahara once he was about to be sealed off. He couldn’t understand why a being with his intellect could blindly follow that “thing”

And Please watch DBZIMRAN’s character analysis video on Aizen. I used his video as inspiration for this thread alongside reddit post from other people and they’re both a lot better analysis’ than this lil twitter thread of
mine: