Nnoitra is the fifth Espada, marked by the "5" tattooed on his tongue. He's an absurdly tall arrancar—he towers over Yasutora Sado by a full foot or more—with long black hair and a perpetual grin that shows off his upper teeth. The eyepatch, three bracelets on each wrist, and that ridiculous spoon-shaped hood are his signature look, though early on his uniform had a normal collar and his hair was shorter. Whatever remained of his hollow mask seems to have vanished completely.
His personality is basically what you'd expect: rude, lecherous, and openly contemptuous of women. He calls Orihime "pet-sama" and casually grills Ulquiorra about her "training" in a way that makes even Ulquiorra recoil. Back when he was the 8th Espada, he was obsessed with pushing talented women like Nel Tu down to "appropriate" ranks because he genuinely believed men should dominate. That said, he's not a murderer for its own sake—he won't bother killing weaklings since that doesn't prove anything about his strength, which he's constantly trying to establish as superior. What he will happily do is fight people who are already beat up and exhausted, a move that pisses off both Ichigo and Grimmjow.
Despite his misogyny, he's not completely heartless about his own people. When his subordinate Tesla faces off against Kenpachi Zaraki, Nnoitra actually yells for him to retreat—but the moment Tesla dies, the prospect of fighting someone strong snaps him right back to his usual self.
His zanpakutō, Santa Teresa, looks like a giant ax with two crescent-shaped blades fused back-to-back; flashbacks show it originally had just one. When he releases it, he sprouts two extra pairs of arms, each wielding an identical scythe. In this form his wounds close almost instantly and he can regrow lost limbs.
The turning point comes when Nnoitra stumbles across Ichigo and Grimmjow mid-battle. He takes his shot at torturing the exhausted Ichigo, but Nel Tu shows up in her true adult form and intervenes. She nearly takes him down again, but her amnesia kicks back in and leaves her defenseless. Kenpachi Zaraki arrives just in time, and what unfolds is less a fight and more a mutual test—two warriors who genuinely enjoy landing blows they know the other can survive. After a brutal, extended battle, Nnoitra gets what he sees as a warrior's death: his life ends the instant before his body hits the ground.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
