What Happened to Byakuya?

Now that I'm finished with InuYasha,  I can catch up on my ongoing animes: Naruto and Bleach. Naruto is always good; I can't wait to see him fight with the Kyuubi's chakra! As for Bleach - it has never been my favorite show, especially since my favorite characters are no longer in it: Ulquiorra, Grimmjow, and Nel... and I was starting to get seriously tired of the Xcution storyline... But now it's getting good again!

I was missing the other Shinigami, and I'm glad Renji, Rukia, and Toushiro are back, finally! Plus, who'd have thought Byakuya would have become so cool? Byakuya, with the stick up his ass - cool? I'm a big fan of a lot of all the character design changes, but especially of the change in Byakuya's headgear, the hair, the new Shihakushou... when he appeared with the rest of the gang, through the Senkaimon, I did a double-take. He looked... kind of... (dare I say it?) ...hot. It feels almost wrong to say it... but it's true, as surprising as that is - Byakuya Kuchiki - hot. I'm happy that there's finally another aesthetically pleasing male character on Bleach since Grimmjow.