The battle has ended. Time to take in stock and see what the current scenario is. Both Rukia and Renji managed to survive their surgeries and are stable. Kurotsuchi summons Ichigo shortly after to check on his broken Zanpakuto. It turns out both Zaraki Kenpachi and Kuchiki Byakuya have survived. I wasn’t a fan of this in the manga. I thought Byakuya had fully bit the bullet, but he ended up being alive afterwards. The head captain is gone though. Kyoraku shows up to be the adult in the room. Ichigo gets told that his Zanpakuto cannot be restored.
And there we have it. The zero squad shows up. These guys have been talked about before. They’re the ones that live in the Soul King’s royal palace. All five members are captain level, and their combined strength is greater than the entire thirteen squads combined. These are some powerhouses. Makes you wonder why Kubo never used them before. Was Aizen not a big enough threat? They do turn out to be a bunch of weirdos right from the get go. They’re very happy go lucky after what’s just happened. One of them is the former captain of squad 12, which Urahara replaced to the dismay of Hiyori. The zero squad immediately starts taunting some of the captains.
Soi Fon calls out the zero squad. They don’t take kindly to it. This seems to be yet another layer of the Soul Society not working properly. Each department has their own task apparently and they can’t properly work together. Who cares if it’s your job to do this or that, just watch the world burn while you ignore the rest of society. One of the squad zero members has collected Rukia, Renji, Byakuya and Ichigo’s broken weapons and is about to take them up to the palace alongside Ichigo. Urahara calls into the meeting through zoom, he wasn’t aware it was an in person meeting. No one is happy to see him. He’s using Kon as an antenna. Poor Kon. We also hear a very familiar voice. It’s not hard to figure out who it belongs to, but I’m leaving that for your own discovery regardless.
Today is a blessed day as we get a shot of Kuukaku. She’s the one that shoots everyone back up to the palace. There they are, the fullbringers. Can you tell how happy I am to see them again? This waste of airtime? I’m so mad they weren’t just completely forgotten about for this arc. They’re weak as well, not interesting and somehow get a training arc. I’m disappointed. It is interesting that Kuukaku said it’ll make Isshin sad. Bald captain reveals that they’re the key to the soul palace. Ichigo and friends are sent to the hot springs to recover. Is this technically a hot springs episode? His manner of healing is pretty metal though. Old blood goes out, new blood goes in. Tenjiro Kriniji, the hot spring demon, is pretty metal.
Things are speeding up and I can’t say this doesn’t still feel incredibly rushed. In this episode half the people who just died turned out to be alive, Squad zero is introduced, the fullbringers are back, an arrancar is back, Ichigo gets told he can get a new Zanpakuto and something is bugging Unohana. It’s just an information overload. I’m kind of hoping it slows down from here, but from what I’ve heard about how far into the manga this arc will cover, I think it’ll keep blasting at max speed. Anyway, I’m heading off, I’ve been severely overworked and need sleep. Thanks for reading, and I hope to be here again next week with a new post, but I can’t make any promises.
Opal Kaharis 