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.
This was all they could recover
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.
The five most powerful soul reapers alive.
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.
I wonder who that is?
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.
There she is, the best character in the show. For reasons. I will not explain myself. Step on me.
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.
Supposedly one of the most powerful characters in all of Bleach
We start off with another look into Yamamoto and Yhwach’s last fight before hopping to the opening. The vocalist from this song reminds me a little bit of Kenshi Yonezu, especially in the first little bit. That’s a big compliment, for anyone not familiar with Kenshi Yonezu. We stay in the past and find a young Kyoraku Shinsui. And we’re reminded that Yamamoto Shigekuni Genryusai, captain commander of the Gotei 13, has died. At this point in the manga I was very confused about how anyone was ever going to defeat Yhwach. We learn a lot about the Soul Society’s mentality here and it really makes me wonder if Kubo ever plans to write a prequel manga about the olden days. I know there’s more material out there in the form of novels, but I have little to no insight into what that means.
He’s done what he came here for.
The quincies kick things up another gear and a whole bunch of soldiers join the frey. The leftover shinigami get annihilated at record pace. I am curious as to why we’re not seeing much of quite a few of the familiar faces that should still be running around right now. Captains, vice-captains, seated officers. Ichigo finally makes his way to Soul Society with the help of Akon and immediately takes out one of the Stern Ritter who barely gets done introducing himself, so we’ll not give him the light of day. Byakuya asking Ichigo for help is the perfect culmination of the man’s entire character development. Ichigo is looking pissed.
Real talk here, I did that thing where I took a screenshot in the middle of a quick animation, and it still looks good. What is this animation quality, it’s crazy smooth.
Ichigo and Yhwach clash, with the latter having the upper hand easily. This is where Ichigo finally shows off the fact that he has Quincy powers. There’s some bullshit that Kubo wrote about how Ichigo’s spiritual pressure woke up due to being mixed with Quilge’s spiritual reiatsu. Call a spade a spade, this was incredibly poor writing on Kubo’s part, but I’ve said before that I think he felt extremely rushed to make cool chapters at this point to offset the manga’s waning popularity. Yhwach reveals that he knows about Kurosaki Masaki, Ichigo’s mother. Yhwach sets off to kidnap Ichigo back to the Wandenreich. Can you imagine that at this point, manga readers were still very much having whiplash going from the fullbringer arc to this arc. Ichigo ends up saved by the bell, I mean Aizen, and the quincy retreat. As a parting gift, Haschwalth breaks Ichigo’s zanpakuto.
Byakuya’s story arc culminating in him falling short and dying, asking Ichigo to help Soul Society out in his stead, is pretty amazing.
This episode had a fair bit of original content that I think helped out with the pacing. We’re still going at lightning speed, but I understood a lot better what was happening here. I do think the Bleach manga wasn’t made for weekly reading towards the end. I get that sense from more long running shonen to be fair, even in One Piece I sometimes get a little bit lost. I’m no longer 19 with nothing else to do, I’m in my 30s busy pretending to be a functioning adult. With mixed success at best. I think this is a big reason why I stopped reading a lot of manga weekly and have switched over to buying the volumes and reading those when the come in. It’s a lot more expensive for sure, but I think it’s a better reading experience. Of course, you can always just binge a manga online now, that’s a pretty good way of going about things too. Either way, this episode looked amazing, sounded amazing and even had some fanservice for us manga readers. Looking forward to next week already.
Surprise Aizen! Hope that didn’t spook you too much.
It’s sure been a while, hasn’t it? The final episode of Bleach dropped in March 2012. Over a decade ago. I was still studying business economics at uni, not even the slightest hint of an idea that I would one day become a teacher. At that point in time I knew about my autism for less than half a year. That’s strange to think about, because it’s such a big part of who I am now. And now, ten years later, we get more Bleach. Having almost completely rewatched the old show, fillers aside, I’ve built up a hesitant hype for this new season. We all know Kubo’s writing and quality started declining and it’s no secret that Bleach ended in big part due to the ratings going lower and lower. Having said that, as a manga reader I am still very excited to see this part of the story animated. Without wasting any more of your time, let’s dive back into Karakura Town, Soul Society and the lives of Kurosaki Ichigo and his friends!
There he is! After all these years he’s animated!
The confined Quincy king regains his pulse after 900 years. His mind after 90 years. His strength after 9 years and…
After Arrancar and Espada, it’s easy to forgot how eerie regular old hollows are.
There’s more to that quote, but we’ll get to that later. Kurotsuchi has immediately figured out who’s responsible for the vanishing of Hollows. We’ve heard talk about this way back in the day as well. Soul Reapers purify hollows but Quincy erase them completely. We move to two completely unfamiliar Soul Reapers in Karakura town about to deal with some of the Hollow problems. They’re here to make it so Ichigo doesn’t have to solve everything on hits own. Holy cow, Karakura town looks different. It looks way more modern and eerie in a way. Old Karakura town looked colorful and had an almost rural aesthetic to it for a town that size. I know animation and art direction has come a long way since Bleach first started airing 20 years ago, but the Hollow we see right at the start reminds me more of a Ghoul from Tokyo Ghoul and less of a Hollow. Our new Soul Reaper is on his way to find his friend, but it’s not looking great for either of them right from the get go. Why did Soul Society send two rookies to deal with what is clearly an advanced problem. Have they learned nothing in the time we were away? Incompetents until the end. Luckily, the gang’s all here to solve the problem. Orihime, Sado, Ishida and Ichigo walk into one of the most nostalgic soundtracks I can imagine.
They’re so stylish! One of early Bleach’s draws was how cool everyone looked.
Sado destroys a building by punching a Hollow. Ishida is looking pretty good with his longer hari and new clothes. He was always the most stylish of the bunch. Orihime heals the wounded Shinigami with her world breaking powers that were never quite utilized enough. And Ichigo gives us a great BAN.. KAI.. from the get go followed by a Getsuga. It’s like Christmas morning here. I also love how similar the voices still sound. I feel like Midoriya’s voice from My Hero aged more in two years than this cast did in a decade. Everyone’s gathered up in Ichigo’s room which looks a lot more modern as well. They’re having lunch with their new Shinigami friends when a creepy guy steps in through the window. This is why you put locks on your windows! Now you have these folks climbing in your windows, snatching yo people up.
It’s Quincy time.
Asguiaro Ebern. I believe that’s only the third Quincy we’ve seen so far, not counting the menacing man who did the quote earlier in the post. The gang thinks he’s an arrancar, mainly because they have no idea that more Quincy still exist in the world. This does piss off Ebern quite a bit. Ichigo is surprised by the reveal.
I’ve loved this duo ever since they first appeared. And Yumichika updated his look as well!
We cut to the Rukon district where Ikkaku and Yumichika are investigating something with their squad. It turns out the entire area has been spirited away. The last time that happened was when Aizen was experimenting on people. Things speed up very rapidly from here. I’m almost getting whiplash from how fast this is going. Yamamoto notices Sasakibe, his lieutenant, activating his Zanpakuto. A messenger appears but is quickly murdered by strange folks in Klan robes, I mean Quincy outfits. They’re declaring war. Sasakibe is unfortunately killed as is sent flying into the room with Yamamoto. Five days left until Wandenreich annihilates Soul Society. The messengers leave.
We never even got to see his Bankai, what a rough way to go old man.
These fights look so much more lively than the ones in the old series, what a change. Ichigo and Ebern are still fighting. Sasakibe reveals that the Wandenreich can steal Bankai. Unfortunately it’s too late for Ichigo who uses his Bankai against Ebern. At least that’s what Ebern thinks, but he underestimates Ichigo. Sasakibe is a real one for relaying this vital information before passing away though. The Quincy have their own way of teleporting and disappearing.
Getsuga Tensho!
Things have definitely changed a ton since the early days of Bleach and the ending is kind enough to show us that as well by giving us a bunch of the old anime’s best shots. I am excited for more Bleach, that’s for sure. For those of you who have been following along with my weekly recaps as well, I appreciate it greatly. I’ll finish up the Aizen arc this week if all goes well, and then add the Fullbringer arc later. The latter isn’t particularly important for these first few episodes, so it should be fine to not have a big reminder. As always, thanks for reading and I hope to see you here again next Monday and onward.
How did we get here so fast? We’ve already reached the conclusion of what I consider to be the main arc of Bleach. We’ve been working towards Aizen’s defeat since early Soul Society, after all. That’s roughly 300 episodes, or about a bit more than half that if we don’t count fillers. We leave the Espada behind us and focus on the four remaining villains: Wonderweiss Margera, Kaname Tosen, Ichimaru Gin and Aizen Sosuke. Each of them have their battles to fight while Ichigo is on his way back from Hueco Mundo with captain Unohana behind him noticing he has more spiritual pressure than captain-level soul reapers do.
An Illusion? What are you hiding!
Captain Komamura and Lieutenant Hisagi fight against Tosen. They first fight him as a human before he reveals to them that he has undergone hollowfication. Komamura berates him for this but Tosen doesn’t see his wrong doings. It is interesting how much the gotei 13 is against hollowfication in general. The way they mistreated Shinji and the Visoreds always seemed unnecessary to me. Either way, the fight continues until Tosen eventually reveals his resurreccion. He turns into an awful looking bug like hollow that’s lost all sense of humanity. He gains sight through this transformation though, and he uses it to call Komamura ugly. Real low blow. The main reason Tosen betrayed Soul Society is because his friend died when they were young. His friend was killed by a soul reaper and he never forgave them for the way it was handled. This rage and want for vengeance stuck with Tosen all this time and Aizen probably saw this in him and decided he could use him. The fight continues for a while longer and Komamura loses. He laments that he is unable to cut down his friend, but fortunately Hisagi is less soft. He stabs Tosen in the back of the head and then calls his Shikai, slashing Tosen’s throat. He says that the real Captain Tosen would have seen this attack coming. As Tosen lays there, wounded, he eventually turns into a bloody mist, causing Komamura to rage at Aizen.
Reap, Kazeshini.
In the meantime, Aizen has been fighting against Shinji who reveals to also command hypnotism powers. He causes his victims’ senses to get all warped, making them confuse up and down, left and right, and in front and behind. He gets a little bit of damage in, but Aizen soon figures out the trick behind his ability and it no longer works on him. His Kyoka Suigetsu’s hypnosis is even more powerful than Shinji’s ability and the Visored is no match for Aizen. It is at this point, right before Komamura is about to lose his composure and right before Aizen is about to beat Shinji, that Ichigo shows up behind Aizen to attack him. Unfortunately, Aizen was prepared for a surprise attack and has a shield of sorts up behind him. Is this man prepared for everything? The answer is yes. He’s stupendously strong and can defeat anyone who wishes to challenge him. It’s at this point where Aizen stopped being an interesting villain and started to become a meme. This becomes more clear later on, but for now he’s the personification of everything going “According to Keikaku”
He said the thing!!!
All of the remaining fighters show their support for Ichigo, who is the only one unaffected by the hypnosis. Aizen decides to go all out at this point and almost immediately defeats Komamura, Rose, Love and Lisa. The remaining fighters give him a run for his money and after some very impressive on the spot teamwork they deal a serious blow to Aizen. Only for Ichigo to yell at them, as they’ve been fighting Momo all this time, with Toshiro impaling her on his sword while Aizen walks out of the barrier that Iba and Kira had set up, slashing them both. Toshiro loses his composure at this point, which is understandable. What follows is a bloodbath in which Toshiro, Kyoraku, Soi Fon and Shinji are all cut down. All that’s left now is the Captain Commander: Yamamoto Shigekuni Genryuusai. The strongest Soul Reaper of the past 1000 years and his brutally powerful Zanpakuto; Ryujinjakka.
I’ve always hated how underwhelming Yamamoto was in this arc.
Remember how Aizen planned for everything? It turns out that Wonderweiss was modified to have no personality, no memories, no intelligence, no speech but the sole ability to seal the powers of Ryujinjakka. In doing so, he forces Yamamoto to fight the arrancar without his Zanpakuto, but the man hasn’t been in charge for a thousand years for no reason. He easily defeats the poor arrancar. Aizen reveals that all the stolen power from Ryujinjakka will now explode and Yamamoto has to sacrifice his body to make sure the barrier and the people living outside of the replaced Karakura don’t get barbecued. Now all that is left are Aizen, Ichimaru and Ichigo. Things aren’t looking good right now for the Soul Society gang. Even with all these issues, Yamamoto retaliates against Aizen once more as he’s about to be taken out by the traitorous captain, giving Ichigo an opening to fire his Getsuga Tenshou at Aizen. What a cliffhanger.
As cool as it looks, this is nearing double digits of “moments it seemed like Aizen was doomed while he really wasn’t.”
And that is where I’m going to end this recap. With teaching classes and attending uni and on top of all of that a new anime season starting up and me having to navigate what’s good and what isn’t and which shows I end up watching, I simply haven’t had the time to watch everything I wanted to. Next week I hope to finish up this arc, it’s only a couple episodes left, and then I’ll leave the fullbringers arc for later. Fullbringers aren’t super interesting and I’ll put a quick reminder about them in my next post, but it’s fine to keep that information waiting until a handful of episodes of the new season are out. It’s so close now, even though I know it’s probably not going to reinvent the genre, I’m still excited for more Bleach! See you here next time!
When people talk about Bleach, they often mention the Hueco Mundo arc as the point where the story started slipping in quality. I have to say that although I am still definitely enjoying myself watching this, it’s not nearly as cool as the Soul Society arc or even the early Arrancar Invasion where the Visoreds and the Espada were being introduced. The Privaron Espada in this arc feels like filler and although this next bit only becomes obvious with hindsight; Nel’s character feels like it’s been wasted. That will become a theme for Bleach, where characters end up feeling like they didn’t live up to their potential. But let’s not dive straight into that, and start by going through the fights in this arc one by one. Besides fights, there’s not a lot that happens so I’m going to talk about them one by one, instead of chronologically since the anime jumps from fight to fight regularly. Today we’ll be covering up until episode 167, the last episode before a lengthy filler arc.
Don Bloodsplattery
After the gang splits up, Nel follows Ichigo down one corridor, the two of them quickly encountering Don Perdoni. He seems like a goofy character but ends up revealing he’s a fairly powerful opponent. It turns out all the arrancar with three numbers are called Privaron Espada. They used to be Espada before they were dethroned. I don’t care much for these characters and these fights, they feel like filler to me. Ichigo and Perdoni fight, the latter driving Ichigo all the way to his limit and having to use his hollow form here, even though he wants to save it for the Espada. Nel shows there’s more to her than meets the eye by reflecting Perdoni’s Cero. After defeating Perdoni they heal him up a little bit and he drives them away by attacking them again. It’s then revealed that he did so since the execution squad is about to show up, sent by Szayelapporo. He is presumed dead after this fight.
Ishida is joined by Pesche, who is looking for Nel but fails to find her. The two end up fighting against another Privaron Espada; Cirucci Sanderwicci. I feel like her name is supposed to translate to Thunder Witch, but I can’t help but see it as sandwich and it makes it hard to take her seriously. This fight allows Ishida to show off his Seele Schneider, his bladed weapon made of vibrating reishi. He defeats Cirucci who is also found by the execution squad shortly afterwards. Ishida moves on.
The dream team
Sado is off fighting Gantenbainne Mosqueda, a boxing type Privaron Espada with an afro. The two exchange blows and Sado shows off his newfound powers. It turns out the arm he’s been using all this time was a hollow power and it was a defensive power. His other arm grows hollow armor too and with his new el diablo arm he defeats Gantenbainne with ease, leaving a skull shaped crack in the walls behind him. Moments after he wins the fight, Nnoitora shows up and defeats Sado in one hit after he fails to do any damage with his own punch.
I think this might be the only opponent that Sado ever defeats of note.
While all of this is happening, Rukia has been approached by the ninth Espada, Aaroniero. Aaroniero is two Hollow skulls in a test tube masquerading as a person. They reveal to actually be Shiba Kaien, Rukia’s old Lieutenant and the man she had to kill when a Hollow had taken over his body. Rukia struggles but after she slowly figures out that Shiba Kaien’s heart’s not in the creature, but with her instead, she deals a fatal blow. The fight ends in a tie and it’s reported to the other espada that both Aaroniero and Kuchiki Rukia have died. This information quickly gets relayed to the rest of the party, who are all in disbelief.
It’s definitely not an Espada pretending to be Kaien
Ishida and Pesche join up with Renji and Dondochakka, who are struggling against the eight Espada; Szayelaporro Granz. Szayelaporro is able to cancel out Renji’s bankai as well as some of Ishida’s abilities. The two devise a strategy and after Renji distracts the espade enough, Ishida attacks with a large explosion and the two in. Except that’s not how it goes. Szayelaporro is definitely hurt from the attack but after absorbing one of his subordinates he fully recovers. Fortunately, he’s a very vain person and goes away to change into new clothes, leaving Renji and Ishida time to recover.
It’s everyone’s favorite sad boy! I never understood the hype around Ulquiorra.
Throughout all of this, Ichigo has gotten entangled with two of the Espada. He first encounters Ulquiorra who reveals his responsibility in kidnapping Orihime. Ichigo and Ulquiorra clash with Ulquiorra winning with ease. Ichigo is shocked when Ulquiorra reveals to be the fourth Espada, meaning there’s three stronger Espada out there. While this is going on, Grimmjow kidnaps Orihime and brings her to Ichigo to heal him, so that the two can fight on even ground. Ulquiorra catches wind and tries to interrupt it, but Grimmjow locks him up in a special prison that might take him some time to get out of. When Ichigo is fully healed he starts his fight with Grimmjow.
We’re not quite done with this scumbag yet
And that brings me right back to the start of this post, where I talked about characters’ potential being wasted. I personally think that Orihime’s character is done dirty in this arc. Not only does she go with Ulquiorra to Hueco Mundo, which seems like the dumbest decision she could possibly make. His threat to attack her friends should hold no weight since Aizen wants to do that anyway, not to mention there’s no chance Orihime didn’t consider Ichigo would charge straight into Hueco Mundo to come rescue her. While in Hueco Mundo she almost refuses to heal Ichigo so Grimmjow can fight him. What’s the alternative? He just dies without a fight? Once he’s healed she’s scared of his masked form, even though at this point she should very much be aware of the Visored’s existence to an extent. She should understand that Ichigo training with Shinji and him having a mask now are probably linked. It just feels like she went from an interesting character with potential and amazing powers to a pure damsel in distress with nothing going for her. It’s a real shame.
Ichigo Vs. Grimmjow is an iconic Bleach fight
Eventually she does get a second wind and tells Ichigo to survive, which reinvigorates him. He uses this newfound vigor to deal a strong blow to Grimmjow. We get a little bit of Hollow lore. Gillian are formed through cannibalism and if a particularly powerful Gillian appears with a sense of self, they consume other Gillian to become an Adjuchas. Being an Adjuchas puts you at risk of regression, so you have to keep consuming. This is arguably the coolest bit of information from this arc. It really puts into perspective the kind of mentality that hollows need to survive in Hueco Mundo. They never really had the chance to be civil. Grimmjow joins a gang of hollows striving to be Vasto Lords, which we saw fight against Ichigo and his gang back in Karakura. And with a final clash, Grimmjow giving it his all, the fight ends with Ichigo the winner. Orihime is saved and Grimmjow is left on the ground, unconscious or dead. We move into a filler arc after this that I won’t cover. I hope this clears up the early Hueco Mundo stuff for everyone, tune in next week for the continuation! Thanks for reading.
I remember thinking when I first watched Bleach that the Soul Society wasn’t very believable. It was this authoritarian run place where the rich elite did whatever they wanted while the poor suffered. No branch of government seemed capable of communicating with other branches and half the people in leadership positions were basically sociopaths or downright violent idiots. It’s now 2022 and when I look at the ruling class in many parts of the world I’m starting to think that Soul Society wasn’t nearly as unbelievable as I thought it initially was. And it’s a good thing that Soul Society is such an uncoordinated mess because if not for that there is no way Ichigo’s group would have been half as successful as it was. But let’s not jump too far ahead.
What an absolute queen. The fact that it’s been ten years does not excuse me forgetting she exists.
The crew lands in what is basically the slums after going through a strange tunnel that connects Soul Society to the real world. We’ll see quite a bit more of this tunnel as the story continues but for it did its job. The gate into Soul Society proper is guarded by Jidanbo, a massive soul reaper wielding two axes. Without too much issue, Ichigo manages to defeat him and he turns out to be a pretty reasonable guy. A loss is a loss and he opens the gate for Ichigo and crew. Unfortunately they’re not lucky enough to just waltz into the premises. Instead they’re met with one of the Captains of the Seireitei: Ichimaru Gin. He’s a creepy looking dude who’s always smiling like he’s scheming something. His Zanpakuto is able to extend at rapid speeds and he pushes everyone out of the gate, firmly shutting it, without much issue. He doesn’t finish off the intruders though, I wonder why that is.
The gang is now in need of a plan to enter into the Soul Society proper, which is guarded by barriers that they need to get through. Luckily, Yoruichi has some contacts in town, one of which is Shiba Kukaku. I forgot about this character completely if i’m honest but immediately fell in love with her design again. If memory serves, she doesn’t appear much later on, but hot damn does she look stunning. Ichigo and the gang need to train with special orbs and pour their spiritual energy into them so they will help them pierce through the barrier. How are they going to be sent to the barrier? That’s simple, we put them into a massive cannon and just launch them. Sounds good? Great, let’s do this!
Ikkaku was my favorite character for a while in early Bleach.
After making their way through the barriers, all hell breaks loose as the 13 squads are on high alert because of these Ryouka intruders. This is where the severe lack of communication comes in handy, because everyone’s just doing their own thing, allowing Ichigo and friends to make their way through the streets fairly easily. Ishida shows off his new gears and bullies a soul reaper. Ichigo and Ganju, who is Kukaku’s brother and joined them to help out, fight the two joint third seats of the eleventh squad: Yumechika and Ikkaku. Ikkaku is a great character, he’s a brute with an awesome fighting style and Ichigo has a tough time against this opponent but manages to beat him in the end. Ichigo brings up Urahara during the fight and there’s a moment of recognition on Ikkaku’s side. We know that Urahara has soul reaper abilities and was rejected by the gate to Soul Society, and now we know that he is a known person in the Soul Society. Ganju beats out Yumechika with trickery and the two then head towards where Rukia is. Ikkaku told Ichigo where to find her, but later also tells Zaraki Kenpachi, the eleventh squad captain, where he sent Ichigo. They find a squad four member who helps them out through the sewers and before long Ichigo and Ganju find themselves in front of Abarai Renji once more, who is defeated by Ichigo after a drawn out battle. Renji tells Ichigo to save Rukia and we get a flashback of their past where it shows their life in the poor Rukon district before joining the soul reaper academy.
Renji gets bullied quite a lot this arc. It’s to atone for being a dickhead early on.
Meanwhile the thirteen captains aren’t sitting still either. Some of them are moving about town and trying to find the intruders while others seem disinterested or are just doing their own thing. Ichimaru Gin, who we talked about earlier, is also under suspicion of doing some treacherous things but we don’t learn much yet about what this could be. The meeting is cut short regardless because that is the moment where Ichigo and friends entered through the barrier. We do see some of the captains. There’s thirteen in total, as the name implies. I’ll go over all of them when they become relevant to the story, so for now just know that most of them are very cool and one of them has the same voice as Edward Elric and also gets made fun of for being short. He’s great by the way. Moving on, and bear with me since this post is getting long already.
This fight was so cool back in the day and, spoiler alert, still is!
Things escalate very quickly from here on out. First Sado runs into first division captain Kyoraku Shinsui and gets defeated easily. Kyoraku is a very laid-back person who doesn’t want to put in too much effort. But he recognizes Sado’s resolve and fights him seriously at the end, defeating him with ease. A moment after that fight ends he gets the news we as viewers already know. Aizen Sosuke, captain of the fifth division, has been murdered. We don’t have much time to process this as viewers because we dive straight into Zaraki Kenpachi fighting Ichigo, dealing him a grave wound in the process. But why does his Zanpakuto’s human form appear before him? This is the first good look we get into Ichigo’s Zanpakuto. From his flowing cape he summons a bleached (get it) looking version of Ichigo to help him out. They’re working together, with the old man being called Zangetsu and the other Ichigo seeming to have their own will yet also being a part of Zangetsu. After this second wind Ichigo pushes Kenpachi quite a bit and the latter has to remove his eyepatch. Keep in mind he’s supposed to be the strongest captain of the strongest squad. So barring Yamamoto Genryuusai he’s probably the strongest Soul Reaper in the Seireitei. Either way, his second wind isn’t enough to secure the victory and instead the fight ends up in a draw.
It’s the artist formerly known as Zangetsu! He’s here to personally help our boy Ichigo out!
Next up we see Ichigo retrieved by Yoruichi who reveals her (that’s right, her) real form. Turns out she’s a very attractive woman and former leader of the stealth squad. Ichigo then runs off to help Hanataro and Ganju fight against Byakuya but before he’s allowed to do so, Yoruichi intervenes. Due to her interference and Ukitake being present, the worst case scenario is avoided. Ichigo now starts his training to unlock his Bankai, the second state of release that a Zanpakuto has. Elsewhere, Ishida uses his trump card to fight the captain of the twelfth division, Kurotsuchi Mayuri, defeating him but giving up his powers in the process. After being given the antidote to Kurotsuchi’s poison he goes towards Rukia but is quickly defeated by the captain of the ninth division, Kaname Tosen. With Sado, Ganju, Ishida, Inoue, Rukia and Renji all caught in some way by the Soul Reapers, we start the second leg of this arc. I wanted to cover quite a bit in this post because things quickly ramp up from here on out. I’ve left out a few details that I will talk about in the nex post, it just makes more sense to move these around a bit. Thanks for taking the time to read this and I’ll see you next week for the next installment!
One of the coolest characters in this show. No doubt about it.
Hello and welcome to the second installment of my series on the anime Bleach. If you missed my introduction you can find it here. You can skip it if you’re just here for the recaps and don’t care about my sappy introduction but I would appreciate it if you checked it out as well. Today we’re going to be talking about the first part of bleach, spanning the first 20 episodes of the anime. Like any good story, we start at the beginning. The first arc of Bleach mainly covers the basics and introduces us to the cast of characters. I’ll quickly go over the story and then I’ll talk about each of the characters and their powers a little bit, because that’s the important part.
Kurosaki Ichigo and his inconveniently large sword.
Kurosaki Ichigo is a high school student with orange hair, who is able to see ghosts and spirits. He has a father who is a doctor and two younger sisters. His mother died tragically when Ichigo was still young and during this first arc it is revealed she was killed by a rather infamous Hollow; Grand Fisher.
The one who set everything in motion, Kuchiki Rukia.
Ichigo then meets Kuchiki Rukia, a soul reaper, or shinigami. Rukia is wounded and grants him substitute soul reaper powers so that Ichigo can protect his family in her stead. After this fight she stays around. The story then follows Ichigo and Rukia as they fight several Hollows. Eventually Rukia is apprehended by two soul reapers from the illustrious Soul Society. Abarai Renji and Kuchiki Byakuya. Rukia is to be retrieved and put on death row in Soul Society. This first arc ends with Rukia gone and Ichigo gravely wounded. Now it’s up to him and his friends to solve this. Speaking of his friends, let’s introduce the characters I’ve not mentioned yet.
On introduction, Ishida is this very cocky guy who hates soul reapers, but he’s actually a good guy.
Uryuu Ishida is a classmate of Ichigo and is a quincy. Early on in the story we do not learn a lot about what the quincy are, but we get a few tidbits. The quincy are a group of humans who kill hollows. They were at odds with soul reapers and were eradicated a long time ago. It seems like Ishida’s master was able to avoid this. Quincy use a bow that is created from a cross to fight hollows and kill them, whereas soul reapers purify them. Ishida is fairly arrogant and challenges Ichigo to a duel by using Hollow bait. This quickly gets out of hand and leads to the two of them fighting a Menos, which is a huge and terrifying Hollow.
Sado always worries about others before worrying about himself. He’s the definition of a Chad.
During this fight, Yasutora Sado (Chad) awakens his own powers. His arm is coated in a strange armor and he goes from being able to see a vague shape of the hollows to seeing them fully. He already has beastly strength as is demonstrated early on, but he’s a kind soul. His arm makes him even stronger. The armor looks similar to the material a Hollow’s mask is made out of, and it’ll be no surprise to hear that the power has a somewhat similar origin. Also, both Sado and the Hollows have a Spanish origin, with the Hollows coming from a place called Hueco Mundo.
Unfortunately Inoue becomes more and more annoying as the show continues and is frustratingly powerless most of the time.
Another classmate of Ichigo, Inoue Orihime, awakens to strange powers as well. Her hair ornament turns into six small fairies. The fairies each have a name and a power. Three of them make a shield that protects something and rejects everything outside of the shield. Two of them can reject things inside a shield, which amounts to healing power and rejecting damage. The final one rejects things on both sides, basically counting as an attack of sorts. It’s not really explained too well where this power exactly comes from. The fairies say it’s because Ichigo’s spirit power rubbed off on her, but in my opinion it’s one of the more wacky powers in the show. Either way, this power allows Orihime to protect her friends and defeat the Hollow that’s attacking the school.
Captain Kuchiki Byakuya and Lieutenant/Vice Captain (both names seem to be used in the subs I have) Abarai Renji.
Let’s talk about the remaining characters really quickly. Abarai Renji and Kuchiki Byakuya are both sent by the Soul Society to retrieve Rukia from the human world. Renji and Ichigo are fairly evenly matched in a fight but Byakuya is so much more powerful than the both of them that Ichigo is on the ground bleeding out before he realizes what’s going on. Urahara Kisuke is a local vendor who is probably more than he looks, he helps out here and there but mainly just watches as things happen. He has Soul Reaper powers as well, but isn’t shown to use them. Tessai, Ururu and Jinta are working with him at his store as well. He also has a black cat named Yoruichi, who is able to talk.
The entry into Soul Society rejects Urahara.
Urahara trains our protagonists to get ready to enter Soul Society. Where Ishida is off on his own training his quincy abilities, Ichigo is approached and healed by Urahara and his group. He’s now a normal human again. Urahara has absolutely zero chill when it comes to training and it’s rough right from the start. Sado and Orihime are approached by Yoruichi (the black cat that’s friends with Urahara) and the cat leads them to where Ishida is training. They want to help out too and improve their budding spirit powers. Ishida works better on his own though, and he has some secrets of his own. Seeing the two of them definitely motivates him though.
The squad in all its glory. The fate of Rukia is in the hands of these teenagers. I’m sure everything will go great.
And there you have it, a summary of the first 20 episodes of the Bleach anime. The gang’s all ready and powered up to travel to the Soul Society and get Rukia back. I’m sure things will go swimmingly when they arrive and there won’t be any roadblocks. But all of that is for the next installment of this post, when we’ll be talking about the next arc that follows our heroes into Soul Society. I hope this is helping you all up to speed, I’ve been having fun rewatching this show so far and I’m looking forward to the rest of it. Thanks for reading and see you all next time! Leave a like or comment if you enjoyed it.
Opal Kaharis 