The upside of writing these recaps every week is that if I have to remind myself how the previous episode ended I can just go back to the last paragraph I wrote last week. I forgot that the episode ended with Ranpo in trouble. I’m sure he’s not actually in trouble, but he wasn’t in a great place. I think I’m watching too many shows this season. I have trouble keeping up with some of them. I’m no longer a teenager with unlimited free time. There’s enough going on that when I turn on an anime episode I don’t want to be confused. Next season I’ll have to be a lot more selective about what I watch. Putting that aside, let’s dive into this week’s episode and see where it takes us.
Ranpo and the police officer have a battle of wits, each of them thinking they are smarter than the other. Except one of the two is correct in their assumption. Now I don’t know what Ranpo has planned for when the police officer will do something violent, assuming that happens, but when it comes to wits he’s definitely superior. Ranpo explains the details of the crime and when the police officer says the stagewright was responsible he gets told he’s wrong. The stagewright was probably murdered before everything started. It was all a set-up for something bigger. Check-mate, Mister So-Called Officer, who smells of organic solvent.
Are we there yet?
We cut back to Fukuzawa who is starting to get worried about his new gifted friend. One thing that I always wonder about when we have subtitles is how names are decided. I talked a little bit about Zoro being named Zolo in the official translations in my One Piece Wednesday post from this week. A lot of the characters in Bungo Stray Dogs are named after real authors. Edogawa Ranpo being one of them. Yet the subtitles translate his name as Rampo. When I listen to Fukuzawa pronounce his name I can hear it with an ‘n’ but perhaps that’s because what I expect to hear. Either way, Ranpo left behind a clue for Fukuzawa. And when I say he left a clue, he straight up told him the answer. Ranpo follows evil cop Mitamura into an abandoned building. Remember kids, All Cops Are Bastards. Now that we’re looking at this scene, doesn’t Fukuzawa have a cane in the main storyline? I wonder if it’s the cane they find here.
It’s pretty impressive that Fukuzawa opted to look there so quickly.
Ranpo is in deep. There’s five armed soldiers in the building so he has no real way of getting out easily. This is where they were going to bring the gentleman with the cane. Miitamura has disappointed his superiors and to make up for it he caught Ranpo. They’re asking him to work for them. He still hasn’t explained who ‘they’ are though. Fukuzawa talks to Oda, who’s still imprisoned. He reveals the organization of ‘V’ kills people ritualistically. This is giving Fukuzawa some serious flashbacks to his own killings. I wonder if he was working with V or just doing similar work. If ‘V’ is the group that’s holding Ranpo that’s pretty bad news. I do wonder who the mustached man next to Fukuzawa is in this scene. This show is always full of small mysteries. That or I’m not paying enough attention. Quick reminder that Oda has always been cool.
Mitamura is trying hard to get Ranpo to join his MLM scheme.
Mitamura is still trying his best in convincing Ranpo to join them. He really is an annoying brat. Reminds me of some of my students in a way, except smarter. Don’t tell them I said that. Mitamura already goes back on his promise of not planning to use the gun. Ranpo gives him about three seconds before he gets taken down by a badass Fukuzawa. The latter is very much unhappy about Ranpo’s irresponsible way of acting. I gotta say I love this scene. Ranpo is so well aware of how clever he is that he seems to forget he’s still just a child. Fukuzawa telling him off really hits him to the core and he responds just like a kid would. I’m actually tearing up watching this scene. The poor kid was probably scared under all that bravado.
Poor thing, give him a hug already Fukuzawa. He’s lost so much so early in his life and he just doesn’t really know how to act properly.
After all is said and done, a guy with a cool hat reveals that the organization’s name isn’t pronounced ‘V’ but it’s the roman numeral for five. Oda gets his improved food, Ranpo sees the world a little bit brighter and we end the episode there. I forgot how talented of a storyteller the author of Bungo Stray Dogs was. His light novels as well, are some of the better light novels I’ve read so far. Very compelling and hard to put down. I was actually talking to a friend of mine the other day. I read both volumes on separate flights to go visit him. Good times. I digress. This episode neatly closes off the first mystery and I’m curious to see where we’re headed next week. But until then, I still have to catch up on like seven other shows, so I’m gonna quickly go do that. As always I hope you enjoyed this little recap and thanks for reading!
I haven’t quite figured out what makes someone a leader, but I think cool hats are an important part. I will get back to you when I have more information.
Also, I’m not going to speak about it, but there is an after credits scene. Don’t miss out on it.
It’s time for another season of Bungo Stray Dogs. I’ve read some of the novels and the first volume of the manga for this one, and I’m still hoping to dive into the entire story one day but for now let’s just have a look at what this new season of anime brings us. I’m going to be covering this show weekly so follow or like if that’s something you’re interested in. Let’s get to it.
Ranpo here looks like he should be voiced by Fukuyama Jun, but maybe that’s just the glasses.
The opening True Story by Screen Mode isn’t familiar to me, but it sounds alright. The animation and style of the opening kind of reminds me of the Monogatari series. Perhaps that’s just because it feels kind of abstract. We start off this season with a younger looking Fukuzawa who, to remind everyone, is the leader of the detective agency in the story we’ve seen so far. It does seem like he’s working alone at this point. His words, not mine. He’s on his way to a crime scene where someone allegedly got pushed out of a window.
Listening to the opening again as I’m gathering screenshots to put here, I do actually really love the vocalist’s voice. It’s the song that doesn’t quite do it for me though.
After talking with one of the investigators he comes face to face with Oda Sakunosuke, the presumed assassin. We know Oda from the second season where he, Dazai and a man named Ango would come together at a bar. The second Bungo Stray Dogs novel; Osamu Dazai and the dark era covers that story as well and is told from Oda’s perspective. Out of the two novels I’ve read, that was definitely the better one, Oda was a great character.
What a clash. Things went from 0 to 100 so fast.
We have a new character enter the room who immediately turns everything on its head. He calls out the secretary for being the murderer and Fukuzawa for not figuring it out quicker. That’s Ranpo right? It’s been a while since I last watched this show because it’s been a while since it last aired. And that’s Hiroshi Kamiya’s voice right? His voice is instantly recognizable yet he does manage to make a lot of the characters he voices sound unique. To make matters more complicated, Oda has had enough of being locked up on a chair so he decides to free himself and grab his guns again. He mercilessly kills the secretary that hired him and subsequently betrayed him if Ranpo’s story is right. And Ranpo is always right.
And just like that the murderer gets murdered. Ranpo is unfazed by all of this, which should be a red flag.
I remember now how fun of a character Ranpo was. He’s basically L from death note if he never listened to an MCR album. Hiroshi Kamiya adds all the flair he needs to it. It turns out Ranpo has no parents and got kicked out of school for being a whistleblower so Fukuzawa does eventually offer him his business card. The cheeky bugger then walks to the nearest phone he can find and immediately calls him to help him out with his lack of work or place to stay. I remember why I liked this show already. Quick sidenote, is it really a thing in Japan that you can store a phone or something in the sleeve of a yukata? I think that’s a yukata, I’m uneducated on this kind of stuff, I just know they look comfortable.
Cheeky bugger
If you haven’t picked up on it by now, maybe you have that type of colorblindness that doesn’t let you see any colors, or maybe you’re a dog pretending to be a human and you can only see gray tones. This show so far is more or less in black and white. There’s a little bit of color here and there but it’s mostly grayscale. I wonder if that’s going to persist through the entire season. I have no idea what this story is going to be about, contrary to the last two anime I followed along with. Fukuzawa has decided to drag Ranpo along for the day, which he must already be regretting. Just because you’re right, doesn’t mean you’re likable. Ranpo is extremely direct to the point that it’s kind of mean.
Hello well dressed lady with glasses 🙂
If we’re going to talk about annoying characters, a pretentious actor might be right up on the list. Although his idea of what’s boring and what isn’t is something I can respect. If the audience doesn’t like it, then it’s probably not good. The rest of the actors seem to be a bit more sociable. The girl that Ranpo ends up talking to is a lot friendlier though which makes her suspicious in my opinion. Chekhov’s gun and all that. To put into perspective, a lot of the characters in this show are named after famous authors. The writer knows their stuff about writing.
Now that I’m looking at her again, she looks familiar. Is she a character we already know from a previous season?
Fukuzawa is quickly starting to realize that Ranpo isn’t just some wisecracking kid, he’s just genuinely super smart. Not only that, he somehow thinks that other people grasp the same concepts. Also, weirdly enough the flashbacks to earlier in the episode are in color. Since we’re following along with Fukuzawa, maybe this is to signify that Fukuzawa isn’t seeing the full picture, hence the lack of color. When he thinks back on things with more information given to him by Ranpo, the full picture starts to form and we see color. Maybe those literature classes weren’t wasted after all? Who am I kidding, they definitely were. Moving on.
I see your true colors shining through.
With just spending half a day with Fukuzawa, Ranpo manages to figure out his entire backstory. Fukuzawa is angry, but he was the one that asked the question. This is the first time Ranpo is shaken. Rightfully so, a grown man just yelled at him out of nowhere. And right as they agree to work together, the doors to the theater open and the performance starts. I suppose this is the start of their detective agency. All in all a very solid first episode. I liked the way it was presented to us with limited color and seeing these characters again was definitely a good time.
Spy x Family isn’t on this list because it needs its own dedicated post. The second opening ‘Souvenir’ by Bump of Chicken is easily my most listened anime song of the season. They nailed it, like they always do!
Happy New Year everyone! I know this post only goes up on the second of January, but it’s the first one I’m actually writing in 2023. It is currently 10 AM on January first and I’m going to be in that optimistic phase for a little while so I might as well make the best out of it and do a lot of writing early on. I took December off from writing, only writing a couple things here and there. So now it’s time to get back into it. Other seasons I would split my quick reviews up into a few different posts but I’ve decided to just start making one post for them each season. Part of it is because I have a lot I want to write about and I don’t want twelve Mondays out of a year to be quick reviews and another part of it is that I didn’t watch that many interesting shows this past season, so it’d be one or two posts at best anyway. Putting all of that aside, let’s dive into the anime of fall 2022 together. As usual, none of these will contain big spoilers for the shows themselves, so feel free to browse through the posts.
Bibliophile Princess
Watching the prince enjoy chatting with another woman from behind a window. Poor Eli. She doesn’t have the social skills to figure out what’s really going on.
Coming out of the gate swinging, Bibliophile Princess has comfortably made its way into my top 10 anime of the year and will be featured in that list later this month. It tells the story of Eliana Bernstein, a nobleman’s daughter who loves books. She’s been engaged to the crown prince for a couple of years in a sort of sham engagement where she gets to read the books in the royal library while he gets to fend off other suitors that he’s not interested in with a good excuse. A few years have now passed and Eliana sees the crown prince getting friendly with another girl in the palace courtyard. She laments the fact that her access to the royal library might soon disappear as the prince might find a replacement for her. To her own surprise she’s more sad about this than she expected. The story follows Eli and Prince Christopher as their romance slowly grows. Misunderstandings and intrigue never outstay their welcome and as the show continues our main characters get more depth to them. If you’re a sucker for sappy love stories that really don’t have too much substance to them, then this is the show for you. It was definitely a guilty pleasure for me this past season and it’s a shame that it’s not rated higher than it currently is.
Bocchi the Rock!
Embodying the true introvert, the idea of doing some activity every single day sounds absolutely awful.
I’m not going to be the biggest advocate for this show. Hitori (Bocchi) is a young girl with pretty solid guitar playing skills. She’d love to join a band and perform with them one day but she has the social skills of an anxious worm. She almost accidentally finds herself joining a local band and the story follows her shenanigans with her new friends. Bocchi has severe social anxiety. The show does a really good job of portraying this, both in storytelling as well as in using wacky animation to really emphasize certain situations. By all accounts, Bocchi the Rock is a good slice of life show. But I couldn’t really enjoy the show. For starters; Bocchi’s anxiety is so well done that it sometimes started to give me flashbacks to my own past. My social anxiety isn’t terrible these days, but it used to be really, really bad. It probably wasn’t too far off of what Bocchi is like in the show. That’s not an enjoyable experience to relive. At other times I also felt like the show was moving too slow and in the busy November and December months I found myself playing some of the episodes at 1.5 speed, which is something that is normally only reserved for One Piece. For those unfamiliar with the One Piece anime, it often feels like a 24 minute episode covers about seven pages from the manga and realistically, that’s not even that far off. If you like good slice of life anime, then Bocchi will probably fit your taste. I didn’t really like it the same way I didn’t really like The IT crowd. I recognize its merits, it’s just not made for me.
I’m the villainess, so I’m taming the final boss
Aileen is definitely nailing the look of villainess, I love those colors and the design of her dress here.
We’ve had a couple of Isekai anime where a girl gets transported into a visual novel and has to change the outcome of the story now and it’s a genre that’s very hit or miss for me. A great example is “My life as a villainess” which I really enjoyed until the second season started and I was just kind of bored. I think the problem with this genre is that the initial problem can be very engaging and well written, only for the story to devolve into something much more generic that feels on par with mediocre Isekai shows. This time around, I’m the villainess manages to evoke that same feeling in me in less than a season. I enjoyed the first few episodes quite a lot. Aileen has to prevent the demon lord, who is the current prince’s half-brother, from going berserk. She works together with humans and demons to try and figure out this delicate situation. After the strong start, the following arc was incredibly boring. I just couldn’t find myself caring about the characters involved most of the time and honestly the only reason I remember the characters’ names at all is because of how generic they are. It picks up a little bit towards the end but I found that at that point I’d mostly lost interest.
Reincarnated as a sword
If a strange sword starts talking to you in the woods, it might be trying to get you to join a cult. I’m just saying, you have to be wary in these situations. This particular sword is fine though, it’s just a middle aged bloke from earth.
Maybe I’m not a good judge of what anime I should be watching, but this season has been a nice big pile of mediocre shows for me. Of course I also watched a bunch of the exciting sequels, but we’re not here to talk about those. Reincarnated as a sword follows a man who, well, reincarnates as a sword. He turns into an excalibur-esque sword that’s stuck in the ground somewhere in the middle of nowhere. As he’s hoping to find a wielder, a young catfolk girl named Fran finds him and the two start traveling together. Fran’s goal is to evolve, which is something that catfolk rarely get to do. My main gripe with this story is that early on it seems slavery is a common thing but as soon as we get to the cities we see no slaves. There is no real elaboration of this system and it kind of feels like a plot device. Fran is a fine character, so is the sword itself, and the story never get particularly dull, but it also never gets particularly exciting. If you like generic Isekai stories with a twist you could consider this one, but if not, just skip it.
Shinobi no Ittoki
I wish we could have seen more of her story, she was definitely one of the more interesting characters in the show. but with a one-cour runtime, we had to mostly stick to the kids’ story
I was debating if I should talk about this show, but I decided to give it a quick mention in the end, before closing off this post. Shinobi no Ittoki follows a high school student who finds out that ninja’s are not only a real part of society, but his mother is the leader of a large ninja clan called the Iga clan. Iga has beef with the Koga clan and the story follows Ittoki and his friends as they get embroiled in a clan war between the two clans. The story has an interesting premise but pretty quickly lost me on its execution. It has some interesting characters but then there’s also some really annoying characters who picked their motivation one day and then just stopped to think about it. There’s a traitor whose betrayal is never quite explained well, there’s some strange things behind the scenes that seem to just be there to move the plot ahead and Ittoki just isn’t a very good character. All things considered, this is probably a show you should avoid. It’s interesting how polarizing this studio is. Studio Troyca, the studio that made this show, is also responsible for bangers like Re:Creators and Aldnoah Zero. On the flip side it’s also responsible for the second season of Aldnoah Zero and now this show. It seems like they have the winning formula, just only sometimes they make a show.
Just watch Chainsaw Man. And remember, it’s the quiet moments that make a loud show shine.
And that brings us to the final roundup of shows that didn’t make the list. Putting sequels aside, there’s a few shows I haven’t talked about yet. Beast Tamer was too bland to talk about. I didn’t hate it, but I’m fairly certain I’ll have forgotten it by early February. Chainsaw Man was very good, but everyone is already aware of this and if you really want to find out more about it I suggest you check out Gigguk’s latest video on the subject. Lastly there’s Isekai Ojisan, which was plagued by delays and has yet to finish. I believe we have one episode left and I will probably do an individual review on the show when it finishes, since I quite enjoyed it. Oh, and I will be talking about Spy x Family on its own later this month. There you have it. Let me know if there’s any shows I missed out on in my list that I should really check out, or if you disagree strongly with any of my opinions. But for now, I have a lot of writing to do as well as catch up on some older anime – I’m currently watching Record of Ragnarok – so I’ll leave it at this. Thanks for reading and leave a like or comment to make my day!
It’s the end of the year. I hope everyone had their fill of amazing food during Christmas and is ready for the new year. I love the new year because it feels like a new start. I’m well aware that half the things I promise I’ll do better or more off will fall to the wayside by mid-January, but it’s still exciting. Also, I have eight full days off starting on the first of January so I’m hoping to at the very least get a head start on some writing. I have big plans and I’d like to make it a month or two before it all collapses. All that aside, before the year is over we still have two more episodes of Bleach to go over. I’ll write some of my thoughts down here and give a quick opinion on the first cour at the end. Without further ado;
This point in time paved the way for the entire story of Bleach.
How old is Isshin supposed to be here? Seeing that Masaki is still in high school. Should we just continue to ignore the fact that soul reapers are like 10x the age of humans and quincy? Probably for the better. We get a quick glimpse of ol’ hat-and-clogs in the human world bumping into Masaki before the opening theme greets us. Remember how part of the Hollow latched onto Masaki? I would wager good money that’ll be a problem in the near future. To oversimplify Urahara’s long exposition; Isshin has to live in a gigai in the human realm for the rest of Masaki’s life to protect her. Ryuken is understandably unhappy with this, but there is no other choice. Of course Isshin is an absolute chad and has unwavering resolve, so the problem gets solved quickly. This does make Ichigo a mix of quincy, soul reaper, hollow and human. The ending plays before we learn more about Masaki’s death.
This was such a massive reveal in the manga.
It turns out that Masaki should have been fine against Grand Fisher, but she lost because of Yhwach stealing everyone’s power. Basically, Yhwach killed Masaki and Katagiri, both Ichigo and Uryuu’s mothers. I’m starting to think this Yhwach guy is kind of a dick. This brings me to another big issue I’ve had with Bleach for the longest time. Their major villains never have a goal I understand. I’m sure it’s something other people can argue for, and that’s fine, but both Aizen and Yhwach feel like bad guys for the sake of being bad guys. I much prefer more human villains. This is why Pain from Naruto was such a great villain. You could empathize with him and he even got his redemption. I feel like too many shonen villains become psychopaths without redemption. Maybe that’s just the whiplash from finishing God of High School which has a great villain who is very flawed in the way that he’s supposed to be flawed. Either way, we move on to the final episode of this first out of four cours of Bleach.
Professional Douchebag: Yhwach
Ichigo gets picked up and put back in the zanpakuto jail. Time to pick up a new weapon. We jump back to the rest of Soul Society for a training montage. Poor Toshiro finally completed his bankai before getting it stolen. Kensei is going to teach Shuhei to get a Bankai with the help of Mashiro. I love how one of them is a lieutenant and Mashiro is a super lieutenant. Shuhei still cares for Tosen, who is not a great role model. We jump again, this time to squad twelve where Akon looks in on his captain creating a new Zanpakuto. Next jump brings us to Omaeda who tries really hard to not make his little sister cry. He feels a bit sad because Soi Fon didn’t bring him with her for training. Next jump brings us to Komamura speaking to his Clan Elder. There’s a secret technique to learn but he’s undeserving. After jumping around between captains it’s time for Ichigo to say goodbye to Zangetsu.
The real Zangetsu is here.
So the Asauchi used to make Ichigo’s Zanpakuto is his inner Hollow, which is the White Hollow created by Aizen. His old Zanpakuto wasn’t an Asauchi but a pretender. Who’s that old man? It’s Yhwach. There’s the plot twist of the century. Ichigo’s Soul Reaper powers were actually the slumbering Yhwach. Why did nobody notice this? Why did no one question his lack of real Zanpakuto? There are so many question marks but at the very least I feel like the explanation of Ichigo’s weapon is a lot more clear this time around. In the manga I was far more lost. This means that the person responsible for Ichigo’s mother dying as well as many deaths in the Soul Society is also the one who fought with him from the majority of Bleach’s runtime. That feels weird to me. Yhwach also says he’s not really Yhwach and not really an enemy. It all feels a bit contrived. Why does this version of Yhwach feel bad about having to kill Ichigo, while he killed many people without a moment’s hesitation. Maybe it’s me, but it feels poorly thought out. Zangetsu Yhwach sees Ichigo as his son and so does regular Yhwach, but the latter doesn’t quite show it. It’s time to say goodbye to the fake Zangetsu and say hello to the real Zangetsu. That’s right, it’s two blades this time around. One for each Zangetsu. That would have been a pretty cool reveal if it wasn’t in the opening from the very first moment. I hope that anime only viewers missed it, but you can oh-so-clearly see two swords in Ichigo’s hands during the opening and it bothered me a ton.
I’ve got swords, they’re multiplying.
Before we finish up, there’s one more reveal. Uryu has decided to side with the man who killed his mother and was instrumental in hurting many of his friends. And with that the first cour is over. I’ve enjoyed it more than I expected. It still feels contrived at points, but it was great seeing a young Masaki brought to life in animation as well as seeing all the cool fights in this first part. There’s much more Bleach to get to before all is said and done, and I’m curious in what ways Kubo will improve on this story as it’s brought to life once. But for now, we’ll take a well deserved break from Soul Society. Thank you all for reading these weekly posts and I hope you all join me in a few months when we pick it back up!
It’s time for Bleach! I’ve got a raging headache and a ton of other work and writing to do right now, so let’s dive into it quickly and not waste too much time. We continue where we left off last week, with Ichigo headed to Soul Society. At least that’s the message being spread, they don’t seem to know that Ichigo is having some problems. Just as I’m saying that, Akon figures out that there’s interference, but it might still serve as a nice boost in morale. Jidanbo looks to be brainwashed and attacks the twelfth squad. Still, Rukia has faith in Ichigo.
Jidanbo’s clearly being controlled by someone.
I just realized that the opening song reminds me of Asian Kung-Fu Generation a little bit. Same vibe, more modern.
And just like that, one alphabet warrior down.
Quilge’s “J” stands for jail. Luckily the gang is saved from him by a mysterious stranger. We cut back to pretty boy Byakuya struggling against Äs Nödt. I know talking is a free action in anime, but laying out your plan while the enemy is staring you down might not be smart. I did expect Äs Nödt to have a more feminine voice when I read the manga. Their power is to inflict fear in their enemies. As someone already suffering from anxiety this power wouldn’t work against me. Can’t be more anxious than this am I right? Just me? True fear has no cause. Have some chill, Kubo. You’re scaring me. I suppose that’s the point. Byakuya is not looking too hot, I’ll tell you that much. And now Äs nödt even brings out Senbonzakura against Byakuya. This fight isn’t even close to being fair. And there we go, another iconic panel from the manga. Byakuya, Renji and Rukia are all down and out.
Rukia looking adorable here.That loooks like it hurts.
Not every captain is struggling as much with their fights. Zaraki Kenpachi has swiftly defeated Stern Ritters Q, R & Y. He came to party and won’t take no for an answer. He attacks Yhwach. Time to check in on Ichigo. Yeah, he’s still stuck.
Kusakabe Chojiro’s Bankai
Hisagi is struggling against Stern Ritter “O” Overkill. He’s been going around killing over a hundred soul reapers and reveals he’s responsible for the death of Sasakibe. This claim summons a very, very angry Yamamoto Shigekuni Genryusai. Remember that he only failed to defeat Aizen because doing so would also destroy everyone around him. Stern Ritter “O” uses Sasakibe’s stolen bankai on the captain commander as if to disrespect the man once more after his passing. We now get some nice backstory for the two, the first time we see a younger Yamamoto as well. It’s very interesting to see how Yamamoto got to take the name Genryusai out of love for his subordinate. Being hit with the same man’s bankai like this must be painful. Especially since this clown of a Quincy doesn’t do it justice. Needless to say, “O” gets overkilled. Yamamoto pleads to slaughter every single rebel. Now that’s a morale boost and a half.
A young captain commander. “young.”Pure unfiltered rage.
Let me end this week’s review by once again reminding everyone how cool Kyoraku is. Seriously, he looks so badass here at the end of the episode. Oh, I won’t spoil it here in case you missed it, but there is an after credit scene this week.
Out of all the arcs that Kubo Tite wrote for Bleach, this is definitely one of them. The fullbringer arc leaves much to be desired. We leave the Aizen arc with Ichigo losing his powers and slowly being unable to see Rukia. The arc ends with Ichigo turning into a normal high school student and life just kind of returning to normal. Things are nice, and it was a nice point in the story to end it on. And then instead of doing that, or leaning on the massive cast of characters that we’ve already come to love this far into the story, Kubo decides instead to introduce an entire new group of characters that I really couldn’t get all too invested in. Before my rewatch I still remembered a ton of the soul reapers and arrancar, because they were so memorable. The visoreds were the same. And then we have the fullbringers who… I think there’s a kid with a gameboy. That’s the extent of what I remember. But putting all that aside, let’s get to reviewing this arc proper.
I am angry okay, about how bad this arc is.
Ichigo is now just a regular high school boy. He’s 17 years old, has a part time job, and is looking forward to his future. Meanwhile he’s being bothered by Ginjo, who also seems to have a substitute shinigami token. Right from the get go he’s an extremely unlikable character to me. While this is going on, both Ishida and Inoue notice something strange about Ichigo. Oh, and Ishida gets stabbed by a strange man.
That’s not looking too good.
Things are ramping up a little bit from here. Ginjo keeps pestering Ichigo to join his little club of Fullbringers called Xcution. It consists of Riruka, Jackie, Yukio, Giriko and Ginjo. They all have the strange power to manipulate the souls of things, allowing them to turn things they feel strongly about into weapons. They want Ichigo to become a substitute shinigami again so he can absorb their powers and turn them into regular humans. There’s also Tsukishima, who is the one that slashed Ishida and used to be a member of Xcution. Last time they found a substitute shinigami to take their members’ powers Tsukishima changed his mind and ended up killing the shinigami as well as the members who’d already given up their power. You’d think we would have heard about this already. On top of all of this, Ginjo tells Ichigo that he shouldn’t really be trusting Urahara. I remember the first time I was going through this arc and I actually thought Urahara might be a villain. I thought that would be such a horrendous plot twist that it would actually ruin the manga for me. Luckily Urahara turned out to never be a villain at all. It makes no sense for him to be a villain either. The only thing I could have seen happen is him harboring a grudge against the Soul Society for sentencing him to death, but he just doesn’t seem like the type. Moving on.
You don’t need to fully understand someone to trust them.
Ichigo decides to join the Xcution group to get his powers back. In the meantime Inoue also gets attacked by Tsukishima, but after she’s been cut there’s no wound. There’s only a strange feeling that Tsukishima is an old friend. Meanwhile Sado is training with Xcution as well. I never liked the changing of logic on how Sado’s and to a lesser extent Inoue’s power works. Sado had hollow powers but now he’s just a fullbringer controlling the soul of what exactly? None of it feel like it tightly lines up. Ichigo fights with some random puppets before defeating Jackie while fighting in Riruka’s dollhouses. As they’re training, Tsukishima attacks the Xcution base and they take a break from training to fight him off. Ichigo’s current form of Fullbring looks like a more boring bankai. That’s really all there is to it. Ginjo and Ichigo fight inside Yukio’s game console as the next part of their training. While they’re doing so, Inoue is being brought to the Xcution base. The scene where she’s talking to Riruka really highlights why I don’t like this arc. It feels like we’re starting from zero again, with all the progress we’ve made so far being completely gone. The guy propped up as the big villain for this arc is a bloke with a bookmark, and there are no real stakes except for Ishida getting attacked once and recovering from it. Going from the Aizen arc to this, and then after this to the upcoming Thousand Year Blood War arc just feels like it’s not well planned. Also, Ginjo is just an asshole for most of this arc.
In the background, Isshin, Urahara and Rukia are scheming something. Shouldn’t they instead be doing their jobs and deal with Xcution? You can’t tell me someone like Urahara has not been actively aware of their existence. Tsukishima cuts into several people and makes them believe he’s their friend until he starts to show up around Ichigo. Ichigo’s training is completed because Ginjo treats him like absolute shit and in doing so awakens his powers. Ichigo runs away from the situation in a panic. This is where he meets up with Ginjo, who explains that the rest of the fullbringers are now also under Tsukushima’s control. Things are looking quite dire. I would like to remind you that up until now in the story, nothing has really happened. Ichigo got new powers to replace his old ones, and Ishida was hospitalized, but that’s really it. This is just the set-up of a story arc. Which is strange since we’re at about 8 episodes left from the almost thirty. The pacing is all over the place.
If you’ve been cut, but there’s no cut, it’s clear something else is going on.
Tsukishima’s true power is revealed. He places himself in the past of other people making them fully believe he was always there as someone they knew. That’s what happened to all the people around them. Ginjo and Ichigo suck at evading their followers though and are promptly led to Tsukishima’s place. All his friends and family are there as well as the other fullbringers. Ichigo and Tsukishima clash after Ginjo tells him to go wild. It’s starting to feel a lot like Ginjo is dictating what is and isn’t allowed. One thing that isn’t allowed is for Tsukishima to have fun, since Ichigo is quickly overpowering him. That’s when Sado and Inoue show up to support Tsukishima. That’s gotta sting. It’s also worth noting that these episodes take about 5 or 6 minutes before anything new happens. I think that’s part of why this arc feels so awful. Nothing happens for a third of the airtime.
He was the bad guy all along
Things ramp up a little bit from here. Tsukishima has some sort of revelation and Ginjo gets stabbed by his power as well. Meanwhile Ishida is on his way to some place, probably where they’re fighting right now. Speak of the devil, there he is. And there’s the big reveal. Tsukishima didn’t cut down Ishida, Ginjo did. Both of them get cut down in one fell swoop. Ginjo wanted to awaken Ichigo’s fullbring so he could steal it all along. Looks like his plan was successful. So Ginjo was the one who stabbed Ishida, which is why he was bleeding in the hospital. Him and Tsukishima were working together from the start. Tsukishima cut Ginjo and the other fullbringers as well. Turns out they were all his enemies from the very start. So basically they found the hero who saved the entire world and had gone back to being a normal human. Got him back into the fight and hurt all of his friends only to kill him and take his newfound powers. It’s hard to believe an entire group of people is so awful. When Ichigo is at his lowest he gets stabbed from behind by a very familiar sword. Ichigo is way too far gone to realize what is going on. It makes sense, it’s been seventeen months since he’s last seen Rukia. Seeing Rukia again is such a breath of fresh air. It really reminds me how much I do not care for these Fullbringers. Give me back my fun Soul Reapers and Visoreds, thank you very much. Also, I said it’s a familiar sword that Rukia used, but it’s not, it’s a newly made sword by Urahara. It does kind of look like Sode no Shirayuki though.
He’s back 😀
This is a cool moment though. Turns out there’s some people who owe a big debt to Ichigo and are here to set things straight. Renji, Byakuya, Toshiro, Kenpachi and Ikkaku are here to provide support. As soon as he feels the heat, Ginjo goes on the retreat but Ichigo doesn’t let him. Ginjo stands no chance whatsoever. On a quick sidenote, it is very nice of Yamamoto to break his authoritarian rule for a moment to respect Ichigo’s contribution to their society. It turns out the reason there was a law surrounding Substitute Soul Reapers was for a reason. Ginjo is the first one of them to ever appear. Things heat up as Ginjo shares his powers with the other Fullbringers. Riruka is hesitant about it all though, good for her at least she still has some morals left. I do love that the fullbringers think they stand even a fraction of a chance with three captains, two former captains, three lieutenants and the guy that defeated Sosuke Aizen. It’s time for the big fights between fullbringers and Soul Reapers. I wonder who’s going to win.
Hype.
Needless to say, Kenpachi defeats Giriko in one slash. Small fry is accurate for sure. Renji casually knocks out Jackie as if she wasn’t even there. Toshiro abuses Yukio’s PTSD to have him drop his guard. Ikkaku… punches a kid for a while. Rukia and Byakuya both struggle against their opponents, with Byakuya even having to use his bankai to fight against Tsukishima. Eventually Byakuya prevails and mortally wounds the bookworm. Ichigo and Ginjo fight, with Ginjo explaining that the substitute badge is meant as a way for Soul Society to keep Ichigo in check. Ichigo brushes it off and says it’s not important. Ginjo can’t understand it. The fights continue and Ginjo and Tsukishima both die, with Riruka heroically saving Ichigo. Jackie and Yukio vanish into the world and that’s the end of that. I think that the thing that irks me so much about this arc is that the fullbringers don’t feel like interesting people until towards the end. We learn more about them in the final two episodes than in the rest of the arc. Reflecting on it now I think this isn’t a bad story per se, it’s just really poorly written. And on that somber note ends the Bleach recap. Overall I enjoyed myself a lot albeit way less during the final stretch. Now it’s time to take a break from watching so much anime, it’s been a lot. Thanks for reading.
Imagine thinking you stand a chance against Kenpachi.
I can’t believe it’s once again time for a weekly Bleach episode. It’s been so long since I experienced that weekly that it feels strange. We see Ywach talking to one of his subordinates who’s on the ground writhing in pain. From there we jump into the opening theme which is very pink. Not that I mind it being pink, it’s just an interesting choice. We see the soul reapers as well as the sternritter. We’re getting hints of some of the upcoming fights. If you want to avoid spoilers, don’t pay too much attention to the trailer since it’s absolutely full of them. On a brighter note, Ichigo’s window is repaired.
Not a single thought going on in that head. Compared to modern female characters Orihime really does fall flat in my opinion.
Everyone is just vibing, eating some bread, while Ichigo is still outside. Ishida still has a crush on Orihime after all this time. Some things never change. Ichigo returns. Akon relays the fact that Soul Society was attacked and one squad member died on the scene. The first squad was attacked by one single attacker, killing every single member of squad 1 in just over three minutes. This arc doesn’t mess around folks. Yamamoto is the only remaining member of squad one. That’s a very hard pill to swallow, these are skilled people. And on top of that, they have no idea how the attackers got in and out. Things are not looking good for the Soul Society.
Bonk, go to Soul Reaper jail.
There she is. Nel is back! She’s falling from the sky like nobody’s business. Turns out Hueco Mundo is in trouble. Ywach explodes some of the arrancar he took. After all, they’ve taken full control of Hueco Mundo. A little bit of backstory, but Halibel became the new ruler of Hueco Mundo after the war with Aizen. Turns out she survived the fight and fled to Hueco Mundo. Unfortunately for her, she has now been captured by Ywach and his troops. Back in the world of the living, Pesche joins the fray, landing right next to Ichigo and Nel. Sasakibe gets an honorary funeral with the captains and lieutenants in attendance. Well deserved, he’s served for a very, very long time.
Rest in peace.
Of course Ichigo and friends are up for helping out Hueco Mundo. Well, some of them at least. It turns out Ishida is still very loyal to the quincies. He can’t help save Hollows and Soul Reapers. He’s still a good guy though. Probably. Speaking of people who are probably good people, Urahara is here, listening in on another conversation he probably shouldn’t. The halfway card does make me wonder what happened to Halibel’s friends. They’re probably dead, but that’s such a sad story for the Arrancar.
That’s some pretty dope art, not going to lie.
Urahara takes the group minus Ishida to Hueco Mundo, where they find a walking army of Quincy as well as a sea of corpses. Things look horrible here. Pesche points out the blue flames they use that set everything on fire. The hollows never stood a chance against this army. Ichigo’s already forgotten about his fights with the arrancar and is now trying to help them. Here we’re introduced to Sternritter J: Quilge Opie. If anyone in their army looks like a proper nazi it’s this guy. What a freak. And as soon as he opens his mouth he just confirms that even more, giving them a choice to kneel and beg or die. One of the arrancar has a question, which is not appreciated.
Two of the most powerful characters in the entire series.
There are still some fighters left in Hueco Mundo. It’s Loly and Menoly, Aizen’s stans from way back when, who bullied Orihime and were beaten up by Yammy. They don’t stand a chance but they’ve impressed the sternritter. This entire part of the story is here to show how. While he’s monologuing his men are getting slaughtered by none other than Halibel’s friends: Mia Rose, Sunsun and Apache. Look at those abs. I mean, what? Ichigo and Nel are rushing towards the fighting. It turns out that the small fry of any army will always be the small fry. None of Quilge’s soldiers stood a chance against the stronger arrancar. Quilge on the other hand seems unbothered. His invite to their army is falling through though.
Look. at. those. abs.
We get a captains meeting with all of the new captains including the visoreds. Mayuri and Akon explain to the captain’s what is going on. The Quincy aren’t just killing people, they’re extinguishing souls. Ichigo arrives too late and Halibel’s friends are already defeated. We end on that somber note. And that brings us to the end of episode 2. Things are going really fast. The first episode covered 5 chapters and this second episode covered another 3 chapters. To give some context, this arc is a little over 200 chapters long. From what I’ve understood there are going to be three cours for a total of 48 episodes. That means every episode needs to cover about four chapters of the manga, which is quite a lot. Anyway, I’m very tired so I’m keeping it short, but I enjoyed this episode and hope to see you all here again next week. Thanks for reading.
We’re in the final stretch of it all now. If Bleach ended with this arc I would have probably rated it a lot higher than I currently do. Like many though, I still have hope that Kubo makes some serious improvements to the final arc. A lot of the issues people had with the Thousand Year Blood War arc was that the fights were chaotic, it felt very rushed and the art had lowered in quality. But that’s for a future time, when we start talking about the new episodes. Today we’re still talking about the original Bleach anime and the clash with Aizen. There’s a handful of episodes to talk about, but they cover a lot of stuff so let’s jump right into it.
Silly Aizen, that’s just a blow up doll, not a real person.
Ichigo finally hurts Aizen with a Getsuga. Aizen then reveals the Hogyoku to be embedded in his own body, quickly healing the wound dealt to him. He then goes on his famous rant about how everything in ichigo’s life that led up to this moment has been according to keikaku. He planned every fight, every encounter and every bit of growth from the moment Ichigo was born, because of course he did. He is about to reveal Ichigo’s parents’ past when none other than Kurosaki Isshin appears to shut him up. Isshin and Ichigo have a quick heart to heart before jumping back into action. Ichigo faces Gin, while Isshin steps up to fight Aizen. It’s unclear at this point in time if Isshin has seen Aizen’s shikai but looking at the fight that’s happening so far, it’s possible he hasn’t. Maybe there’s a chance still.
He’s still a very snakelike person.
Ichigo and Gin talk, and Ichigo is somewhat confused by Gin’s lack of having a heart. To put it in his words, he can somewhat sense what people are thinking when they’re fighting him, but Gin is the exception. I wonder what that means? The irony of Gin calling someone creepy definitely isn’t lost on Ichigo. Gin’s a talkative fellow. I wish his character had gotten more screen time up until this point. His sword can extend up to thirteen kilometers in its bankai. Did no one tell Gin that it’s not the size that matters, but it’s what you do with it? Then again, if what you do with it is to cut cities in half, then maybe it doesn’t matter. Ichigo figures out the dangers behind Gin’s bankai very quickly while Matsumoto is waking up in the background. While Ichigo and Gin are fighting, Aizen is busy making sweet love to the Hogyoku as Isshin watches on. I do love Gin’s fighting style here, he’s very cunning and does a lot of pretending to attack to make Ichigo wary and jump back without having to put in any effort.
No kicking of the cat please.
Ichigo gets pushed into where Aizen and Isshin are fighting and things get hectic until the man of the hour, inventor of the Hogyoku, resident sandal-wearer: Urahara Kisuke finally shows his face. Things are really getting serious now and we’re in the endgame. Urahara uses Kido as well as some tricks he developed to put Aizen on the defensive, but unfortunately it doesn’t do any real damage. He then works with Isshin to lock Aizen in place as Yoruichi pummels him into the ground with special armor. Unfortunately it doesn’t do any real damage. Starting to see the problem with this arc? At this point Aizen has transformed into a pure white looking creature. Not quite a hollow, just weirdly white and hairless. Gin and Ichigo have a heart to heart but Gin is disappointed by the fact that Ichigo doesn’t have a better mental fortitude. Matsumoto is on her way to the battlefield to deal with Gin. As she’s headed there, the fight with Aizen continues and he’s slowly being hit more and more by our trio of fighters. The craziest thing is that we see Isshin release a Getsuga. Like father, like son, I suppose. It cracks Aizen’s shell and he’s just goop on the inside. Aizen defeats everyone and transforms. He now has long hair. Man, if I could transform and regrow some of my hair I’d probably fuse with the Hogyoku too. Anyway, Isshin brings Ichigo with him to Karakura town and to help him train on the way there. Ichigo fights a fusion of his inner hollow and Tensa Zangetsu, a younger version of his Zanpakuto that’s there when he enters his meditative state while in bankai. They don’t want to teach him the Final Getsuga, but Ichigo is persistent.
It is spooktober after all.
Meanwhile Gin and Aizen have made it to the real Karakura, where some of Ichigo’s friends are waking up. They get stuck in a horror movie with Aizen slowly chasing them through the streets of Karakura while Gin goes off to deal with Matsumoto Rangiku, who also made her way there. Gin “kills” her and Aizen notes he can’t sense her presence. While they’re chasing Ichigo’s friends, Gin tells Aizen that he’ll handle it and puts his hand on Kyoka Suigetsu. He reveals that it took him decades to find out that this was the only way to counter the full hypnosis, as he thrusts his blade through Aizen’s chest. He leaves a small part of his sword in Aizen’s heart and expands it to blow up his chest. Aizen is about to heal up when Gin grabs the Hogyoku and runs away as fast as he can. Unfortunately, Aizen saw Gin’s betrayal coming and he was just curious what he was going to do. He reforms around the Hogyoku and kills Gin. It is now revealed to us that Gin once saw a group of Aizen’s thugs beat up Rangiku and on that day decided to kill Aizen. He spent all these years trying to find a way to do so effectively, only for his sacrifice to not matter at all in the end. Although you could say he saved Ichigo’s friends and Rangiku, is that really worth all those years of killing innocents? Gin becomes another name on the long list of characters underused. My problem with Bleach’s later story deepened a lot in this arc and it’s unfortunate really.
Imagine if this had ended it. In a sense it would have been such a great ending. Ichigo appearing ready to fight and Aizen already being dead and gone.
Gin’s sacrifice bought Ichigo enough time to finish his business with Tensa Zangetsu and he appears in a new form with his unconscious dad slung over his shoulder. His sword seems to be fused with his hand through a glove and he looks older. He did spend the equivalent of two months there, and he’s a teenager. They can grow up quickly sometimes, especially under extreme stress like this. After making sure everyone is okay, and letting Gin die in peace, he takes Aizen to the outskirts of town to finish their fight. Tatsuki remarks that Ichigo has no spirit pressure at all, which is strange to her because Aizen’s is so overwhelming. Gin notes that Ichigo’s eyes have way more power in them.
He’s here 😀What a legend.
Ichigo successfully dealt with Tensa Zangetsu. The thing Tensa Zangetsu wanted to protect all along was Ichigo. These inner arcs get a bit confusing to me in hindsight but I’ll talk about it later. Ichigo gets impaled by his sword but it doesn’t hurt. This is how he unlocks the final Getsuga Tensho, at the cost of losing his powers after this fight. He is now getsuga himself and he has black hair. He’s finally embracing his inner emo. Both Aizen and Ichigo are now at the top of their respective evolutions. Aizen still can’t sense Ichigo’s power though, and it’s not because Ichigo is weak. That leaves only one reason, right? Exactly, Ichigo’s power is so incredibly high that Aizen at his very peak is too weak to sense Ichigo’s power. This definitely pisses him off. And just like that Aizen ends. Not with a bang, but with one sad silent slash. Three hundred and ten episodes worth of chasing after this one powerful villain that was prepared for every single eventuality and in the end he can’t match up to one teenage boy.
The last bit of false hope he has left.
Aizen still stands up and recovers from his wounds as Ichigo is in the process of losing his powers. It turns out I lied a few sentences ago. It wasn’t Ichigo who defeated Aizen. He only set the stage. It turns out Urahara Kisuke set a trap from the very start. Because Ichigo weakened Aizen’s powers, the trap he set could do its work. The Hogyoku no longer recognizes Aizen as his master. And now, with Aizen sealed by Urahara’s trap, it’s truly over. Don’t mess with this Dagashi shop owner unless you want to be sealed for eternity. Everyone rejoices and we go into one final episode for this arc.
The end of Aizen Sosuke’s mad journey.
Seventh seat Yamada finally getting some respect for the things he’s been through is pretty big. No one seems to be getting out of this fight well. Hiyori is stable but unconscious. Kurotsuchi still has no chill, but his squad mates are more ballsy now. Urahara mentions Aizen is going to be judged by Central 46. It does seem interesting to me that there’s some sort of Trias Politica going on throughout Soul Society’s history and I’d love to learn more about it. As all of Ichigo’s friends are gathering around him, he collapses. We cut to Aizen Sosuke in his favorite chair. He absolutely loves his chair. He’s still a dickhead even after being restrained. He hasn’t lost any of his power after all and is still immortal. He could be a threat until the end of time. But for now, he’s locked in a prison. The fact that Hinamori, Hiyori, the Captain Commander and all of the captains came out of this fight alive is kind of weird. But that’s in the past. I am sad about Gin’s story. Mainly because I feel bad for Rangiku. But there we have it. Aizen is defeated, the world is saved and Ichigo loses his powers. It’s time to move on to the final arc of Bleach: The fullbringer arc. In my opinion the worst arc in the series, but we have to get through it either way. It’ll probably be 2 or 3 weeks before I get to recapping it since I don’t really want to spend too much time on it at once. Yeah, it’s that bad. But what do you think of Bleach so far? Let me know in the comments down below and as always; thanks for reading!
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!
As September is ending soon and it’ll be time for Greenday to wake us all up, it’s only fitting that this horrifyingly wild ride is also coming to an end. And what better way to do that than with a double length final episode. There will be a lot to talk about so let me not waste more time here and instead let’s dive right into it.
Maa truly is the hero we didn’t deserve.
The newly regenerated Faputa, alongside Juroimoh, gets ready to deal with the invading monsters. We get the opening music one last time. Since this is my final time talking about the show, the song used for the opening never really clicked for me. It’s fine, but I doubt I’ll remember it several months down the line. The cuts between present and past are still neat and I have no real complaints about the visuals. The title card for the final episode reads “gold”, presumably in reference to the golden city itself.
Look at those two being adorable together.
From there, we jump back into a flashback where Faputa and the interference unit first meet. The unit is broken and stuck in place when Faputa decides to stay near it. The unit is teaching Faputa speech. It’s also teaching her about value. I feel like Made in Abyss does this a lot, it explains important concepts very late. Often this seems to be on purpose and having once read the story before it feels a lot more sensible. But like I’ve said before in these posts, for my first round through this story I ended up being confused a lot. Moving on to Faputa being named, and her naming the unit Gaburoon, the princess’ guardian. Faputa means “the princess who won’t perish.” We see some of the early events from Faputa’s perspective. Her scary message and taking the stone are all a lot nicer than they seemed. She even makes a beast repellent for Riko and Nanachi, being too shy to talk to them directly.
She’s helping Prushka become who she needs to be, what a good child.
We cut to the gang traveling on Majikaja’s back, away from the danger. They’re on their way to confront Wazukyan. He’s spent all of his energy and is about to fade out though. He asks Riko if she’s glad to have come here, and she definitely is. He monologues for a while without really saying much that makes sense. He claims to just be an Abyss delver like them, but he wasn’t a good dude. He does ask them to take care of Faputa before he dies. Speak of the devil, a scream is heard in the distance and it calls the villagers to her. It’s the first time she’s doing this and the villagers feel a duty to go. The gang all get up on Majikaja’s back and they head to where Faputa is. Even Vueko is on her way there. She ponders back on the one thing she decided to do for herself and reminisces on her journey with the sages, going down the pit and into the abyss. The bad times weren’t all that they had, after all. As she’s being hollowfied she realizes she was still human all this time.
It wouldn’t be Made in Abyss without some nightmare fuel visuals.
We see that Juroimoh is straight up not having a good time. Several beasts are feasting on its body while Faputa is still confronting the dragonoid beast as Reg shows up for support. Faputa taps out and speaks to the group that’s arrived, saying she’s going to consume the villagers to help her defeat the beasts. It’s time for Irumyuui to finally be freed. Reg destroys the bridge that Wazukyan built for the beasts, cutting off their point of entry, while Faputa feasts on the villagers. Vueko thinks back some more, but I want to point out something here that’s been stellar throughout the show. The vocals kick in on the backing track for this part and it sounds absolutely amazing. Kevin Penkin did a fantastic job with his team and it really sells the important moments. And with a thundering screech the village comes to an end. No more sages, no more villagers, no more village. All that’s left is the abyss and a falling Faputa.
Faputa paying her respects to her new friends.
And there’s Reg with the save. Majikaja’s doing their best to bring everyone to safety. Majikaja sends their soul into Faputa to give them a final fighting chance against the crumbling city. It finally reaches a quiet and Vueko and Faputa face each other while the rest of the group watches on. At this point, they’re the only two who are left from the expedition in any sense. It’s bothering me a little bit that Riko is a 12 year old child. I’m sure she’s probably a psychopath in a sense but having to go through this many traumatic events this quickly seems like it would destroy any person’s mental stability, let alone that of a child. All her newly made friends just died and she’s still fine.
Vueko’s final moments.
Vueko tells Faputa about her mother, and how much they are alike. In a sense, Vueko is Faputa’s grandmother. The voice actress nailed this scene, Vueko sounds perfectly happy and sad at the same time. The voice cast for this show has been amazing all the way through. It’s hard to overstate how much value that brings. Faputa explains to Vueko that even after all that suffering and pain, Irumyuui refused to give Vueko over to anyone else. She was her value. And thus the story of a sad, abused and scared girl comes to an end. I can’t help but feel tears welling up when I see Faputa’s sadness. I had the same response when reading the manga. Even though it was hard to follow this arc, there were a few things that were clear throughout. Vueko was the most caring person among all of them, and her finally finding peace is truly a gift to the reader.
And thus the group gains one more member.
Only a second before Riko got the chance to do so herself, Reg invites Faputa to join the group. A gathering of fools, you’re not wrong Faputa. Having someone along for the ride that can hear Prushka’s voice is probably a blessing for Riko. And again, the song playing while all of this is going on is just hauntingly beautiful. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started appreciating the quality of the music and the voices so much more than I did back in the day. Animation is one thing, and for action shows it can add a ton of depth to a story, but a lot of times I feel like the manga ends up being better than the adaptation. The few cases where that’s not true, is where every aspect of an animated show is done with care and love and it just improves the entire thing by so much. Made in Abyss is one of those shows for me. A work of art from start to finish that takes a story that only feels half done and truly completes it. Thank you all for joining me on this journey into the abyss and remember that it’ll always gaze back at you, so don’t look too long. See you next time!
Opal Kaharis 