Bleach Chapter 581

So what do you know, the main character finally showed up in his own series again!!! Amazing stuff I know, but more on that a bit later.

The chapter starts out with Omaeda looking pretty damaged and carrying both Sui-Feng and his little sister, both of which are heavily damaged and unconscious at this point. As useless as he is, normally Omaeda would have no problem taking out the small fry that he was currently confronted with, but protecting two people with a heavy injured body can complicate things.

As a response Shinji and Momo save the day, annihilating the enemy instantly. Something that I would like to point out here is that all Shinji did was land and talk. It was in fact, the sweet, innocent little Momo that mercilessly incinerated the Sternritter leaving them to be nothing but a distant memory. Scary stuff indeed.

The best part was when Shinji, despite being as damaged as he was, was still able to be a total smart ass about everything and bring in some legitimate laughs to the scene.

(Shinji pulls off the best troll face)

Once everything calms down, Shinji makes the correct analysis, judging from the direction of spiritual pressure. The Bambi Slut Brigade was planning on killing off Zaraki while he was damaged. Upon this analysis, he decides that it would be best for them to scoot on over there the help Kenpachi out, but they were inevitably stopped by none other than Bazz-B.

This is undoubtedly a set up for a big fight. Who with? I’m not quite sure. Shinji seems to be having trouble moving at the moment and as I mention, Omaeda is pretty banged up himself. In a weird way, Momo might actually be the one who he faces off against in flame battle or sorts. The sheer destruction power of her initial attack was something certainly new and makes me wonder how powerful she has become since we last saw her. I think it would be a bit of a stretch to say that she would be able to defeat Bazz-B by herself. However, if she is able to perhaps harness his flames from his attacks and use them against him, she may be in with a chance. 

Bazz B also seems to notice the immediacy of the situation, straight out using three fingers to attack the group, when he spent the majority of the previous fight fighting with one or two.

Bazz B’s return means that Toshiru and Matsumoto are most likely dead, which is sad, but I doubt it will be the last of them. Perhaps someone quickly rescued them and Bazz-B had no time to chase after them.

 

Suddenly the sky lit up, with what seemed to be like several sound barriers being broken on Ichigo’s speedy trip to the ground. Ichigo promptly ruins this return by hilariously crashing straight into a building and completely destroying it.

At this point, everyone has noticed this new powerful presence on the battle field and they all know who it is. Ichigo’s strong point has always been his speed and he shows it off by traveling several kilometres in less than a second to be to Kenpachi. Scaring the living shit out of the BSB, very, very badass stuff.

Even though he is definitely powered up now, the cheeky bastard is still there inside of him, teasing Kenpachi about having to come and save him for a change.

 

So the main character decided to return to his own show after being away for just shy of a year now. Nothing really unexpected there. What I really liked about this return chapter, was that it was not entirely what I excepted. Return of the hero type chapters usually follow the following formula. 

1. Character returns leaving big visual evidence of the fact

2. Display some sort of power to show just how strong they have become

3. Retain strong determined serious face, no matter what the situation they discover, in a slightly out of character manner (for most protagonists anyway)

4. Proceed to fuck shit up with new power

Ichigo ticks most of these boxes, but what I liked the most is that he hasn’t let his new strength go to his head. He is still the cheeky, smart ass little bastard (figuratively speaking) that he was at the start of the series.

 

Kubo once again left us with another cliff-hanger chapter ending leaving endless room for speculation and predictions. Personally I am still undecided about who will face who. I still think it would be a waste from Ichigo to simply take down all the BSB before they could even think, and if he didn’t take them down quickly, it would make him look weak.

Ichigo’s first priority is the get Kenpachi out of there asap, and I think that is just what he will do. In short, I have no idea who is going to fight who. There is literally about 20 fight capable fighters either close to the fight, traveling towards it or are already there. Some of the injured from pervious fights that may now be healed. It will all remain to be seen next chapter.

(it would be a crime not to put this in)

I give this chapter a 9/10 simply because of the fact that Ichigo is back, it could have used a bit more dialogue to make it a bit slower to read, but apart from that it was a very enjoyable chapter all round.

- PandaSlayer

Bleach Chapter 580

At the end of last weeks chapter the Bambi Slut Brigade (BSB) was introduced and despite Kenpachi being weakened. I figured that he or someone else would make quick work of them. I could not have been more wrong. I suppose because of Kenpachi’s nature of walking off damaging attacks. My own self lead me to believe that Kenpachi would be more than capable of taking out these opponents. I was wrong.

To give credit where credit is due, Kenpachi was still able to almost strike down one of them instantly in a blow that I’m sure would have been fatal or close to it.

This chapter was mainly introducing the members of BSB and their abilities, adding a lot more to them than I thought we were ever going to see.

The first girl is Sternritter T, ‘The Thunderbolt’ with possibly the most stripper name ever, Candice Catnipp. Although not particular fast or skilled in battle, she has exceptional raw power behind her attacks. Blowing away large areas of earth and people with no real effort at all.

 

The second girl is Sternritter G ‘The Glutton’, Liltotto Rampard. This girl is flat out disturbing, literally eating her opponents resulting in one of the biggest ‘I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING’ moments I’ve had in a long time.

 

The third girl, Sternritter P ‘The Power’, Meminas Macaron and Oriheme’s long lost cousin, appears to be incredibly powerful. Although I do not full understand her ability just yet, I believe it is the power to generate objects at will (think green lantern) and crazy physical strength.

 

The final girl Sternritter Z ‘The Zombie’, Giselle Jewel with the runner up for best stripper name, looks to be the weakest of the group. Her power is relatively straightforward, if her blood touches you, she can control at will. My guess is that she has some sort of regeneration ability in order to negate the effects of needing to spread blood everywhere all the time. The reason I say that she is weak is that the main power fighters (Ichigo, Kenpachi, Renji, etc) are simply too powerful, too fast and too smart to let themselves fall for a predictable trap. It will work well on large masses of the Soul Society, but not on any decent fighter.

Out of the group I would say that Sternritter T and P will be the ones to watch. These girls have a crazy amount of power available and seem to be no slouch at general combat either.

By the end of the chapter squad 11 has been completely eliminated and Kenpachi is lying on the ground unable to move. Keep in mind that he has yet to take off his eye patch, but that doesn’t really do him much good when he can’t physically take it off.

The chapter ends with a bright light appearing in the sky and looks like skull in appearance, similar to the symbol on Ichigo’s hollow mask. This will mostly likely be the entrance of another character. At the moment Byakua, Rukia and Renji are just walking around with nothing to do, so they are a possibility. There is also the possibly that it’s Yachiru since she is still currently missing. Not to mention her ‘monsters’ seem like hollows in nature. Ichigo has been falling out of the sky for around 6 months now, but I personally don’t believe it will be him. We really don’t need someone THAT over powered for this fight. My guess is that it is the group from wako mundo consisting of Oriheme, Chad, Grimjow and possibly Urahara. This would explain why they are falling from the sky and why the light is in the shape of a hollow mask. Also, people being teleported into another world then falling from the sky is pretty much trademark Urahara.

Kubo isn’t stupid, so spending ¾ of a chapter on introducing each member of BSB to then wipe them out with one OP character the following chapter would be a total waste. Regardless, I think this is going to be a much better match up than the previous fight. 

I give this chapter a 7/10, great art, introducing some promising characters and leaving us with another cliff hanger once again, but once again, a little more content would be nice next time.

- PandaSlayer

Fairy Tail S2 - 06

This episode continued the Garou Knights vs Team Natsu fight once again. The episode brought us action, comedy but the episode was lacking in content.

Mira decides to join in on the fight when the situation looks to be a bit more serious when more enemies join in.

Contrary to my prediction, it was Mira that saved Wendy for the carnivorous plant, not Natsu, but he was still in a position to do so. When Mira used Satan Soul with her take over magic I noticed that it looks a bit different to how it used to look, coving a lot more skin and making her look tougher. I’m not really sure if I’m a fan of the change or not, but her forms have always been slightly changing in appearance so it was no real surprise. 

The next part of the battle was a little confusing. One of the executioners uses paralysis magic through her ‘card magic’ and then brings up yet another carnivorous plant. This is simply a terrible battle strategy, when you consider they could actually be defeating their opponent when they are unable to move instead of giving them five minutes to think a way out of it. In the end it was Wendy that saved the day by using her healing magic to cure the paralysis caused by the cards and allowing them time to get away.

 

Natsu being the naturally over the top guy that he is not only destroys the hungry flower in front of him, but almost all of his surrounds as well. Rather conveniently everyone gets separated by the explosion into their own 1v1 battles. Although I’m sure the Garou each chose which opponent they wanted to fight. Putting that aside all the battles seems to be evenly split up with each of them facing opponents that are tough, but not undefeatable. That applies of course to everyone except for the last group consisting of Yukino, Lucy, Happy, Carla and a half dead Arcadios. Between them all they have no real fighting strength without their keys and Lucy’s whip isn’t going to solve this problem.

 

Realising that they are all pretty much screwed against Uosuke with no magic both Yukino and Lucy find themselves dangling above lava and slowly coming closer to their death. Now here is where the episode redeems itself. The half dead Arcadios picks himself up, driven by his ultimate goal and wades his way across the freaking lava to save Lucy and Yukino. The fact that something as messed up as this is in a show like Fairy Tail suggests that Hero (the author) understand that his audience is ageing with the show and he is changing his show to suit.

 

As far as predictions go, as Natsu said that at least one of Lucy’s celestrial spirits are capable of summoning themselves like Loki, so its not like they are entirely out of options just yet. I’m looking forward to seeing what becomes of Arcadios next week after being such a manly yet stupid bastard and walking though lava. I think we will see more of the tournament next week, and some sort of progression towards a resolution with the fighting against the Garou Knights.

I give this episode a 6 out of 10. Not much actually happened in this episode but we are progressing and the animation was well done as always.

- PandaSlayer

Bleach Chapter 579

The first half of this chapter was nicely polishing off the Gremmy fight. At first I was annoyed to see Gremmy’s face again and really wanted to story to just move on. After we learnt more on how exactly he died, it seemed a bit more reasonable and I changed my mind. In short Gremmy’s body tried to imitate the power that Kenpachi held in his body in order to defeat him. Unfortunately for him he didn’t realise that neither his body nor imagination was strong enough to hold the amount of power that he contained (how badass can you get?).

Gremmy’s true form is reveal to be ‘a brain in a jar’….. I did not see that coming, although it did make sense in theory. Mr ‘Brain in a Jar’ was able to use his power to create a body of which he was known as Gremmy. This begs the question, what the hell happened to Gremmy previously for him to end up like that?

Something interesting to note is that Kenpachi’s sword reverted back to its previous Shikai state that he had been using until recently. This is obviously more practical, but it makes me wonder how someone can have two usable Shikai forms available.

Kenpachi has a little bit of a sour moment where he coughs up blood and makes a comment on how he was actually badly damaged in the fight. Since Kenpachi’s fight with Onohana he seems to have matured at become more mature in every way. This is present in the way that he acknowledges that he had been damaged. As usually he would have said something like “that brat actually put a scratch on me” when his arm was half hanging off and liver missing. For this reason I’m not really sure if the damage will effect him or not. The previous Kenpachi just laughed off wounds and got stronger no matter how bad he was, until he was unconscious. However since his battle with Onohana took place, his battle instincts have matured.

 

The part of the chapter that interested me the most was when we see that Yachiru’s clothes or at least her sleeve is laying on the ground. The obvious answer is that either Gremmy made her disappear as a final act of revenge, or the Female Knights (I’ll talk about them in a minute) or even another charter kidnaped/killed her.

I have a crazy theory so hear me out. The last chapter that we see Yachiru in is 577, on the same panel where Kenpachi says the name of his sword ‘Nozarashi’. After the battle both Kenpachi and his team were not able to sense her anywhere and that is very unusual. Even if the enemy took her Kenpachi and friends would still be able to sense her for a significant distance.

My theory is that Yachiru was actually the manifestation of Kenpachi’s sword, or at least something like it (don’t leave yet). If you recall the previous flash back when Yachiru met Kenpachi is also around the time that he forgot the name of his sword and given the fact that she was last seen on the page where he called the name Nozarashi. Plus the fact that her clothes were there but not her body and the fact that Isane was pointing out about how strange Yachiru’s Zanpackto was, it seems more likely. The only thing that makes me doubt this is that is draws to many parallels to the Stark and Lilnette relationship. Kubo is never one to do something even remotely similar twice.

In all honestly, I hate my theory, I think Yachiru is the balancer that has made Kenpachi such a good character overall. Not to mention that Bleach has become very, very dark recently and Yachiru has been the only comedic relief for a good 60 chapters now.

Ideally I would like the seen some of the Sternritter to have kidnaped Yachiru, hurt her enough to make Kenpachi angry (sorry Yachiru). Then watch Kenpachi absolutely lose his shit and actually get angry in a fight for once.

 

The last page revealed the ‘Female Knights’ or as I will call them, Bambi Slut Brigade. After previously killing Bambietta (one of their own) in a truly brilliant battle strategy, they make their appearance, but personally I don’t think they will be fighting Kenpachi. This is for two reasons first, he just finished off a weak enemy there is no need for another, and second, Kenpachi simply has better shit to do.

This chapter had a lot more content than previous chapters but was still lacking and took me no time at all the read. The wrapping up of the Gremmy fight was nice and we now have the mystery of what the happened to Yachiru.

Something I did notice with this chapter is that some of the art was truly amazing. It is clear that Kubo has been putting some serious time into his art and may be the reason why they are lacking content. Either way Kubo has come amazingly far from the drawings back in the earlier volumes.

I give this chapter a 7 out of 10, a good chapter but more content was need, but I will look forward to next week all the same.

- PandaSlayer

Fairy Tail S2 - 05

The episode begins with the announcement of the result of the Gray vs Rufus fight and Fairy Tail taking the lead in the tournament. The rest of the Guilds are not that far behind and many people still yet to go down, the results are still hard to predict. We see Sting resting against a wall not really worried about the results and still in shock due to the previous incident with killing his master and Lector’s supposed death.

We are then shown in a flash back that Minerva being the evil bitch she is decided to save Lector, but only to use him as a hostage of sorts. Her logic is that Natsu was able to defeat both Sting and Rouge due to his feelings towards his guild. She is trying to achieve a similar result by taking Lector away, but is kind of missing the point. Even though Fairy Tail does use the ‘power of feelings’ a little bit too much sometimes, it can logically make sense to a degree. Having clear focus of what you’re fighting for and why you’re doing it can help someone to concentrate better and wilfully push themselves past their usual limits.

 

The second half of the episode was mostly team Natsu vs the Garou nights. I say ‘mostly because it wouldn’t be an episode of Fairy Tail if there wasn’t any fan service would it? First Lucy gets stuck in the crevice in the wall because of ‘two’ certain disproportional parts of her upper body area. Natsu of course ignoring the obvious and being the smooth operator that he is says that she’s obviously gotten fatter, and then pulling her out.

The next part was of course the gold. You see, in Fairy Tail maximum fan service must be achieved no matter what the laws of physics might say. As somehow Natsu pulling Lucy out of the wall turns into her sting on his dam face….. damit it Fairy Tail, children watch this show…

 

ANYWAY….. I had to laugh and then agree with Natsu when the Garou Knights were introduced and Natsu laughs at them. All of them dressed like clowns and were not particularly intimidating for people who are supposed to be executioners.

Natsu and Wendy just go straight into the battle in a two vs two battle, and for the most part seem even in strength. Although I do think this was due to Natsu’s lack of attention and not taking them seriously. The group is naturally out numbered with only four capable fighters, one of which is Lily who has a time limit on his transformation time.

The episode ends with Wendy getting tricked by some illusion magic and subsequently being ‘eaten’ by a carnivorous flower.

As far as episode predictions go, Natsu will punch said flower into orbit 10 seconds into next episode and rescue Wendy. The fight will most likely finish next episode but it  is possible that the fight will be longer, as we have only seen three fighters abilities and I’m sure the strongest one is not one of them.

 

I give this episode a 7 out of 10. It was generally enjoyable and felt like a typical Fairy Tail episode.  We had the important reveal of Stings new motive and Lector being alive. The remainder of the episode was mainly setting up for next episode.

 - PandaSlayer

Fairy Tail S2 - 04

Episode four continued the plan of the two teams in the rescue Lucy mission. Switching between the two teams progression throughout the episode. Gray faced his opponent Rufus from the Sabertooth in a very interesting match and Lucy and Mira pilled on the fan service in the sprit of Fairy Tail.

 

After getting his ass handed to him in the first fight. Gray makes the brave decision of face off against Rufus again in order to redeem his pride as a wizard and himself. Rufus posses a very unique type of magic called Memory Magic. This allows the user to memorise magic and then use it either exactly the way it was memorised, or with a different ‘interpretation’. Meaning that it can mix different magic powers together. Another feature of this magic is the power to make the user ‘forget’ magic that they are using. Keep in mind this only temporarily makes the user forget their magic so that they cannot use that move or magic style for a while.

Gray initially has a hard time against this very strong magic that renders most of him attacks useless. As he uses a moulding magic the speed of memorisation of Memory Magic is increased due to its simplistic nature. After taking quite a lot of damage Gray realises the flaw in Memory Magic is the time it takes to memorise attacks individually. Gray uses his experience at crafting to bombard Rufus with so many attacks that he becomes overwhelmed with it. Rufus uses fire magic to quickly fend off Gray and allow him to rethink the situation. Unfortunately Gray has obviously become very resistant to training with Natsu’s flames and it subsequently has little effect on him. At that moment he uses his finishing attack Ice Bringer to quickly end the battle. This is one of my personal favourite battles as it shows the intelligent side of Gray’s fighting style as well as his perseverance. I personally would have liked to have seen some narrative on Gray’s behalf. Having Gray brake down and trying to understand the strengths of weakness of his attacks in his head would have made for a much more interesting fight, instead of the simplistic commentary that comes from the Fairy Tail team.

 

I noticed some significant character development from Juvia of all people. Even after seeing Gray seemly injured and on the losing end of the battle she resists the temptation to assist him. Powers on with her mission and believes that he will turn things around on his own. This may not sound all that big on first glace but once you break it down it becomes much more significant. Juvia and Gray are immensely powerful when fighting together and would have made quick work of Rufus due to the overwhelming power. She was also close enough to Gray to not interrupt her mission to heavily if she chose to assist him. One of the negatives of Juvia’s character was the constant GRAY-SAMA!!! that seemed to be the only thing she spoke and really dominated her character to much. This development showed both her genuine belief in Gray and her ability to prioritize. Despite appearances Juvia is actually a very intelligent person. Even when under threat, she is one of the best strategists in Fairy Tail considering all the factors of her situation in her actions. I really hope we see more of this side of Juvia in future episodes as she is a character with great potential.

 

The second half of this episode was far less progressive. It was more about fanservice than any real progression, which is most likely why it only took up 5 minutes of the episode. Happy and Natsu suggest that both the girls should pose in their swimwear in an effort to lure out the guards which untimely fails. I expected this pervyness from Happy but not Natsu, the guy normally has about as much sex drive as a limbless panda but it still made for some good laughs. Although rather pointless, the fanservice did a good job of breaking up the Gray vs Rufus fight with some laughs making it a well rounded episode.

At the end of the episode we see something that resembles a surveillance plant, suggesting something or someone is down there with them. Considering the previews, I think it will be likely the Team Natsu will fight a group in the dungeons next episode.

I give this episode an 8 out of 10 thanks to its casual enjoyably with a little bit of everything.

- PandaSlayer

Bleach Chapter 578

Bleach Chapter 578 was once again a hype fest. The chapter started out the way most expected it to with Kenpachi dicing the meteorite. It should be noted that  cutting it did not vaporise it like Getsuga or Cero would do, he simply reduced the damage of the impact. I suspect this will play into further chapters as large parts of the rock may have taken out important parts of the Soul Society/quince’s cubby house.

After cutting up the meteorite he states that “his sword can cut through anything”. Whether this is the power of his Shikai or it is simply a declaration of his power is unclear, but for the moment it does not matter.

To this Gremmy panics screaming at him calling his a ‘monster’ possibly out of fear. He then creates even more clones and subsequently increasing his power allowing him to create ‘space’. Which does a terrific job at tearing Kenpachi’s body to pieces, literally. At this point Kenpachi looks so badly damaged I was genuinely wondering how he was going to win.

Before Gremmy can completely seel him in the space Kenpachi reaches out and cuts Gremmy in half with ease. The only reason he was able to do so was because Gremmy once again lost his focus and forgot to harden his body. This is the same problem we first experienced when Yachiru’s bones became normal after Gremmy lost focus when fighting Kenpachi.

After cutting Gremmy in half, Gremmy’s clones grab onto Kenpachi and then self-destruct, giving Gremmy a chance to heal and teleport to safety. At this point Kenpachi is looking very, very battle worn, with virtually no clothes left at this point.

 

Here is where it starts to get strange. Gremmy has been continuously commenting on how much he is enjoying the battle, wants to win etc for a couple of chapters now, however this time what he says is different. He states: “I want to become stronger than you” meaning that he ‘believes’ that he is inferior to Kenpachi and if you remember earlier he also called Kenpachi a ‘monster’. Kenpachi almost foresees what is about to happen as he almost looks sad when looking at the state Gremmy is in. Something Kenpachi has never done before. Gremmy is by far the most insane of any of Kenpachi’s opponents. To the point were he seems to have lost himself, which can only lead to his own destruction.

Gremmy’s body is then torn apart by itself as he subconsciously imagines Kenpachi as the ‘monster’ inside of him and that monster subsequently kills him.

This once again goes back to the one true weakness of Gremmy’s power. That he constantly needs to concentrate on everything. For this reason, losing his mind and imagining he was inferior to Kenpachi was instant suicide.

The art for the death itself was certainly the most gory death I’ve ever seen in Bleach or any of the big three for that matter. It makes me wonder what the animators are going to do in order to make his death appropriate for larger audiences. Regardless, it is becoming more and more clear than this is not a kids manga anymore. Kubo has realised that his audience is growing up, and so must his manga.

 

At this point, I am 95% sure that Gremmy is dead as it was his own imagination that tore him into 17 different pieces (not an exaggeration), so I doubt we will be seeing him again. This means of course Gremmy’s power will now go back to Juha Bach and he may possibly gain his ability. That thought alone is very scary. Juha Bach with that sort of power, his sharp mind and his current power level, would be nothing less an absolute devastation. For the time being we will just have to wait and see.

The next couple of chapters will likely be set up chapters. We have had almost three fights back to back and its time to see what else is going on and perhaps, finding out were the hell Ichigo is. This fight has been interesting from start to finish with several big revelations to keep us interested. Although some questions of Gremmy’s ability have reminded unanswered Kubo has done a tremendous job with an ability I have not seen used before in manga. I give this chapter a 8/10 and the fight overall an 7/10 thanks to some terrific character development, Kenpachi greatness and some truly amazing art work. I look forward to the next chapter

- PandaSlayer