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