BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War, Part 2: The Separation returned this week with a broadly faithful adaptation to the manga story (about 4 chapters). Unlike last week, which put ample time and energy into developing the contrast between Ichigo and Uryu’s respective journeys of self discovery and actualization, BLEACH episode 15 moved back to the war in general and those involved in it. The Quincy had just begun the second phase of their invasion of the Soul Society, merging the Sereitei with their own shadowy land to instantaneously shift the terrain in their favor. After the last invasion (from part one of BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War) Soul Society had a chance to train and prepare for an inevitable additional attack. This week focused on the results of that preparation and showcased another iteration of Soul Reaper powers vs strange and new Quincy abilities.
A quick note before going further in this review: BLEACH episode 15 featured additional scenes after the ending credits. As usual, this review contains spoilers for the episode. That includes a brief bit covering the post-credits scene. Be sure to watch that along with the episode before reading if you want to avoid any spoilers.
Soul Reaper’s Resilience
A core portion of the episode was chronicling some of the various ways the Soul Society captains have spun up to counter the Quincy. We saw a barrier meant to shut out Quincy energy, a combo attack by Hitsugaya and Matsumoto using the unique properties of both of their Zanpakuto, and a new form of Shunko by Soi Fon. All three of these things appear to have (somewhat) gotten the better of the Quincy they are employed against. This is, of course, until the Quincy stop holding back quite as much and somewhat effortlessly tear apart the improved defenses. These scenes created a feeling quite similar to that of the last invasion. It’s quite rare that BLEACH features so many one-sided battles — especially when the losing side is composed of captains we’ve come to recognize for their strength. This week’s episode initially transmitted to the audience the same hope that Soul Society seemed to have in their defenses, meaning the audience also felt the weight of that hope shattering.
While this communication of feeling and tone was strong (with good visuals, haunting music, and wonderful depictions of shock, horror, etc.) the communication of detail fell short in my opinion. While the anime is not beholden to actions of the manga, it does form a nice basis of comparison for this topic. In the manga, there is a considerably higher degree of detail allotted to explaining some techniques such as Soi Fon’s Mukyu Shunko. As an anime watcher, all you know is that she did something with wind. If you speak Japanese you’ll at least be able to assume that this Shunko is an “infinite” form of the original. But explanations of mechanics of this technique were lacking compared to the explanation of the vacuum ice employed by Hitsugaya (a portion of the episode that, for what it’s worth, seemed less reliant on explanation). I enjoyed the various action sequences but they often felt like just that — sequences, rather than multiple scenes woven together in ways I followed along with.
A Tide Turned Back in BLEACH
The Quincy are making it quite clear that they’re going to cause problems for a lot of the captains. The episode ends with two revelations that shift perception of the war drastically though: Ichigo is continuing some sort of extreme training and Urahara has come up with a way to recover Bankai. I left the episode mostly focusing on those two things though. The episode was very transitory, and perhaps there’s no way around that, but I can’t help but remember how powerful and gripping the early phases of the first Quincy invasion felt. Granted, bankai aren’t being stolen in this episode, but the same reversal of hope is happening and the weight to that simply didn’t feel heavy as heavy as it ought to have here.
Looking forward, I’m quite excited to see more Quincy abilities get animated and receive more details about Urahara’s discoveries and Ichigo’s unique training. Considering the extra scenes added to the BLEACH anime continuity regarding Uryu, I’m also incredibly curious to see what abilities and talents he showcases that weren’t explored in the manga. For all these techniques I hope decent amounts of time are put toward explaining them and showing their properties properly rather than flashing them for shock value and quickly moving on. This episode, at points, felt like the latter. Overall though, this season is still looking fantastic.
Featured image and screenshots via Hulu.
© TITE KUBO / SHUEISHA, TV TOKYO, dentsu, Pierrot
