BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War Episode 17 – A Stunning Transformation

This week’s episode of BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War, Part 2: The Separation brought one of the coolest transformations in a very long time and more progression of the three parallel plots of the season. Those three, for reference, are the war itself, Ichigo’s training to become a “true” Soul Reaper, and Uryu’s journey toward actualizing his Quincy heritage. The latter two progressed slightly while the former moved quite a bit. At the end of last week’s episode the Sternritters all gained access to their Quincy: Vollständig abilities after the Soul Reapers regained control of their Bankai. For Quincy, this transformation is somewhat analogous to a Bankai so this more or less evened the playing field.

We were treated to the revelation of Shinji’s Bankai (which was not originally shown in the BLEACH manga) and its unique power to switch friend or foe. This week’s episode centers more on Sajin Komamura and in eyes elevated him quite a bit on my personal ranking of BLEACH captains.

Spoilers ahead for BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War, Part 2: The Separation episode 17 Heart of Wolf

The Boy Who Cried and Stopped Being a Wolf

Honestly, I used to think Komamura was the least exciting captain. This is partially due to his being a wolf-man for seemingly no reason; this particular aspect of him was relevant for his backstory and some minor notes about discrimination within Soul Society. Beyond that, it didn’t go much further than that. My main reason for lacking excitement toward him, however, was because of his Bankai. His Bankai had a particularly large flaw in that it and he are linked and share damage. Since his technique produces a massive avatar, it basically makes him a massive target. Even more, it was one of the first to be revealed in BLEACH, making it seem like other captains had more gas in the tank than he did from the very beginning. None of it was particularly compelling or interesting to me.

This transformation changed that. I still don’t find the wolf family backstory all that interesting (mostly because of how pitifully self-contained it is) but I do enjoy the humanization technique. Plus, on a thematic level, I find it quite interesting that Yamamoto would accept someone from essentially another species as a captain. There are some surface level connections as well to one of six realms of Samsara in this backstory but…it just isn’t fleshed out for me to care.

However, this upgraded Bankai is cool. Komamura’s design as a human retains minor wolf qualities like ears but otherwise grants him a rugged use. Immortality made the fight against Bambietta short work. My main complaint is the CGI used to animate his Bankai. To be clear I don’t have a problem with CGI-based scenes in anime, especially when they’re used to animate scenes that would otherwise be incredibly cumbersome and rough for staff to draw. But, in this case, the animation is so detailed and distinct that CGI feels odd and clunky beside it.

Rivals’ Progressions in BLEACH

I won’t say too much about Mask De Masculine (the dude in the luchador mask) partially because he didn’t do much and partially because I honestly just can’t him. The last portions of the episode show Uryu doing…something? It’s unclear. It also shows Ichigo continuing his slow progression and witnessing more and more of (presumably) the Soul King’s memories. Ichibe indicates that this is in part a test of Ichigo as a vessel for power in order to protect what he cares about. To me this indicates that he is going to receive power from the Soul King rather directly in a parallel to Uryu receiving power from Yhwach.

I’m looking forward to seeing some more progression of Uryu’s portion of this storyline though. While Ichigo getting stronger is cool, I felt more invested in the backstory of his birth and his parents than I do his receiving power from an outside source. Conversely, I don’t feel like everything to be said about Uryu and this new anime-original plotline has been said and I want more time put into that. Hopefully the next few episodes explore it more.

Featured image and screenshots via Hulu.

© TITE KUBO / SHUEISHA, TV TOKYO, dentsu, Pierrot