The second part of BLEACH: Sennen Kessen-hen.
After a brutal surprise attack by the forces of Quincy King Yhwach, the resident Reapers of the Soul
Society lick their wounds and mourn their losses. Many of the surviving Soul Reaper captains train to
battle without their Bankai, the ultimate technique wielded by the fiercest warriors.
In the previous assault, Ichigo Kurosaki narrowly managed to help fend off Yhwach's fearsome wrath.
However, to ultimately defeat his godly adversary and save his allies, Ichigo must now undergo severe
training that will push him beyond his physical, emotional, and mental limits.
Though Yhwach already holds the upper hand in this ongoing blood feud, he also successfully recruits
Uryuu Ishida, Ichigo's close friend and rival, to be his successor. Yhwach strikes out once again at
the weakened Soul Society, intent on finally obliterating his long-standing enemies. As Ichigo
struggles to attain new power, the Soul Reaper captains fight for survival and borrowed time.
(Source: MAL Rewrite)
Bleach TYBW came back onto the weekly scene with a bang in Fall 2022, and you might've thought "It can't get TOO much better from here right?". And I thought the same thing, we would have been in the same boat. But this cour took my expectations and threw them out the window (In a good way if you couldn't tell) # ____The Fights____ Starting off with the thing that is arguably the most important part of the series considering it's a battle shounen, the fights. The fights this cour were EASILY better than the fights last cour in my opinion. Cour 1 I think was more of a set up season, it mainly focused on Ichigo coming to terms with himself and his background, finding his true strength, and setting up the stakes and danger that the Quincies posed. If we focus on the more psychological aspects of the show then Cour 1 does take the win there, however I think it also lacked in fights, the only notable ones being Yamamoto vs "Yhwach", Ichigo and Yhwach's short spar, and Zaraki vs Unohana. This season however, we were treated to spectacular fights all around. From Toshiro and Rangiku vs Bazz-B, to Komamura vs Bambi, I don't think I have a major complaint about any of the fights. Even Soi Fon and Marechiyo had a moment where I rooted for them, and they're both some of my least favourite characters in the whole show. Episodes 4-7 were, I think, perfect battle episodes with great choreography, interesting powers and deserving power ups which showed the result of training or sacrifice wonderfully. Also this is the first cannon season where RENJI ACTUALLY WON A FIGHT AGAINST AN OPPONENT OF SIGNIFICANT STRENGTH. I nearly shed tears of joy when he came out on top against Mask, he has come so far. For this one feat alone, cour 2 has to get serious serious props from me img(https://i.imgur.com/pbdqFJb.jpeg) # ____The Animation____ Oh my days. When I say this has been one of the most visually appealing seasons of anime I have ever seen, I am not joking. Every moment has been carefully sculpted, drawn with love and care for us fans to enjoy. Studio Pierrot was really in their bag with this one, and because of that this story that Kubo created and had a vision for has been enhanced to the max. Best example of this has to be Rukia's bankai. Pierrot could have just given her white hair, a white garment and blue eyes and called it a day but nah, they said it's all or nothing img(https://i.imgur.com/268tDx2.png) LIKE YOU CAN'T TELL ME THIS DOESN'T LOOK BEAUTIFUL Obviously it is a lot better than the original season, but I also think it is a slight improvement from cour 1 too, at least during the peaks anyway. Expressions in this cour were also top tier, I'm mainly talking about Ichibei during episode 13 tbh his facial expressions and emotions were so fluid. # ____The Powers____ This cour brought us a lot of new abilities and a lot of development from old abilitites, and pretty much all of them were extremely cool. Renji, Rukia, Shinji, Rose all showing off their Bankais, Ichigo's true shikai and Getsuga Jujishou (Crazy how he was fighting a 5v1 with only his shikai and still had to hold back to avoid killing them), the Sternritter Schrifts and Squad Zero's general fighting proficiency, since they don't really use the full extent of their zanpakutos. Had to give a special mention to Squad Zero, specifically Oh-Etsu, Senjumaru and Ichibei. All three of them were wonderful and their abilites genuinely had me on the edge of my seat seeing how they would act next. Senjumaru's Bankai might be the most powerful one we have seen so far aside from Yamamoto's, I can't to see it fully explained next season. I really can't believe that the last two episodes of this season shifted entire power scaling tier lists because Squad Zero and the Royal Guards are just those guys. # ____The Soundtrack____ Consistently great, has been since the original series and will be forever. Special mention to "Everything I Lost" (Shinji's Bankai theme), might be my new favourite track in the whole OST and if not it is up there for sure. One thing I think they disappointed on was the music for Ichigo's return, ngl the new remix of Number One they used was ass, they should have kept the Bankai remix instead. # ____Downsides____ With every amazing show, there must be some flaws too. My main one is that in the fights, the loser will lose purely because the plot demands it or becuase they were stupid asf during their fight. I don't think you understand how annoyed I was by Rose, like the Vizards are disrespected as is by Kubo as is but during his fight the anti-plot armor was BADD. Rose really did not need to explain his Bankai to Mask, and if he wanted to he should have waited until he had confirm killed him. But instead Rose gave a step by step breakdown on how his shit works, and he got hard countered and one shot for his tomfoolery. Kensei at least put up a decent fight even after his explanation but again the Vizards are done so dirty, throughout the whole show tbh. Shinji as well, he got a whole anime exclusive scene to show off his banned bankai, only to get countered after he tries chatting to Bambi and one shot very swiftly. Is it bad of me to say the last two episodes kinda let the show down a bit... Squad Zero being stronger than the whole of the Gotei Thirteen was absolutely fire, but the prerequisite being that three of them have to die before the last remaining one can access that power is a bit cheap imo. It feels a bit like wasted potential, but at least it was Senjumaru that tapped into her full power. Ngl Kirio and Tenjiro are filler members in my eyes, they exist purely for support. This season's cliffhanger was quite pointless, especially since the final couple of minutes which they could have used for the fight or more lore was taken up by KON. Like I do not care for him, he had his time in the original series but now is not the place. Giselle is also mad creepy I'm tired of seeing ~~her~~ I mean him. Finally, I feel this season set us up to get a lot more from it that we just didn't get, like I thought Adult Toshiro and Ichigo vs Uryu would be this cour coz they appeared in the trailers, but thats a personal thing tbh. Overall, I love Bleach. I have had so much fun watching this season weekly and speculating about characters and lore every week as we get more immersed into the story and this whole war. I really cannot wait for Cour 3 and everything it will bring to continue the story. I already know its gonna be HEAT
Bleach: Sennen Kessen-hen - Ketsubetsu-tan has single-handedly tanked my opinion of Tite Kubo's writing abilities. I don't say that to be inflammatory; it is with great disappointment that I feel the need to write a negative review at all. Bleach has always been one of my favorite anime series of all time. It wasn't perfect, but there was so much charm and such a high quality to every fight. Characters were full of life and the art of the series has always been extremely aesthetically appealing. I became attached to numerous characters over the years watching this series and I simply didn't believe the bad reviews saying the final arc ruined the show. I have unfortunately come to share the opinion that the thousand year blood war arc is the worst in the series. I would sooner re-watch the Bount arc. I have two areas where I will praise this arc, the first is the voice acting. The voice actors were fun and many put their hearts into their roles. My second area of praise is the animation. Everything is visually stunning. Characters, attacks, environments, special effects, they all are drawn and animated superbly. My complaints are almost too plentiful to list so I will highlight where this arc has most spectacularly failed. I can't pinpoint which grievance is the worst, so I will just start with the pacing issues. The first part of the thousand year blood war arc left me with so many questions and a sense of foreboding that would come to fruition with this season. The Quincies were too obviously overpowered. There was no feasible way for the Soul Reapers to fight back even if they all grouped up and organized their forces. The Quincies ability to steal Bankai, coupled with a baseline power strong enough to kill lieutenants in a single hit means the war was over before it began. I cautiously entered this season wondering what kind of training needed to be done and what kind of training _COULD _be done to prepare the surviving soul reapers for the imminent invasion. As it turns out, the answer is: minimal, or even no training training at all was required! Byakuya is healed and brought back from the brink of death, but when he reenters battle, his shikai is suddenly as strong as his bankai- remember he could not have been awake longer than a few days MAX. We don't have an exact time frame between Quincy attacks, but we are meant to infer that the second attack happens within days of the first. Renji and Ruki go through the grueling training arc of... staring at one another with their swords drawn. Renji is told the true name of his sword and gets a new bankai; he doesn't earn it. Ichigo walks down a straight dirt path while feeling the emotional burden of fighting for the sake of the soul society. Boom training done. It takes days, or even hours to power up to twice their original power- perhaps even stronger than that. During the 3 days or so they have in-between attacks, Kurotsuchi creates a new squad barracks in a liminal space between dimensions and creates a suit for himself that hides shadows and prevents the quincies from using their full powers. When the Quincies attack, Kurotsuchi is the only captain to actually put up a fight besides Komamura who also didn't earn his power up- instead he essentially just kills himself for nothing. If pacing were the only problem, I wouldn't feel strong enough to write a review, as terrible as the pacing is. But what really rubbed salt in the wound were the fights. Be were basically robbed of any real fights in this season. I think Kubo forgot quincies were supposed to use bows and soul reapers were supposed to use swords. Now, we get giant flashy attacks using esoteric banais that make very little sense or are easily countered with such amazingly thought out quincy powers such as: "everything I imagine becomes reality" and "I can erase myself from your cognition so you don't even know I exist" and "I can calculate the lethal amount of any substance then create that lethal amount within your body" and "I am a luchador and my unspecified power is that I can't die if people cheer for me". The "fights" in this season are turn based flashy attacks followed by the opposing side's flashy attack. Many fights are ended with a single move. Gone are the days of a bloody struggle like when Ichigo fought Ulquiorra or Grimjow or Byakuya or Kempachi. Or even Chad vs gantenbainne or Uuryu vs Kurotsuchi. Bleach was always a step above other anime of the time because the fighst were hard-fought and well thought out. Characters had a set power and rules around those powers. Now, squad zero can create a bankai that literally makes ZERO sense and Kubo doesn't even bother _trying _ to explain the rules surrounding it. Speaking of rules, the rules around Quincies make no sense. During the Quincies second attack, Urahara figures out that Quincies and Hollows are mortal enemies because the existence of hollows weakens Quincy powers. This is so potent, that absorbing hollow energy acts as a poison to Quincies. Literally MINUTES after being told this, Kurotsuchi creates a drug and teleports it to all captains. The pill has a small amount of hollow power in them and it makes the bankai that the quincies absorbed poisonous. Suddenly the tide is turned and the quincies are poisoned and the captains get their bankai back. But then the quincies simply power themselves up?? The bankai they stole was holding them back and they just beat the captains- even when the captains use their bankai. The power scaling is nonexistent, both parties randomly power up and down as the plot dictates. But the Quincies weakness being hollows brings up another issue- ALL of Hueco Mundo was conquered by ONE Qunicy. If hollows are their weakness, how was this achieved? Not only that, after I realized that Hollow energy was poison, I thouoght "oh, now it's the visored's time to shine." They didn't all get a great showing during the Aizen fight so now they can hollowfy and turn the tide of the war.... Not only did the Visoreds not change the tide of the war- THEY NEVER UNDERWENT HOLLOWIFICATION. Not a single one used their hollow powers! Ichigo never uses them either! This entire power set is forgotten by Kubo. Instead, we are shown Kensei's bankai and he is killed in 4 minutes after its use. Ōtoribashi's introduces his bankai and he is killed almost instantly after he barely finishes explaining its powers (two minutes). ONE quincy beats 3 lieutenants and two captains in a row with no breaks. That is the level of power scaling and disrespect we are dealing with this season. My favorite Visored, Shinji is beaten by a STRAY hit from an AOE attack. Shunsui doesn't care about anything, he sits in the squad 1 barracks and doesn't offer any support to any of his dying friends. I love Kurotsuchi and his unhinged fighting style. They focused two whole episodes on his "fight" that was essentially him somehow synthesizing an "anti-zombie" drug that turned enemy zombies into friendly zombies. How he had this counter to a quincy power in his pocket is anybody's guess. I've ranted long enough. In conclusion, there are no rules governing power levels or Qunicy abilities. Invincible abilities like "anything I imagine is real" is simply countered by Kempachi going "no" and that's that. zero explanation, zero reasoning. As a huge bleach fan I feel insulted and angry that one of my favorite series has fallen to such a level. I hesitate to say there was a single true fight in this season that felt like a "bleach" fight. Forgive the pun, but Kubo's work has become hollow and I am genuinely left upset after finishing this train wreck of a final arc.
Bleach is back! In 2020, we got the news that the series was returning. I was happy for Bleach, but knowing it was still Studio Pierrot got me really worried. When the trailer dropped, I was pleasantly surprised at how clean the animation was, but character movements still worried me as most were still frame shots. Nonetheless, I still couldn’t hold my excitement. I grew up watching the Big 3, primarily Naruto. Bleach to me actually took itself seriously. It was honestly a breath of fresh air compared to other shonen. To me, Bleach peaked during its Sosuke Azien Karakura town arc. It, unfortunately, had a subpar final arc with a really lackluster anime-only ending. Over the years, I would see passion projects like fan animations on YouTube as fans coped with what could’ve been. But now we're here!! The Bleach anime is back, and man, did it surpass my expectations. No filler. No animation shortcuts. Just straight heat! I thought the community was over-exaggerating the scoring on MAL, as a score of nine seemed a bit high for a series like Bleach. But no! Studio Pierrot absolutely blew it out of the ballpark. Animation is so damn clean, I don't even want to know their budget. Every episode is jam-packed with content. The care that they gave this series is insane. And the art. I can't describe it, but if I were, it's as if they had an Nvidia RTX 4090 Ti running with Ray Tracing processing the animation. It's absolutely stunning, and despite my mediocre art background in drawing and animation, I can't help but be mesmerized. Another thing I appreciated was the sound design. I think they absolutely killed it. It really helped assist and contrast with the delivery of certain scenes, be it a fight, emotion, etc. To make a long story short It was euphonious. Chef's kiss to the sound design, it was food to my ears, and I loved it. I can't say the same thing for the openings and endings as they were ok compared to the classical bangers we received prior to the TYBW arc. I also can't help but draw a parallel to the Quincy powers, especially their reishi manipulation. A lot of their reishi abilities , primarily their weapons like their longbows, and swords are very similar to the magic in Elden Ring, like Loretta’s Great Bow and any Carian ash of war magic. Unfortunately, I unironically regret coming back to Bleach. I regret this because this review would've had more material to cover and reflect on if I binged the series. I was under the impression that the Arc in its entirety would be covered with 2 seasons —So I patiently waited for both seasons to end in the hopes of bringing them. Little did I know that each season would have 12 episodes requiring a total of 4 seasons. There are two more cours left, and both are following a different direction than the source material, as we are getting an anime-only ending. (This dual-review is long overdue as I watched both seasons in Aug, of 2023. I rewrote it shortly after and never really posted it because of school. Nonetheless it's good to see my childhood show return with the love and care it deserves) Can't wait for cour 3,4!!
I will say as a long-time Bleach fan that I find it hilarious to see TYBW getting called peak writing nowadays. It is laughable, considering the pacing issues it has among many other things (lack of coherence etc.) but I guess nostalgia won. I wonder if people will still pretend TYBW is peak once we get too many scenes of Byakuya fighting Gerard's giant hand... The manga's sales decreased and eventually got cancelled for a good reason. Now, I will start by saying that the voice acting is phenomenal and that the animation and OST for Rukia's bankai was breathtaking. I like that Uryuu is getting the main character treatment he should've gotten in the manga for that last arc (about QUINCY after all) but got robbed of because Kubo was a mess concerning the pace and scrapped the final battle that was supposed to feature Ichigo, Rukia (cf. Urahara's words "forgive me, Kurosaki, Kuchiki, for leaving everything to you") and URYUU (with his silver arrow made from the silver blood clot found in his MOTHER'S HEART). The animation is somewhere between good and great most of the time but it lacks of the quality consistency Cour 1 had. However, I don't get why the anime is making Ichigo and Uryuu the main focus (though it perfectly makes sense and should be that way) if it's to keep the same ending as the manga and sideline Uryuu in the end. What's the purpose of all those added Uryuu scenes if he doesn't use his silver arrow in a final battle against Yhwach. Where is the anime story's going? What's the purpose of that added post-ED scene with Ichigo in ep.2 of Cour 2 (ep.15) as well with that line concerning the Izarusando ("are you a vessel of withstanding the power it fills?"). It was implied in the manga that Ichibe is a psychopath and had a plan to use Ichigo as the Soul King's new vessel but it never went anywhere... So once again, why insisting on something that doesn't go anywhere if it is to keep the same ending and execuation of the narration as in the manga where many questions were left unanswered. No matter what, Ichigo was destined to stay in Soul Society and not return to the human world. He wasn't made for a human life thus that scene earlier in the arc where Kyoraku goes to the human world to give those soul tickets to his family and friends (that "one chance in a million" Ichigo becomes too powerful to return to the human world was supposed to happen if not for the rushed and scrapped ending). The power scaling between the Shinigami and the Quincy is way too unbalanced, making the Sternritter overpowered and most fights useless (apart from being flashy and letting us see fighting scenes that look "cool" but serve no real purpose to the story). We barely saw Byakuya, Rukia and Renji going through their trainings after barely escaping a gruesome death though the three of them are important characters (especially Rukia who's Bleach's deuteragonist). However, suddenly you're telling me Byakuya can fight the Äs with his shikai without any issue despite previously getting annihilated against him despite using his bankai? If we keep the same story, then the Soul King and Division Zero are utterly useless. There's no purpose to make Uryuu a main character (because this start is great but will it lead to something?) or build up Division Zero's real intentions if it goes nowhere. Because in the end, Division Zero didn't do anything to the story except looking cool and ominous. That score is a bit generous and it is mostly for the animation efforts as well as the voice acting and OST but know that the story is going downhill and that it will only get worse. Despite the arc having some great moments, TYBW isn't narratively fulfilling unless those added scenes do lead to some resolution instead of adding more unanswered questions: it would mean a different ending and a different final fight.