Random Curiosity

Certainly it was nice to see Zaraki back fighting again and kind of toying with Yammy, but there were much more interesting things in this chapter. One thing of course was that Kurotsuchi showed up with a way for Ichigo to go back to the real world. It’s a bit deus ex machina, but it brings about the scenario that Ichigo might need to make use of his unstable powers right away and won’t be able to. Basically, he probably can’t swoop in and save the day. However - and this is what ended up being most interesting to me about this chapter - Unohana is going with him, and given her supposed power and how almost everyone in Soul Society appears afraid of her, I’m very curious to see if she’ll finally show some of her battle potential. It’d be awesome to see her take on Ichimaru or something, and I’m really hoping that she’s not being used here just to save Hiyori. Come to think of it though, this is happening so fast that it doesn’t appear at this point that Inoue is going with them, so odds are that if Hiyori is to be saved, Unohana is going to have to do it.

So much for everything I said last week - I guess it won’t be such an easy path for Ichigo to go save everyone after all. I mean, I have confidence that he, Byakuya, and Zaraki can take down Yammy eventually, but it’s probably going to take longer than expected, and even after that, it looks like Ichigo is going to have some problems bringing back his new mask and SSJ3 powers. All of which means that this’ll drag on for a while longer and that Ichigo is in no shape to face Aizen yet. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had to take another trip inside of himself to face his Hollow side again before this is all over. On the plus side, Byakuya and Zaraki (who I noticed has his eyepatch back on) made a nice entry, and the two form an amusing duo that theoretically should be able to kick a lot of ass - whether they actually will or not remains to be seen. And, as the title of this post implies, I liked the Halloween-themed color spread, so this wasn’t a total waste.

Well it looks like Hiyori’s odds of surviving just got a little better. I really don’t expect Ichigo to have too much of a problem with Yammy, especially since the norm is that the larger the bad guy is in physical size, the easier he goes down. Ichigo, of course, is also sporting that new mask look and a new attitude, all signs that he’s retained his new level of power. So there shouldn’t be much to prevent him (and Inoue) from returning to the real world. In fact, given how Urahara has been noticeably absent from the Fake Karakura Town battle, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was already preparing to open up a Garganta to bring everyone back.
 
On a side note though, I was rather amused that Sado, Renji, and Rukia were as useless as ever. Given how high power levels have soared, it looks like the only times they’ll be able to shine is in anime original arcs.

This chapter was both exciting and frustrating at the same time. I’m glad that Kubo Tite decided to go back to the Aizen battle and that big things actually did happen. Normally, a captain-level Visored initiating bankai would be the highlight of a chapter, but clearly that wasn’t the case here thanks to Hiyori getting sliced in half by Ichimaru. What happened to Hiyori was promising to me because it finally showed some good guys possibly going down for good. I’m actually a little surprised it happened to one of the female characters (Hiyori was a fun one too), and I’m really curious how the anime will treat this, aka. censor it, whenever they finally get to this point.
 
The frustrating thing though was that Shinji immediately thought of Inoue and Ichigo. Ugh. I know that Ichigo will eventually make it back because, as the main hero, he’s obviously the only one who can beat Aizen, but I really don’t want him back so soon. Let’s at least see what the other captains can do against Aizen and company before even thinking about Ichigo flying in to save the day. As for Inoue, I’d rather not see her used as a plot device to keep all the good guys alive, so as much as I like Hiyori, it’d probably be more meaningful if she died here. Whether the next chapter focuses on fake Karakura Town or Hueco Mundo will likely be a good indicator of what direction the story is going.

This chapter started out promising enough with Harribel trying to strike back at Aizen and him using his Zanpakutou’s ability to fake her out (which I guess ensures that all of this isn’t an illusion or ruse to fool the Shinigami). And then he signaled that he was ready to go against the Gotei 13 and the Visored, which got me all excited….but then the focus switched to Mashiro and Wonderweiss. Who the hell cares anymore!! Don’t tease us with Aizen being finally ready to something and then go waste more time with a side battle! To make matters worse, the Mashiro vs. Wonderweiss fight wasn’t even all that interesting since Wonderweiss still hasn’t shown what makes him so special. And now it looks like more time is going to be spent on Kensei vs. Wonderweiss - maybe I was wrong about Kubo Tite wanting to speed things up.

As the title of this post implies, I’m very disappointed in the fact that Starrk was the Primera Espada. I liked the look into his past and how loneliness was a big thing for him, but I thought for sure that he’d have at least one more card up his sleeve and wouldn’t die in such an unceremonious way. Maybe Kubo Tite finally got tired of doing this long, drawn out battle and decided to speed things up. That would certainly explain the ending of the chapter with Aizen taking down Harribel himself and indicating that he’s going to taking action with Ichimaru and Tousen - probably take care of the remaining Shinigami themselves. Actually, my initial reaction to all that was that it was an illusion created by Aizen to hide whatever he’s really up to, but who knows what’s really going to happen. If he really did kill Harribel though, it’d be another disappointing end to a battle, particularly since I enjoy seeing Lisa fight, but on the bright side, the story might finally be moving forward. The prospect of Ichimaru, Tousen, and Aizen doing something is better than nothing.