Random Curiosity

With the title, I’m referring again to what’s happening right now in the anime with Byakuya vs. Zaraki. It’s not exactly the same (obviously different circumstances and no Yammy between them in the anime), but the general banter and rivalry/conflict is there. I’m curious to see how the animation team hey will treat this part of the manga when they finally get around to animating it, i.e. will they refer back to the anime original battles or just ignore it as if it didn’t exist in the same timeline. Anyway, it’s good to see that at least Yammy is getting shown to be the weak loudmouth that he always seemed to be. As for the other part of the chapter, I guess Ichigo’s explanation clears up why he’s only got a scrap of his normal bankai clothing on, but I really hope this isn’t the reason he was unable to summon his mask earlier (basically, if you throw in that kind of an obstacle, don’t resolve it so easily). If it is though, then Unohana bringing him back up to full strength plus Ichigo’s relatively poor showing against Yammy should mean that Ichigo is due to have a cool scene once he arrives in Karakura Town. Hopefully the break next week means that we’ll get some quality chapters in the coming weeks.

This turned out to be a relatively uneventful chapter save for the semi-confirmation that Ichigo is the chosen one against Aizen. The problem is that it’s hard for me to accept the fact that an Ichigo who’s never seen Aizen’s shikai release is a better match-up against Aizen than, say, Yamamoto with his years of experience and theoretically absurd power levels (and if shounen series have taught me anything, it’s that absurd power levels can overcome any obstacle). Against Ichigo, all Aizen needs is to just do his shikai release to void any advantage, and even if that didn’t work, Aizen still has his bankai to fall back on. This isn’t even considering the fact either that Ichigo’s own power is still unstable. So I don’t think he’ll win them the battle because of this, and there’s probably some plot twist waiting. Regardless, I suspect that it might still take a little while to get to that point and that there might be a few chapters of Aizen and company kicking ass first before Ichigo and Unohana finally arrive.

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.