Bleach episode 366 review

It’s over. The year of Bleach is over. We saw Ichigo go from gaining Soul Reaper powers to struggling with Menos Grande to sneaking into the Soul Society to winning fights against Renji, Kenpachi, and Byakuya (and losing to Aizen) to wasting time with Bounts to going to Hueco Mundo to spending time taking care of Rurichiyo to coming back and beating Aizen this time around to finally beating Ginjo to finish up our 366 episodes of Bleach.

This final episode tied up all the loose ends in the final couple of minutes after an episode of Soul Reapers talking to each other. If you blinked, you missed three new Captains and all kinds of other stuff. Each character gets about five seconds of screen time. But hey, it was a good way to go out.

Bleach, in retrospect, is much better than I gave it credit for. I criticized this show way too much when it was airing. In the end, it finishes up as a very good watch. Is it a masterpiece? No. Is it one of my favorites? No in the sense of being rated 9 or higher. But boy, is it worth sticking around for. If you ever get the chance, watch through all of Bleach and see what you think of it. It’s better than you think.

Now, as to what comes next, I may watch the Bleach movies, I may take on another series to watch every day, or I may just kick up my shoes and relax. We’ll find out in 2026. Until then, thanks for reading my Year of Bleach!

Best girl of the episode: Riruka (6)

Final best girl tally: 1. Rukia 68, 2. Orihime 58, 3. Rangiku 41, 4. Soi Fon 34, 5. Yoruichi 20, 6. Yachiru 19,7. Nanao 10, 8. Tatsuki 9, 9. Unohana 7, 10. Five tied with 6 (Rurichiyo, Nel, Momo, Nozomi, and Riruka)

Episode rating: 9/10

Final series rating: 8/10

Bleach episode 365 review

So, everyone has won their battles against the Xcution, but it’s left open-ended whether their opponents actually died or not. The video game guy gets frozen and taken by Toshiro, and the other ones may or may not have died, which of course means they’re still alive (except for Tsukishima – he was clearly evil, so he is clearly dead). Meanwhile, the battle between Ichigo and Ginjo rages.

Ginjo then tells Ichigo the secret of his Combat Badge – that it’s actually a surveillance device created by, of all people, Squad 13 Captain Jushiro Ukitake. So he’s the real villain, I guess. He wanted to spy on Ichigo for all this time, and apparently that’s why he gave him that pass.

But Ichigo doesn’t fall for this nonsense. I mean, sure, it’s true, Ukitake did do that. But Ichigo sees right through Ginjo and realizes he’s still the bad guy. So, the two of them keep fighting, with the Quincy Uryu standing around and doing next to nothing.

We are one episode away from the end of this experiment. Was it worth it? Yeah.

Best girl of the episode: Rukia (68) (apparently she defeated Riruka off-screen, which is par for the course for this arc)

Episode rating: 7/10

Bleach episode 364 review

Byakuya fights Tsukishima, which ends in the most ho-hum, been-there-seen-that way. There’s a whole long discourse on how Byakuya’s Zanpakuto works and that, because he knows how it works, Tsukishima can render it useless. But then Byakuya does the tried-and-true method of attacking himself, and that does the trick. Really, how many times can this possibly be used, and not by Bleach but in general? It’s always the way of solving something when there is no other solution. Just attack yourself, and eventually it’ll pay off.

Meanwhile, Riruka and Rukia fight in the land of giant stuffed animals. Eventually, Rukia gets turned into a stuffed animal. Then Riruka tells Rukia big long sad flashback, which would usually spell doom to the character giving it, except that Riruka’s a female character, and Kubo doesn’t kill off female characters.

What a bore most of this episode was. It had such great promise, too.

Best girl of the episode: Riruka (5)

Episode rating: 5/10

Bleach episode 363 review

So, we’ve got all these one-on-one battles, and these feel a lot more hopeful than anything from TYBW. It’s amazing what you can do with a little positivity. I’m not saying you should never have dark stuff, of course that’s okay. But don’t lose the plot and eliminate lighthearted moments or remarks. TYBW is all dark all the time. This Bleach at least lets us get behind our characters and cheer them on, rather than dreading their deaths.

Anyway, the most interesting part of this is Renji refusing to fight Jackie because she’s a woman, and then Renji trying to save her life when she is considered disposable by the other Fullbringers. I appreciate that Renji tried to rescue her like the way he rescued Rukia, though I wonder if this is part of Tite Kubo’s rule that no female characters ever die (except maybe Lilynette?). We’ll see if Jackie survives or joins Lilynette in the very small list of killed-off female characters.

Best girl of the episode: Jackie (2) (although Yachiru nearly stole that award early on with her cute interactions with Kenpachi)

Episode rating: 7/10