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

Bleach episode 362 review

It occurred to me that I’ve been spelling Ginjo’s name wrong, so I apologize for that. Anyway, Ichigo goes off on him now that he’s acquired his powers back from the Soul Reapers. Ichigo asks the question everyone is asking, why is it okay for them to give him powers now after it nearly cost Rukia’s life as punishment the first time around? They answer, because Old Man Yama said so. And that is that.

Orihime shows up, and she starts imagining all the great times she and Tsukishima had together. It’s almost moe. She starts wondering why everyone isn’t fighting against Ichigo. Chad shows up too, and he and Orihime start having doubts about all these (false) memories. Then they get knocked out and Kisuke Urahara shows up and just takes them away.

Then the other Fullbringers show up, and they want in on the action. Yes, they were bad guys all along. And now video game Fullbring guy uses his powers to send every Fullbringer and one Soul Reaper each to their own world. In other words, maximum one-on-one battles. It was as shameless as a one-on-one battle promotion as I’ve ever seen in the history of Bleach, and that’s saying a lot.

The most awesome moment comes when the Time Fullbringer starts talking about time, and he’s going on and on about it, and suddenly his opponent, Kenpachi, just slices him in half. It’s hilarious. That was the best part of a solid episode.

Best girl of the episode: Orihime (58)

Episode rating: 8/10