#bleach fights

When we last left our pals, Rukia and an already-busted-up Renji were about to get their asses kicked by all the zanpakutou spirits, when Ichigo et al showed up to save the day. The fights split out as follows: Ikkaku takes on Hozukimaru; Yumichika vs. Ruri’iro Kujaku, Kira vs. Kazeshini, Soi Fon goes after the Gonryoumaru/Tenken BroTP (this is Sasakibe and Komamura’s zanpakutou, jeez this is a lot to remember), Ichigo tries to fight both Byakuya and Senbonzakura at once.

Hey, remember how in the Captain Amagai Arc, which was nominally about Kira, Kira came off as a bumbling fool? This fight scene is the opposite of that. Kira shows up, sneering and smirking and ready to take names. I guess Hisagi died, or maybe he had to finish up making the Junior Scramble for this week’s Bulletin, but here’s not here. Kazeshini accuses Kira of not loving murder enough, and of being a coward and other assorted things designed to rile Kira up, and Kira is unrilable. He starts Frasier-style armchair psychoanalyzing Kazeshini. “Are you Hisagi’s stress? I feel like you’re an embodiment of stress.” Can you imaging being a cackling murder machine carrying around death pinwheels, and being accused of being someone’s stress? Kira is so powerful here, I cannot handle it.

Where has this magnificent Kira come from? I, a person with anxiety and depression, will tell you. Depression and anxiety often steal your ability to take care of yourself. It can be hard to make phone calls, to pick up your apartment, to cook healthy meals for yourself, mostly because you don’t think you deserve nice things. But there’s a short circuit: the second a friend with anxiety/depression posts a Tweet about how they ate a jelly packet for lunch, you Turn Up, because the Mom Instinct is real. The most powerful people in creation are Anxious People Doing Things for Depressed People, and that, my friend, is what is going on here.

The battle peaks in the most amazing way possible. This is up there with that shit-eating grin Renji makes back in Recap pt 3. As Kazeshini is body rushing Kira, Kira pushes up his sleeve and OH DAMN!! he’s wearing one of Hisagi’s exploding armbands!!!! I screamed. It exploded right in Kazeshini’s pointy little face. This is the all-time greatest Kira moment, better than any of the birds he has ever killed. Of course, I had to make a comic to ruin it:

Kira binds up Kazeshini, GOOD JOB BRO U DID IT and-- immediately gets attacked by Wabisuke. Shit, fam. My boy has used up all his energy Turning Up for the Homies, so of course he is defeated by his own depression, just immediately. Thank you, Zanpakutou Rebellion Arc, for this very real and accurate representation of mental illness. Eh, so it’s looking bad for Kira, Wabisuke has him in Classic Wabisuke Execution Position aaaaaaand Kenpachi busts through a wall like “HEY GUYS, I’M BACK FROM MY SCRUM MASTER CERTIFICATION WHAT DID I MISS?” and straight up kills Wabisuke, RIP, he died as he lived, which is to say, very sadly.

Fun fact! Whenever Kenpachi arrives on the field, everyone who has ever been affiliated with Squad 11 gets a morale bonus. Renji, who has been lying on the ground for a full episode, visibly regains 10 hit points. I’ll get back to Kenpachi, though, let’s see how the Squad 11 fights are going.

One of the problems with filler is that they never actually want to make it required watching, so nothing ever happens that would affect canon, including things like additional flashbacks. God, I would flip my chips for a filler arc that was just a bunch of shinigami childhood stories. My point here, is that the Ikkaku and Yumichika fights are just rehashes of the same stuff that has already been sufficiently covered in canon, they are so boring.

The Ikkaku-Hozukimaru fight is fine. It’s an Ikkaku fight, times two: yelling, powering up, getting pummeled, not using your full strength, breaking your weapon, more yelling. In the way this arc is continually disappointing to me, they bring up the fact that Hozukimaru has to “wake up” in bankai in order to get truly powerful, except now the embodied Hozukimaru just has a power gauge on his chest that fills up. To me, this took an idea that was very cool and made it a lame metaphor. I really like the idea that as Ikkaku is fighting, his big, sleepy, ancient dragon of a zanpakutou (Hozukimaru should have been a dragon, I will die on this hill!!) is slowly cracking open one eye, like “Ohhhh, you want some of my power, do you?” BUT NO. Anyway, the fight ends with Ikkaku thinking about Zaraki and then screaming his own name, which is Peak Ikkaku (Peakkaku, if you will), so I can’t really complain.

Yumichika and his zanpakutou go off where no one can see them to fight, because of course they do. Yumichika mis-names Ruri’iro Kujaku. Ruri’iro Kujaku uses his shikai on Yumichika. I have wondered before if there’s a counter to Yumichika’s shikai, and in this case, Yumichika, just sort of... muscles through it, and cuts it with his sword? During his Kenpachi Appears! Plus Up, he shouts a bunch of stuff about how he doesn’t need his zanpakutou, because he’s a member of Squad 11, first and foremost, which is... an interesting direction for this story arc to take. In an attempt to make this fair, Ruri’iro Kujaku offers to let Yumichika use shikai. He refuses. Ruri’iro Kujaku offers to not use shikai himself. Yumichika accuses him of betraying his own aesthetic. That aggression, my friends, will not stand. Ruri’iro Kujaku uses shikai. Yumichika binds his vines with a kidou and stabs him in the back, with a “I knew that would work because you’re a stupid bitch, just like me,” and Ruri’iro Kujaku responds “We are so alike it’s gross, you stupid bitch” and then they both pass out, but Yumichika passes out one second after Ruri’iro Kujaku, mumbling “this is my aesthetic” the way the Naruto kids are always proclaiming things are their way of the ninja. Point Yumichika, I guess. [Note: While writing this recap, I ended up rewatching this fight with the sound off, while listening to Katy Perry’s Roar, and it honestly really enhanced it]

Elsewhere in the Seireitei, Kotetsu Isane and Iba, Two Characters Whose Zanpakutou Are Not Featured In This Arc, run into each other. They’re giving each other recaps when there is a scream from offscreen and SHIT FAM, Ashisogi Jizou is here!! I would run away. I would not stay for a single second. There’s a brief skirmish, during which it is obvious that Kotetsu is 10x the shinigami Iba is, although she ends up getting paralyzed by Ashisogi Jizou’s poison. I am here for this Competent Isane/Buffoon Iba content and also, it’s hilarious that they are fighting a fat baby butterfly. I would have devoted an entire episode to this.

Alas, instead, we have to watch Soi Fon fight Gonryoumaru and Tenken. Here’s your recap: it’s boring.

Meanwhile, Zaraki has decided he is going to fight Byakuya whether Byakuya likes it or not. Byakuya was trying to leave when this started and I cannot make it clear enough that a) I don’t think Zaraki can flash step and if he can, there’s no way he’s as fast as Byakuya and b) Zaraki gets lost in the men’s room, there is nothing keeping Byakuya from running away, but he fights Zaraki anyway, because he secretly loves fighting Zaraki. Squad 6, as a facility, was not looking so hot in the first place, and it gets absolutely totalled during this fight.

I guess Ichigo fights Senbonzakura. It’s the same as it always is.

Final note for today: there’s a scene right after the commercial break (around 13:57 if you’re me and want to rewatch this later) where Rukia crawls out of the collapsed Squad 6 barracks, shoves a board off herself, and then Renji sort of clambers out of the rubble next to her, and if you pay attention, he has to shove the same board off himself because she’s just dumped it on him. Then, Rukia helps him up, and it’s so normal, like hauling themselves out of collapsed buildings is just Tuesday. I don’t know why I always get obsessed with these dumb little moments, but if I had some way of doing video capture, this blog would be just never ending animated gifs of Renji leaning on windowsills and Rukia shoving trash onto Renji’s head.

Let’s do the chart:

We’ll start with Episode 234, the delightfully named “Renji Surprised?! The Two Zabimaru.”

It actually starts, not with a fight, but with Ukitake and Kyouraku sitting around Squad 4, wondering “what the hell is going on, anyway?” and “I’m sure not going out there, how about you?”, as is their standard policy during filler arcs. Unohana slides into their DMs and they’re like, “Oh, hi, just avoiding conflict as always, didn’t see you there” and she’s like, “Oh, I’m sure you felt me coming, tee hee,” and it’s incredibly obvious they didn’t. Unohana is boiling over with passive-aggressive Kenpachi Emeritus vibes this arc and I am here for it.

Let’s cut to… uh… Hisagi? Sure! Hisagi is shooting the breeze with some shinigami redshirts when a friggin’ whirlwind of death shows up and Expendable Unseated Officers #1 and #2 fall over in a pool of their own blood. One might think that Hisagi, a man canonically horrified by the terrors of war might… offer some first aid? Call 911? Instead, he ponders, “that sure is a sharp blade” and all I could think of was Steve Martin’s “pointy, pointy, pointy birds” poem from L.A. Story. I’m not sure, actually, if Hisagi was just being poetic, or if he actually failed to recognize his own zanpakutou, but, uh…

Moving right along! Our Renji is “looking for clues” around the plaza next to the Soukyoku Hill-- you know, the place where he fought Ichigo that time. This entire filler arc is phoning it in so hard, it’s just reusing old plot beats left and right. It’s like they blew their whole budget on zanpakutou character designs and had to recycle everything else. I must say, Renji’s eye liner is incredibly on point today, nice. Anyway, his zanpakutou, whom I am going to refer to by their individual names Saru (Monkey) and Hebi (Snake), show up and start taunting him from exactly the same point on those stairs where he taunted Ichigo. Renji, whose single brain cell was off filming a movie and was not available for this filler arc, does not recognize them at first, and even goes so far as to say they used to be different. I respect this arc so much for pointing out all its own plot holes and doing absolutely nothing to explain them.

Here is the point where I would have put the shitty drawing I did of Saru carrying Hebi around in a purse like a tiny dog, except that it came out too good and I had to give it its own post.

I cannot emphasize enough how much this fight makes no sense at all. Saru and Hebi start bickering and Renji is like, “Hey guys, can you text me later, I am actually at work right now,” and they’re like “No, we’re gonna kill you” and Renji’s like “...why?” and they’re like, “We gotta.” They yell at him for “depending on him too much” and also “being weak.” Now, #1… yes? Isn’t that… isn’t that why we have zanpakutou? And 2a) my man came from abject poverty and is currently in the shinigami top 20, which also contains at least 4 people who are over 1000 years old??? What do they want from him? I mean, if they complained, specifically, that he hadn’t beaten Byakuya, or that Ichigo is better than him, I could get behind it, but all of this is just tremendously weaksauce. Fortunately, for them, my precious son has no self-confidence, so just just pulls a patented John Mulaney “I’m sorry you poured soup in my lap” and lets them beat him up a bunch.

Meanwhile, Muramasa has decided to come bother Ichigo at home, i.e., his inner world. We have some sepia toned flashbacks with jazz flute accompaniment and Ichigo shouts a lot. Everything turns upside-down, some extra hands come out of Ichigo, so on and so forth. Most of this is boring until Hollow Ichigo is here!!! God, I want Hollow Ichigo to fuck Muramasa up so bad. I’m sure we could find a way to keep this arc going without him. Wait, no, I guess we need Muramasa so we can have Vintage Kuchiki Bullshit flashbacks. Dammit.

Some very important notes here:

My husband accidentally called Hollow Ichigo “Holluigi” and I laughed my ass off for like two straight minutes.

Look, is spinning your sword by its ribbon actually effective? I hate to harsh a guy’s vibe, but I posit that it is not. There were definitely some times that Holluigi could have just stabbed Muramasa dead and this could all be over, but nooOooOOooo we had to go for that Jared-Leto-as-the-Joker, Crazy Eyes Aesthetic. Alas.

This fight scene brought to you by HARPSICHORD, the official background music of FILLER ARC VILLAINS

Back to Hisagi who is now Naruto running through the forest and is getting totally owned by his own zanpakutou. I feel like in a fight between two guys who have basically the same powers, except one hates murdering and the other loves murdering, one of them has a clear advantage. Hisagi tries to talk his way out of this and tells his zanpakutou “I don’t like you” and then Kazeshine straight up murders him. I also want to say that this arc really loves the thing where the camera zooms in and spins around a character to show how betrayed they are by their zanpakutou turning on them, this has happened at least six times by now. 

Meanwhile, Renji honestly does not want to fight his zanpakutou for the obvious reason that if he kills them, he won’t have a zanpakutou anymore. Even they know this, and are like, “Yeah, I guess we’ll just die, then.” I can’t even, fam. Anyway, it’s time for Renji to have some inner turmoil. Earlier, Saru taunted Renji about Rukia and threatened to kill her. Renji got pissed all the way off except that he choked and got knocked into a wall. Renji now gets to have another introspective moment, featuring mood lighting, multiple camera angles, and plinky-plunky piano. Renji wonders if he’s useless while Hebi smacks him around a bit (it’s vaguely erotic and I do not like it) and mumbles “my life force”. As Hebi is about to land the killing blow, Renji wonders “Am I still just… me?” while having flashbacks about his bankai capelet. He thinks about Ichigo for a while and how dreamy he is. Then, there is a single shot of Byakuya making a Judgy Face at Renji. End scene.

We have to skip back to the Ichigo fight, where Ichigo has decided to declare that Holluigi is not a Hollow, he is Ichigo’s Precious Friend, and we all know what that means. For absolutely no reason whatsoever, the fight jumps into interspersed scenes of Renji and Ichigo fighting, exactly like in the Soul Society Arc when Ichigo is getting bankai while Renji is fighting Byakuya. Why? Whyyyyyyyyyy??? Then Renji tells Saru and Hebi, “Hey, losers, I just forgot that I haven’t defeated Byakuya yet, so get in line.” They are playing the really intense fight music with the chanting and Renji manages to channel so much of the purest form of Renji energy (being super gay for Ichigo and Byakuya at the same time) that he manages to unseal his sword with his grumpy zanpakutou spirits standing right there. I am pretty sure that no one else in this arc manages to do this, although I will report back. The important part is that he then makes this face, a screenshot that I already had saved as “f_you_zabimaru.png” and which my husband described as “the most shit-eatingest grin I have ever seen.”

236!

So, I actually wrote the above before I watched 236, and fam, I have figured out the Renji-Zabimaru fight. Renji’s got a sword again, and he’s running at his zanpakutous yelling “I think that zanpakutou should listen to their master!” like he’s posting some an unpopular opinion on Twitter and Hebi is like “that’s bullshit” and Saru is like “let the man speak,” and it struck me: Zabimaru is not about making sense or doing things for reasons. Zabimaru is about starting shit and going ham. Must the things we shout in battle make sense? Is it not simply enough to shout? Every time Renji tries to think about anything, they yell at him, and anytime he does something hare-brained, they’re like “tell me more.” This sounds dumb as hell, but I tell you, Renji needs this. Renji is an overthinker, a brooder. This is a liability. His zanpakutou wants him to forget that crap, to jump in with two fists swinging, to get a bunch of tribal tattoos because they’re sweet, dude!!! I’ve alluded to this before, but a zanpakutou doesn’t necessarily bring out the best in their shinigami, it just brings out their most.

Anyway, Renji abandons all pretense of common sense, and just starts running around, shooting off Shakkahou, every fifth one blowing up in his face. I love this. My precious, idiot son. God, I love him so much. Anyway, it gets even better. He lets Hebi have the shikai-Zabimaru he managed to summon, but it kinda falls apart (presumably, like Hihou Zabimaru, he uses his own reiatsu to create tension between the segments and this is a thing can just do at will), and then he hits it with a shakkahou and it breaks and then my large adult son does a Higa Zekkou, which, for you non-Zabimaru stans, is when he throws the broken pieces of his sword at an enemy. Something I did not appreciate the last time I watched this is that Higa Zekkou also (1) puts Zabimaru out of commission for a while and (2) hurts Zabimaru to do. So, he landed a triple-blow on them: attacking them with an attack that damages them and tires them out. My boy!!!!!

Anyway, immediately thereafter, he’s walking away from his sword and their voices echo from it, like, “Hey, no, we’re cool now, man,” and Renji’s like, “Sweet.” 

I also want to posit, at this point, that Muramasa was never able to fully brainwash them because Saru, Hebi, and Renji all share a single braincell between them, and he was only able to get at ⅔ of it. 

Other fights!

I guess it turns out that Hisagi didn’t get murdered after all, he dodged just in time, but basically, he’s got nothing. Fortunately, Kira shows up! That was so nice of Kira to show up to help Hisagi. Also, I realized that Kazeshini wears, like, super low-rise pants, so you can see alllll his abs, if you can pick up what I’m putting down, so  draw your own conclusions about why Kira is here. Kira rescues Hisagi and they make eyes at each other and run. This arc is graciously determined to throw a bone to all the shippers, and I am here for it.

Meanwhile, Ichigo is using Hollow Ichigo’s power to fight Old Man Zangetsu and it works great and even though everyone else has been moaning for three episodes now that if you kill your zanpakutou it’s for keeps, Ichigo DNGAF and Getsugas Old Man Zangetsu directly off this plane of existence. 

Muramasa rubs his hands together ominously and monologues on how could Ichigo do this thing?!?, and my other precious son looks Old Gross Fingernail Dude dead in the eye and announces, “Old Man Zangetsu is my friend and his power is the power of friendship, there is no way I could kill him, we are only even bester friends now.” Muramasa is owned so completely that he begins to fade in and out of reality and has to retreat in shame. It is becoming abundantly clear that the only way anyone is going to make it through this arc is through utter, abject stupidity. In other words, a perfect filler arc.

Bonus: Since this was kinda short on illustrations, I made this chart, so we can follow along with how this arc is going, and see if we can draw any conclusions about good ways to defeat your zanpakutou.

To back up just a tad, it should probably come as no surprise that Ichigo and his nakama are my favorite part of Bleach. At the start of the things, they all seem slightly weird, but not too bad, and as you go along, you realize that all of them are Ride-or-Die, love-with-their-entire-beings, intense weirdos, and that they are only their truest selves when they’re putting it on the line for each other. God, I love them. In some ways, Uryuu and Renji are on opposite edges of the group. Uryuu, a Nerd, refuses to admit that he actually likes any of them, except maybe Orihime. He always has to make up a thousand excuses why he follows Ichigo anywhere, and no one else cares, they love him, and they’re just like “Get in the car, Ishida, we’ve been waiting twenty minutes.” Renji, on the other hand, a classic Jock, has his own friends, and honestly, better places to be, but he just rolls up, “You are all my friends now, suck it, here is a cheer I like to do with my soccer team.”

So, here we are, in Hueco Mundo, everyone has ill-advisedly split up, and Renji has had the bad luck to go down one of two paths with an Espada at the end of it. It’s looking dire for Our Boy, when...

Look at that smarmy nerd! But, it turns out that Szayelaporro has a million minions and is actually kinda tough, and WHO NEEDS RESCUING NOW?

He protecc his tiny Quincy friend!

But Renji knows his Jock powers are insufficient here, what we need is a NERD - JOCK ALLIANCE.

Look at these boys. They are So Happy To Be Fighting Together.

Uryuu, true to form, instantaneously comes up with a plan, and asks Renji to buy him some time. And what Renji comes up with is... this:

Followed by this:

Guys. GUYS. I love Renji so much. His big stalling maneuver is “I will tie this guy to me and roll a critical fail doing the most dangerous thing I can think of and hope I don’t die.” What a GOON. I love him.

By this time, Uryuu has managed to actually set up a Spengen, and blows up  Szayelaporro a second time. Uryuu spends like 8 pages talking about it, and then takes a moment to thank the man who made it all possible (and has been lying on the ground like a slug this whole time)

Lookit these best friends. Ishida never says anything nice about anyone! “Dependable backup.” Ask him to prom, already, Uryuu! You can wear matching tuxes! He’ll say yes!

And then Szayelaporro gets up, eats a Fraccione, yells at them for making his clothes dirty, and leaves.

Let us never discuss the B part of this battle.