#hozukimaru

We open Nanao and Isane chatting because Nanao has taken over Isane’s office at the 4th. Isane is clearly so, so lonely.

Isane happens to mention that a lot of things have gone missing lately, just in time for Hanatarou to barrel in out of breath because his chickens have been stolen!!!

I guess the Fourth has started raising chickens for food because of the Zanpakutou Rebellion trashing the Seireitei? Uhhhh? Okay? The important thing is that Hanatarou has named the chickens after himself: Hanamaru, Hanae, Hanakichi and Hanaemon. (I choose to think that Hanakichi is named after both himself and Renji’s sidekick Rikichi and you will never convince me otherwise). The reason this is so great that when my son was about four, we stayed at this AirBnB in Cape Cod and the neighbors had chickens that would wander over into our yard and my son named them all... after himself. So, anyway, this is a very relatable episode, to me, personally.

Anyway, it takes 3 captains and 2 vice-captains to decide to follow a set of muddy footprints down into the sewers, so they send a crack commando squad consisting off... Ikkaku, Hozukimaru, Nanao, and Hanatarou.

This is so delightful to me. Finally, an absolute D-list mission, my very bread and butter. You would think, actually, that Ikkaku would be pissed-off about this, that he would complain that he has better things to do with his time (he absolutely does not), but he just goes with the flow here. Hozukimaru is also very chillax about all this, just happy to be here, tbh. Squad 4 bids them good luck with a loud cheering section and some jazzy send-off music.

There’s also a scene where the captains are... monitoring their progress from Squad 12? They have a custom display of their progress through the sewers and an Akon cameo and everything! I cannot emphasize enough what a slow day it was in the Gotei!!

Here are some more things that happen:

Hanatarou tells Hozukimaru some stories about people who have died in the sewers. Hanatarou and Hozukimaru are now besties.

Hozukimaru carries Nanao and Hanatarou around like luggage:

Hanatarou sets off multiple booby traps.

Some absolutely God-tier Scooby Doo running

A tentacle monster shows up and, in a big win for feminism, goes for Ikkaku first

Hanatarou breaks into tears because he thinks Ikkaku is dead and Hozukimaru comforts him

The thief turns out to a small, creepy robot whom Nanao and Hozukimaru subsequently bully.

Ikkaku comes crashing through the wall in one of the most lovingly animated rolling-and-bouncing sequences I have ever seen in Bleach, a show that is deeply devoted to rolling-and-bouncing sequences.

The tentacle monster comes back, I guess it’s a Sword Beast. Hozukimaru goes to bankai to fight it and gets wrecked. Nanao fires off a single shakkahou and then decides it would be a better use of her time to berate Hanatarou into fighting it for her, except that he left his sword back at the barracks. Fortunately, as we all knew, the creepy robot is really Hanatarou’s zanpakutou, who stabs Ikkaku to charge up and then trashes the heck out of the sword beast.

I really need to point out that here, Hanatarou has defeated an enemy that Ikkaku couldn’t bring down, and in the cake episode, he kills a Menos that took down Yumichika. More evidence that Hanatarou is secretly the strongest character in Bleach.

Anyway, the chickens are fine, Hanatarou and Hisagomaru hug, they all go home and explain things to Kyouraku who I keep forgetting is not the Captain-Commander at this point. Why is he in charge, tho? What is the Captain-Commander even doing??

Oh, and then it turns out that they lost Hisagomaru down in the sewers, and the episode ends with a close-up of his tear-stained face while TO BE CONTINUED slams across the screen ominously. I do not remember if they ever follow up on this.