actually just Deidara with a desk job

Noooo. Rukia is so sad. Nooooo. She's so sad she lets Aarroniero get her in the guts and impale her on nejibana. (sobbing noises)

While hallucinating vividly during her death throes, Rukia gives us some interesting character thoughts about herself: "I have never had a gift for the sword, and my kido scored well at the academy, but among soul reapers, it was average."

She and Kaien have a very, VERY battle shonen exchange in her memory about fighting for the heart. Importantly, he warns her that she must not die alone her soul can become reishi and live on in her comrades. (We've seen this before, in the Metastacia fight.)

She stops hallucinating vividly and returns to her fight with Aarroniero. Because she has stronger resolve, Sode no Shirayuki is back and she unleashes its third dance.

Interestingly, Aarroniero howls that Aizen promised him freedom from suffering as he writhes. I think he missed the fine print on that one, but it's another interesting point about Aizen's leadership — he tends to be different things to different characters.

This victory does of course leave our best girl Rukia with a gaping gut wound. So that's like... bad.

She empathises with Orihime's feelings about being captive, being rescued, seeing her friends fall, etc., as she tries to crawl.

"Don't worry, Inoue, I'll be right there." THEN SHE PASSES OUT. 😭 NO. MY HEART. 😭😭😭

---

Episode 161:

Okay, so, Szayelaporro says he had rokureichu, reishi-recording bugs, planted inside Yyl Fortd's body! Recording spirit stuff is truly this man's passion. But it's good to know that he, like Mayuri, has his own weird biological surveillance devices. It's no 'surveillance bacteria' but it sure is something.

Ooh, Szayel also doesn't notice Aarroniero died until Lumina and Verona tell him. That's interesting. Nnoitra has better senses? Or Szayel is actually just distracted with Renji? Hard to say.

He tells Renji that Rukia is dead in that fight. You're a mean mister, Szayel.

Oh my god, do I have to listen to Pesche again? I do. I really do. He's here. I can't believe that both Szayelaporro Granz and Ishida Uryū are displaying more patience than I feel. These are not patient characters. "You're wasting time! Let's go!" Thank you, Uryū. Bless you, Uryū. 🙏 Still my favourite magical girl, Uryū.

Ulquiorra walks down the world's longest staircase to the sound of guitar. Very dramatic. He also tells Ichigo Rukia is dead. Aarroniero, allegedly, told everyone she was dead. However... Aaroniero's dead first, so we, the audience, have a good grasp on how he might not be totally accurate.

Cut to Orihime trying to break down her door and crying. You'd never know she had, like, reality breaking powers. She's still wearing her hairclips, so nobody tried to take them off her. This is character bashing Orihime, but it's, like, fucking canon, oh my god. Hhhh.

We blessedly cut back to Ichigo. He points out that Ulquiorra hasn't actually hurt anyone yet so he doesn't really need to fight him. Ulquiorra is like (paraphrasing): 'Oh. I see. In that case: I kidnapped Orihime.'

This is such a good exchange, actually. Ichigo tells him that because of him, soul society thinks Orihime is traitor; Ulquiorra agrees that this was very much the point and if that wasn't so it would be indicative of a miscalculation.

Ichigo screams at him, and Ulquiorra — holding off Zangetsu — stares at him and says very placidly: So, do you have a reason to fight me now?

-----

Episode 162:

Aizen appears to have the least comfy chair in the world. Aren't you trying to elevate yourself to godking, mate? You'd think you could afford some pillows.

Ooh, nobody told Ulquiorra about Ichigo's mask. 'It's as if he's like us!'

I sense these two are going to be hell on the landscape.

Ichigo puts his mask away and we get a Nel crying and screaming interlude. I am trying to hold the fact that she's actually an interesting adult character in my mind but hhhhomygod I hate stuff about babies.

To nobody's surprise but Ichigo's, Ulquiorra was NOT taken out in one hit from Ichigo's zanpakuto.

'Was that your best?' Oh, Ulquiorra. What a bitch. Never change.

Oh NO. I did NOT remember that Ichigo thought Ulquiorra was the leader of the espada. The reveal of that 4 is really tragic for him.

Hm Ulquiorra really just shoves his hand into Ichigo's chest, huh. He also says Ichigo disappointed him. Then he leaves him to die. Rip. Poor Ichigo...

Orihime knows that Ichigo is in bad shape because of reiatsu sensing. The feeling of her helplessness must be very traumatic for her. I struggle with her character because she TRULY is not actually helpless.

Loly and Menoly show up to pick on her.

We cut back to Szayel and Renji.

'It must be SO unfortunate, being this incompetent.'

Lumina and Verona bicker over the piece of Renji's shikai he breaks off. That's so cute! Hgbdh.

Meanwhile Szayel is asking if Renji understands, like, language. He's actually more of a bitch than I remember. I love that for him.

Lore note: 'We espada are given arrancar ranked undecimo — eleventh — and lower as a testament to our right to rule. Those are fracciones. There are espada who only have one and those who have many.' He says his are hollows that he modified and asked Aizen to make into arrancar; this, I assume, means they are not necessarily menos grande of any kind. Are they just, like, hollow-hollows? I thought they were gillian, but it sounds like no? Interesting.

Cut back to Loly and Menoly. They're very Girl Bullies, bickering about Aizen's attention and yanking on Orihime's hair and whatever. Interestingly, the hair stuff mirrors her earlier backstory about how she used to be bullied and have to keep her hair short and only through being friends with Tatsuki could she afford to grow it out. She's not thinking about Tatsuki now, but maybe she should be.

Back to Szayel and Renji just in time for Uryū to arrive!!! Uryū!!!! (Claps like a seal.)

-----

Episode 163:

We open on Orihime being bullied still. Interesting to see that the character with an entire, specific power dedicated to shielding keeps get smacked in the face. Wow, if only something could be done about that.

Okay, okay. I'm putting on my Most Charitable Character Interpretation Hat: Orihime feels so heartwrenchingly upset and guilty about Ichigo, Chad, Ishida, Rukia and Renji coming to rescue her and clearly getting so badly hurt that she fails to defend herself because she feels that she, too, deserves to be hurt. I'm comfortable with this interpretation of her character.

I think I will run with this, even though I'm not sure the text does a great job of making it as obvious as everything else that goes on. Rukia gets multi episode flashback sequences to explain her feelings about Kaien; Orihime gets hit in the face and we must extrapolate like we're starring in the maths lady meme. But extrapolate we shall! From now on, I'm wearing my Catastrophic Self Sabotage Orihime Interpretation Hat. Alright.

Grimmjow is here! He's looking very pretty. :)

One of the best visual jokes in this entire series: Loly demands, 'How did you get in?!' And then there's an instant cut to this:

Yeah. That's... a real mystery.

This whole thing is like some kind of pet the dog moment for Grimmjow, which sets up a lot of his later character. We are already positioned to feel for him because he lost his buddies and his arm and he never actually does anything more heinous than fighting acceptable targets (that is: Ichigo, Rukia, briefly Shinji, very briefly Luppi, Ulquiorra — all actual, definite combatants) and barely even talks shit (cf. Ulquiorra, Szayel, Aarroniero, Nnoitra...). The Loly-Menoly mean girls thing occurs because it shows he will come to Orihime's aid in response to his own feelings of indebtedness because of how she helped him, so we also learn know he has an internal sense of honour or morality or something. I don't like what these scenes do with Orihime, but I see why this was important to his character.

It is kinda cute how he's like: So. Here's how it is. You helped me. I helped you. Now we're even. And now... you're going to help me again!

Grimmjow, you are SO close to having friends. Please put her down.

So, was there ever a version this that was less... like, unclear? I feel like what happens to Menoly here used to be a lot more graphic?? Hmm.

Back to Szayel, Renji and now Ishida!

Szayel says 'Our guest wants to say something. Let's hear him out.' Why is he instantly more superficially polite to Uryū? He opened with telling Renji to please pay attention so he didn't forget because of his unfortunate stupidity, but he meets Uryū and it's instantly 'Okyakusama?' I did not notice this before but as an actual Ishida/Szayel enthusiast, now I'm interested.

He's not actually openly rude until Ishida goes 'I'm relieved. You're not that strong.'

I like it when Uryū talks shit. He's such a conceited little shit. It's one of my favourite character traits for him. He gives the appearance of such a neat, polite character, and then: he opens his mouth. No survivors, janitor unhappy.

This is what Szayel's face looks like when he discovers Ishida is a quincy btw.

Absolutely wetting himself about the endangered species that just wandered straight into his house. (If only he hung around for a few years, huh? LOL.)

Ishida is using the seele schneider as arrows from the outset here! (Taking notes.)

Back to Orihime.

Grimmjow instructs Orihime to heal her own face. See? He's being real cute. Making friends. Orihime doesn't know he's making friends but he is.

She heals Loly, who hits her in the face. Putting on my Hat again, I will say, Orihime dislikes watching any creatures in pain and she is already so upset that she doesn't emotionally react to being hit at all, so it is easy for her to disregard this attack on her and keep healing them.

Back to Ishida. He's trying to figure out what Szayel's done to make his powers less effective.

I like that Renji jumps in front of an angry hollow for Uryū. In their first meeting, he obliterates him in combat — now, he shields him!

He also yells to him 'You're not done yet!' when Szayel manages to reduce Uryū's weapons to nothing. Then he tells him analysing people is his strength and to find Szayel's weakness, so I also like how he treats Ishida like giving him a job will fix him. It will. This is his personality.

He stops smiling pretty fast though. :( Sado is defeated quickly, and, as far as I can tell, he mostly goes down because Nnoitra's hierro deflects his entire attack. Oops.

Ulquiorra and Orihime discuss Sado's fate and whether or not Orihime should eat. Ulquiorra is quite insensitive in the face of Orihime's panicked denials and gets slapped.

A great episode for the UlquiHime shippers among us. ;) Also a great episode for those of us who are hoping to see Orihime, like, take any kind of action. I think it being a slap is interesting: it's a non-threatening kind of violence. If she'd gone for Tsubaki, I suspect Ulquiorra might have taken that as a real threat, especially since Aizen told them her power was important. In this case, he just leaves her.

He does threaten to tie her down and force feed her though, a scenario that many Ulquiorra enjoyers would probably appreciate. Orihime doesn't; we leave her crying.

Back to NNOITRA sitting next to Sado's collapsed body, playing idly with his reiryoku in the sand. He is no longer smiling. He's bored. You're boring him.

TESLA IS HERE. \o/

I love them.

Nnoitra asks who would be impressed if he killed a thousand weak people. Him saying this line always cemented for me that he is highly concerned with the perceptions of others, even though he does not seem to care if they like him or dislike him specifically.

He has good senses! He can feel when Aarroniero releases his zanpakuto even though Tesla doesn't notice. :) He doesn't think much of Rukia though.

HE PROTEC? 😭

Anyway Tesla LEAPS in to protect Nnoitra from Sado's attack. What if it had hit Nnoitra?

Nnoitra is annoyed at the idea he might need protecting from anything, and gently captures Tesla's face in the cradle of his monster zanpakuto. (I mean — it has to be gentle. He'd rip his head off by accident if it wasn't.)

Tesla says 'If something were to happen to you...' and attempts to explain that he is genuinely concerned for Nnoitra's well-being, but, as Nnoitra's well-being has never been Nnoitra's concern even once, this doesn't go over well. I'm sorry, Tesla. You deserve better than Nnoitra. But you've truly chosen Nnoitra of your own free will.

I love them.

Anyway, I find Pesche and Dondochaka really annoying even though I understand they're here for exposition and tone and giving the characters someone to talk to. I find them about as tolerable as Ishida does. Uryū senses Sado's defeat, starts to ignore Pesche's annoying rambling at him, and sprints ahead. He is truly my audience surrogate in this scenario.

Szayel laughs at Renji and offers his self introduction. He's so pretty! I love his fancy art-deco looking glasses mask and his dark yellow eyes with his pink hair. Truly a pretty character.

You have to put up with Dondochaka and Renji doing an idiot show for like nearly two whole minutes of screen time between Szayel saying hi and Szayel going "Are you finished with your farce?" so I think Szayel is actually much more patient than I am. This seems like it should be OOC but it seems it's actually canon. Szayel 1, Tozette 0??

He is so cute. C'mon. Would that face hurt you?

yes.

He says he enjoys getting spirit patterns, which I think is interesting. Aizen earlier suggests Szayel sent the Exequias after Dordoni and Cirucci to collect spiritual data as well as to kill them, so we can take these conversations as confirmation that this, specifically, is an area of study to which he's dedicated! :)

He says Renji's is a type he hasn't studied before and he's interested and wishes to welcome him.

Renji says he would like to crush everyone, isn't here to talk, doesn't want to be welcomed, and can hear him if he talks while Renji is slicing him.

Maybe if Renji was nicer, he'd make more friends............................

Oh he goes DIRECTLY to bankai. Ichigo and Sado and Uryū all did variations on, 'oh, damn, I wish I could've saved this power but I guess I'm being pushed to reveal it!' But Renji is just like: fuck that, I know what I'm fighting. Wonderful, hahaha.

Szayel: 'I'm not really a combat guy.' Also Szayel: (stops Renji's bankai with one hand).

Oh, we're back to the Rukia v Aarroniero fight! I don't think I really appreciated the Rukia-Kaien backstory that much when I first watched this part. But I like Rukia a lot more on this watch through, and her getting to go off and have her own fight to provide shonen-manga-appropriate closure on the Kaien thing is so good and fun.

Aarroniero is releasing his zanpakuto, as Nnoitra noted earlier. Kaien's body is a weird little pustule on the bubbling face of Glotoneria.