Reviewing Monsters: Doom Eternal

The sequel to the Doom soft reboot that I reviewed the monsters of a while back is Doom Eternal. It's bigger in scale, going for more spectacle and jumps straight to a demon invasion having taken over most of Earth, and throws us straight into the lore of the origin of the Demons and the Mayk

rs that have only been mostly hinted at via collectible notes in the previous game. As someone who read all the notes, I can follow the story, but I can imagine this would be quite jarring for those that played through Doom 2014 and saw it as a simple, self-contained story about a destroyed scientific base on Mars with some sojourns to hell via portals. I did like Doom Eternal's main story, though, which I found to be quite fun and entertaining -- not so much the platforming, or the DLC -- but for the most part it was a positive experience.

That said, we're here not to talk about storytelling or gameplay, but rather the monsters and demons!

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Returning Enemies: Soldiers, Shield Soldiers, Cueball, Unwilling, Imp, Lost Soul, Revenant, Pinky, Spectre

A lot of the enemies return to this game from Doom 2014, and some have their art and visuals and behaviour revised more than others. Some don't. The Soldiers and Shield Soldiers get brand-new models that keep them more in-line with older games with a less serious 'body horror' vibe like Doom 2014 and more of a 'chunky' feel, but they're more or less the same. The Cueball, Unwilling, Imp and Lost Soul really don't change much. The Pinky is a bit pinkier, and both it and Spectre look a lot less 'meat-gore monster like they did in Doom 2014. The Revenant also has a bit more of a 'cleaner' look to it, removing a bit of the grittier vibe of the previous game.

I started with Doom 2014 so I do miss the more body-horror look of the 2014 designs, but I also appreciate them trying to evoke the original appearances of these monsters, which the fanbase probably would appreciate more. There's a bit of explanations in the lore pages with how the Revenant program continued even after the destruction of the Mars base, and how the Spectres are actually created by Hell instead of what was originally thought to be the result of UAC experiments, but otherwise the data logs for the monsters are a bit of a step down in quantity and quality compared to Doom 2014, being a lot more concise. 

Returning Enemies 2: Zombie, Hell Knight, Cacodemon, Mancubus, Cyber Mancubus

Some enemies change quite a bit. The Zombie replace the 'Possessed' of the previous game, which were utterly skeletal with whorls for faces. The basic zombie enemy is... just a cartoonish zombie, shambling around zombie-ing around. The killing blow for the Zombie has Doomguy bash the skull so hard that it gets embedded in the torso, a surprisingly Looney Tunes kill that you'll see a lot in the game. 

The Hell Knight gets a more fleshy tone and whatnot, which is fine... but also gains two beady eyes. I feel this is a lot less intimidating and makes him a lot more boring than his original Doom 2014 eyeless design. The Cacodemon shares most of its prior appearance's looks, with two key differences -- the insides of its mouth glow blue now, and its eye now has a pupil. It makes the Cacodemon a lot less threatening and a bit goofier. But for the Cacodemon specifically, it does feel like it's intentional since it's the game's mascot. 

The Mancubus and Cyber Mancubus get the biggest change, which the game actually notes in-universe by explaining that the Doom 2014 Mancubi were created from a different alien race; while these Mancubi are more associated with transformed humans. They are more bulky than hideously obese, still having bulk but ones that are more proportional. Gone are the chitin armour, and even the base Mancubus has clear man-made weaponry grafted to it. The face is the biggest change, however, getting rid of the single eye and massive fangs, and replacing it with two beady eyes and a somewhat orc-like mouth. The Cyber Mancubus gets a completely brand-new swanking bright green armour with massive shoulderpads, making it a lot easier to instantly tell it apart compared to its non-cyber brother.

Mecha Zombie

A new 'mook' enemy that replaces the 'Hell Razer', the Mecha-Zombie is essentially a Zombie with additoinal mechanical parts grafted to it. That face definitely reminds me of the Terminator, and I'm a huge fan of the barbed fingers on one hand, the exposed metal endoskeleton in the legs, and the visible guts shown. The Mecha-Zombie sadly doesn't really get any lore to it, so we don't know if they were mechanized and cyborgized before or after they became zombies. 

Gargoyle

A new weaker demon is the Gargoyle, which is noted to be 'brethren' to the Imp. It's more elaborate than just giving the Imp some bat wings and calling it a day, though! Gargoyles also get a longer neck and nicely different face, with one of those lower jaws that split apart. Gruesome, and cool. Their arms also end in two massive blades, that glow as they try to shank you. The Gargoyles are noted to originally be regular species in the Sentinel world (which is a secondary medieval-magic-themed location that Doom Eternal visits a couple of times) before they got converted into Demons for the specific purpose of gaining air superiority. 

Arachnotron

Arachnotrons are smaller versions of last game's final boss, the Spider Mastermind. The Arachnotron keeps a lot of what made the Spider Mastermind so distinctive, being mostly a giant brain on a spider-mecha leg, but also with glowing eyes and a screaming demon mouth on it. Doom Eternal pivots to having most of the stronger demons having a specific weapon or mod that is particularly effective against it. The Arachnotron's powerful turret and mobility is countered by the sticky shotgun shells, which latch onto the Arachnotron's gatling-laser-gun thing and disables it. 

Arachnotrons are cloned from the material recovered from the original Spider Mastermind, and interestingly the brain matter ended up being receptive for 'impulse-controlled prosthetic frames' built by the UAC. Like the Revenants, the Arachnotrons were originally built by the UAC to combat demons before they inevitably broke free and slaughtered everyone in the UAC facility. Because that facility runs on its own AI, the factory continues to produce Arachnotrons in perpetuity. Nice little worldbuilding showcase to the smaller conflicts that happened in-between Doom 2014 and the war. 

Dread Knight

This one is cool. The Dread Knight is a cyborgized version of the Hell Knight. That's really all there is to say, since the Dread Knight behaves similarly, being a relentless pursuer that chases you around the map. Pretty cool design, though, with a Terminator metal skull-helmet, mechanical arms, glowing yellow tubes and two massive energy blades mounted to his wrists. 

Interestingly, the UAC cultists that modified the Dread Knight did a lot of sci-fi modification with hormones and neurotransmitters to cause the Dread Knight to be injected with dopamine any time it gets a kill. It's otherwise always roiling in epinephrine-induced rage. I really don't think that Hell Knights and demons in general need more incentive to kill humans, but the Dread Knight does so seeking the high and temporary reprieve from the rage boiling inside of them. 

Whiplash

The Whiplash is a cool one. I really like her head, a skull with two horns pointing backwards. She's also cybernetic, with her lower body being a complex, coiling snake body and her arms ending in black mechanoid augmentations holding twin daggers that are tied to her arms with whips, giving her surprisingly long reach. Whiplashes are very fast, if more fragile than the other 'heavy' demons. The combat in Doom Eternal definitely tries to give us a lot more variety in enemy, and not just 'mooks and durable guys' that was in Doom 2014. 

Prowler

Another stronger demon, the Prowler initially just looks like a slightly off-shade Imp. But the head and their abilities set them apart. Prowlers are able to go invisible, and teleport short distances away from the Doom Slayer. I really like its head, with three dot-eyes that resemble a stealth helmet's nightvision goggles (it gives me Splinter Cell vibes specifically) and I like that those jaws don't even look like they can close together properly. 

Prowlers are jumpy little shits that try to leap away and teleport away from you. They're not the most dangerous alone, but combat in Doom is always chaotic as all kinds of demons try to jump you, and the fastest way to get rid of a Prowler is to use any of the mods that can 'heat-seek' and track them, whether with missiles or rockets. 

Pain Elemental

My favourite! The Pain Elemental is kind of an upgraded Cacodemon, but it's a variation of the iconic design that looks so distinctive! The Pain Elemental has the 2014 Cacodemon's pupil-less eye, two much more developed arms, two horns... and like eight extra mini-jaws that open and close and give the Pain Elemental so much personality... and creepiness. Nothing in nature should have so many jaws!

Pain Elementals, as their name implies, feel only its pain. They are 'cursed' to always forge Lost Souls within its own bodies, a process that, of course, causes itself pain. This process is only alleviated for the brief moments that the Pain Elemental can unleash that pain upon others. In combat the Pain Elemental will actually summon Lost Souls not just as extra minions, but it will reach into its mouth, chuck Lost Souls at you, and even sometimes summon a horde to fly around it as a shield. 

Probably my favourite demon in Doom Eternal, by virtue of its wacky multi-fanged deisgn.

Carcass

Oh, this asshole. Reminding me of Lord Harkonnen from 1984's Dune adaptation, the Carcass is an another angry cyborg corpse. Its lower body is turned into a three-legged spider body, and it holds a massive cannon... that creates forcefields in front of allies. The Carcass itself isn't particularly threatening, but it can jump surprisingly far distances with those legs, and the shields can really screw up your maneuvering and demon-killing. The shields blow up with blasts from the plasma cannon, but that weapon otherwise isn't the most effective against other demons. 

The Carcass is noted to be 'neither living nor dead', except it's not reanimated just by demon powers like the zombies. Instead, the Carcass is fully a decaying organic host being forced to move with cybernetically-simulated electrical impulses. This one is definitely a monster that I love to hate, and the glory kills made to this one is particularly over-the-top.

Maykr Drone

The last 'middle' enemy we see is the Maykr Drone, which chronologically only appears in the last couple of levels in the game... but I find it strange putting them above the mini-bosses. Maykrs are the setting's analogues to angels, and are also robotic. They are ostensibly against the demon horde initially, but the Doom Slayer would find out that the Maykrs have been manipulating things all along and led to the downfall of the alien civilization of Argent D'Nur. 

None of these are really important to the monster, which are just floating robots with golden masks. Under the robotic 'robes' you can see glimpses of their true form, however -- red writhing tentacles, the true nature of which becomes more apparent as you near the end of the game. Despite having some amount of individuality, Drones are all part of a hivemind that is subservient to the Khan Maykr, and are unable to resist a command from them. They are particularly weak to headshots, which instantly kill them. 

Fireborne Baron

The Barons of Hell from Doom 2014 do not make a return in their original form, but appear as an upgraded version -- the Fireborne Baron. Initially having a grayish-black outer shell, as you damage them their internal true skin is revealed and it's just made straight up of magma. The Fireborne Baron also shoots out a lot of fiery attacks. This divergent abilities and visuals does really help to set them apart from the Hell Knights, since they do just feel like 'Hell Knight but bigger and hornier' in the original Doom 2014. 

Archvile

Probably the demon I fear the most is the Archvile. His design isn't the most special, just being another 'flayed man' demon. He's a lot less bulkier than the Barons or Dread Knights or Mancubi, but is easily the most terrifying. Creating fiery shields to protect himself, the Archvile will summon entire extra waves of minions to crush you. Doom is already hectic enough with any given stage having large numbers of demons swarming, having indefinite amounts of waves as the Archvile teleports around and tries to get away from you is even more horrifying. 

I do like the vibe going on here too, with the chest actually being hollow inside, the long claws, and the frowning, more intelligent-looking face. Archviles are noted to be descended from the eldest demons, and hold the position among the ruling caste. Neat!

Tyrant

The Tyrant is a 'degraded' version of the Cyberdemon boss from Doom 2014, but has an appearance that matches closely its original design from the first 3 Doom games. Pretty menacing 'big towering monster' demon, with a monstrous goat-head and tusks, and clear parts of the body being replacde with cybernetics. Love the exposed machinery in place of intestines, and of course it's got a giant cannon arm. I'm not a big fan of the very fleshy elephantine organic leg, but I suppose that does show stark contrast with the hyper-detailed robotic leg. 

Alongside two more others that debuted as bosses initially, the Tyrant is one of the toughest enemies in the game in no small reason that they appear alongside entire hordes of minions and are such gigantic health-sinks to bring down. 

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MINI-BOSSES:

Doom Hunter

The first Doom Hunter was introduced in a pretty cool manner, as the Doom Slayer runs around a base and sees the first Doom Hunter's mechanical and organic parts being moved around and assembled as he goes through the Cultists' Base. It's a manner similar to the excellent Cyberdemon level in Doom 2014. The Doom Hunter itself is another cyborg demon, with the upper body of a one-eyed demon with large horns, a chainsaw for one arm and a giant gatling gun/mace thing being held by the other. The spine connects down to a hoverpad coupled with even more cannons. The Doom Hunter is faced in a two-phase fight, where you need to bring down the energy shield and then blow up his lower tank-body, and then the second phase has his upper half fly around and shoot you. 

The backstory is that the Doom Hunter is one of a race of beast-like hunters that were excavated from the frozen depths and resurrected with a combination of dark magic and science. The coolest thing, of course, is that while the first Doom Hunter itself is a pretty neat boss fight, later on it will appear as minibosses throughout all the levels, sometimes multiples at a time, and is treated with more or less the same gravity as Archviles and Tyrants. That's pretty neat.

Marauder

Simultaneously the most annoying but the visually coolest enemy is the Marauder -- again, initially met as a boss fight at the end of the level, and being one of the few demons to speak. The Marauder's design is quite simple, a pale demon-man with horns and dressed up in a 'barbarian' version of the Doom Slayer's own outfit. He wields a massive laser axe (to contrast the Doom Slayer's sword) and even a double-barreled shotgun similar to the Doom Slayer's own. 

The backstory? The Doom Slayer was once part of the Night Sentinels, a group of anti-demon hunters in the now-fallen world of Argent D'Nur. Many of the Night Sentinels ended up being corrupted, betrayed Argent D'Nur, and defected to demonkind and transformed into the Marauders. So each and every Marauder is technically part of the same knightly order that the Doom Slayer was once part of, theoretically making them all as badass and as powerful as the Doom Slayer. 

In practice, they are annoying due to being a very strict 'counter him with a specific weapon during a specific part of his combo', which is cool when the Marauder is the final boss of his level... but otherwise he's just not the most exciting enemy to fight, being more tedious than anything. They at least look cool, though.

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ONE-OFF BOSSES:

The Gladiator

The Gladiator looks like he's part of the same type of demons that became the Cyberdemon, with horns and a 'Predator'-esque style of lower jaws. He's huge, with bull legs, and is fought at the end of an arena as the Doom Slayer goes around dimensions to try and kill the three Hell Priests. The Gladiator is a demon brought to make a mockery of Argent D'Nur's gladiator arena, and wields a shield that 'entombs the tormented soul of his undying master'. 

I really don't find it particularly interesting, and even the whole "shield contains the soul" isn't communicated particularly well in my opinion, especially not compared to how well-done the Pain Elemental was. In fact, I actually completely forgot this was a boss fight!

Khan Maykr

The penultimate boss is the Khan Maykr (pronounced 'Maker'), the leader of the angel-like Maykrs that we would find have been in cahoots with the demons, siphoning the souls of the dead to create Argent Energy to empower their people. The Khan Maykr torments the Doom Slayer throughout the game, mocks him for his failures, and later tries to get him to stop just to prevent the status qou from being shaken up. 

The fight against the Khan Maykr is a bit of a gimmick one that involves her flying around with her robotic angel wings spread out as she nukes the battlefield, while we try to survive and wait for her vulnerabilities to show before we grapple up with our chain-shotgun and punch her in the face. Pretty fun boss fight! 

The design of the Khan Maykr herself is pretty all right, more or less what you'd expect from a 'robotic angel' -- a design choice that is always neat but has appeared in quite too many things for it to be novel. What is cool, though, is as we deal damage to the Khan Maykr, we tear off chunks of her armour to reveal a fleshy, demonic face beneath -- showing that for all their talk, the Maykrs are hypocrites and are likely the same type of being as the demons themselves. I really did feel that for how much they tried to spotlight the Khan Maykr, the Maykrs themselves aren't the most represented among the enemy base -- and I wished we had maybe one or two extra Maykr levels instead of all the Maykr world being still infested with the same demons. 

Icon of Sin

And the final boss is a titanic, kaiju-sized demon robot called the Icon of Sin. The Icon of Sin was the boss in Doom 2, back then being 'merely' a giant goat-head on a wall to represent the head of a large demon. The same demon head also appears as a cameo in Doom 2014. Now, the Icon of Sin is fully realized as a titanic demon that is such a powerful source of magic that could warp space-time itself if he's allowed to remain on Earth for too long. There's also a background where the Icon of Sin's form is actually born out of a 'devil's pact' that the Maykrs made with a traitor among the Night Sentinels, resurrecting his dead son into this monstrous form.

The final level has the Doom Slayer jump from building to building as the Icon of Sin walks through a city, crushing and toppling buildings and lurching around in the distance like goddamn Godzilla, while the Doom Slayer slaughters all the demons in his path to get to the final rooftop that he fights the Icon in.

The Icon of Sin itself is a giant boss fought on top of two different large rooftops, and you have to slowly whittle down his health... with a twist. Each part of the Icon of Sin's body has a separate health bar, and you need to tear off the mechanical armour of each part. Some parts are easier to shoot than others, while others move around so much; or the ideal place to shoot them is too close to where the Icon will unleash his attacks. The battle's second phase has the Icon of Sin stripped to demonic flesh underneath, which you blow up until he's just bone. 

It's a simple, if long, boss fight. All the while lesser demons keep popping up to both harass you but also serve as ammunition drops. Design-wise I feel like both the Icon and Khan are both pretty effective for what they are, covering their respective tropes well and being both visually and gameplay-wise quite impressive. 

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...and that's it for Doom Eternal! There are some variant monsters that appear in The Ancient Gods DLC, but I... I didn't have the best time going through that game, with an over-abundance of platforming puzzles, supporting characters going through rapid and questionable character development, and a real lack of lore that explains what's going on (instead focusing on the past). Almost all the enemies are just remixes of old models with one or two extra gimmicks, so I don't really feel they're particularly interesting to talk about either. We'll see if I ever pick up The Dark Ages, but until then, it has been a blast mowing down the forces of hell in the world of Doom!

One Piece 1196-1197 Review: Love Yourself, King

One Piece, Chapter 1196-1197

Chapter 1196: The Love of the Suicidal is Worthless

It really does show just how much better the character writing is for Sanji than Zoro. And that's not a knock on Zoro, he inherently is a lot simpler as a character in terms of motivation and growth. But it does make for a very distinctly different style of story.

And Sanji's story is an actual character development that builds up on stuff we already know about him, on character threads that has been explored in previous chapters, nay, arcs. And it's a rarity in One Piece that this is the case. But it does absolutely make sense that Sanji's self-image problem is something that wouldn't just be handwaved in a single 'shonen talk-no-jutsu' moment in Whole Cake Island. I don't think anyone would have complained as it would be per the norm for the shonen manga format, but it is also something that is quite welcome to see be properly built up on. 

Sanji flashes back to his traumatic experiences in Kamabakka Queendom, and Sanji is in a little mental war as he tries to keep Ivankov down. But of course, Ivankov's massive head appears in Sanji's mind nonetheless. I do really like this. While we, the audience, know and love Ivankov by the time the timeskip was about to happen, it was one of those things that felt random and made just to make some 'Sanji is surrounded by okama' jokes as compared to the more serious training arcs. The 'combat cuisine' or whatever only really showed up once in Punk Hazard, and the only ability attributed to Ivankov's training, 'Hell's Memories' was treated more like a joke. 

As Sanji is yelling at the apparition of Ivankov in his head, Killingham stabs him with his lance and makes a whole villain monologue about how he's going to take away his arms that he needs for cooking and then the legs he needs for fighting... and Sanji angrily does another Diable/Ifrit Jambe kick on Killingham. He's talking to the imaginary Iva in his head! But I do think that Killingham's taunts does really help to prompt the next, upcoming argument. 

We get a couple more scenes of Sanji and Killingham trading blows, and I really don't want to spend too much time describing it. It looks cool, and we've gotten a couple of nice shots of Sanji kicking and demolishing Killingham. Killingham continues to taunt Sanji, asking him that maybe he needs to beg Luffy for help. 

This is the one line that triggers Sanji, getting him to flash back to Whole Cake Island, and he begins unleashing more and more kicks. He can't tell Luffy that he was helpless. Killingham distracts Sanji when something he says about expectations brings up a mental image of Judge in his head. Killingham then does the 'bring your nightmares to life' thing. Smoke billows... but instead of Judge, the thing that is brought out of Sanji's dreams is a dream-cryptid version of Ivankov. 

Even Sanji is surprised that it's Ivankov instead of the Germa bastards. Killingham doesn't recognize Ivankov and doesn't know who he is, just that he's what Sanji is afraid of. He jumps into the air and does a literal fusion dance with the sleeptid Iva, transforming into a fused form where we've got Ivankov's giant head on Killingham's Kirin neck. The fused form even has the fishnets!

Sanji then thinks to himself that the reason he fears Ivankov isn't because that Ivankov himself is scary. Jokes aside, he is Sanji's ally. But because Ivankov can see right through to his weakness. As Killingham-kov kicks the shit out of Sanji, he flashes back to Ivankov telling him the title: "the love of the suicidal is worthless". 

And we get a flashback to Sanji's training in the Queendom, where Sanji is in the middle of his trials, beating up Ivankov's minions to get their recipes. Ivankov then puts Sanji in a two-week break, however, which Sanji protests because he can still fight. Ivankov counters, however, telling Sanji that even though he beat Clara, he was more injured than his opponent. All of Sanji's victories were won with him taking injuries. And despite his victories, Ivankov tells Sanji that there were many hits that he could have avoided. 

Ivankov gives some really good lines. Even tiny raindrops can wear down stone, and all the little injuries will break Sanji at some point. Sanji gets defensive, of course, telling Ivankov off when he starts talking to Sanji about how little he values himself. Ivankov then points at his little okama gang and asks Sanji what they have that Sanji lacks...

And the answer is self-love. One of the random lines in the background is "I love myself more than anyone in the world does". And that is why Ivankov and company dresses up like what might be caricatures, but that's what those characters want to look like.

Sanji counters, of course, with the argument that all the love he has is reserved for the ladies; or for Nami and Robin. But Ivankov gets angry at this. "If you don't love yourself, you can't love another!" Two things can be true at the same time. Sanji wanting to protect ladies is a good quality for sure. But he also needs to love himself, otherwise that love of someone who's not even protecting himself is completely worthless. 

A string of flashbacks to Germa 66 lines go across Sanji's mind, and Ivankov tells Sanji that while he doesn't want to pry into Sanji's past, it doesn't take a genius to know that Sanji's got some familial trauma. Ivankov walks off, telling Sanji that these 'sacrificial victories' will eventually catch up to him, and if he doesn't take care of himself and care for himself, at one point he's going to fail to protect those he cares about. Ivankov tells Sanji that he understands -- there's a man that he'll do everything to protect, and give his life if needed, but not before exhausting every other possible method. 

And, well, arguably this might be a flashback that works better in the Whole Cake Island arc, but it also works nicely here because present-day Sanji thinks that he's moved past Germa 66, right? He had the confrontation, and even validation from Luffy and the crew. Sanji thinks to himself that he's about to hit a wall, and what he needs is power, and thinks to himself 'say, Iva, I think I'm gonna...'

And then the sleeptid Ivankov disappears. And this is a new thing we just learned about Killingham's dream-dream fruit, I suppose! If the fear disappears, so do the creations.

Sanji stands on top of a roof, looking down at Killingham, boasts that he's not going to take a single attack from Killingham, tells him off for invading Elbaph, and in the original Japanese, he tells Killingham to 'lower his head' with a very badass pose and expression. . 

Chapter 1197: Love is Defense

Killingham continues to mock Sanji, saying that he's secretly coveting the station of the Celestial Dragons. Sanji doesn't give a shit, though, and just takes a long drag from his cigarette. Killingham attacks when Sanji doesn't respond to his taunts, but Sanji keeps thinking now about defense. 

He speed-blitzes Killingham and does this amazingly angled panel as he swings down with Ifrit Jambe. He goes on a bit of a monologue to himself (and Iva), saying that he did want to die. He told himself that he would rather die than risk becoming like the Germa scumbags. And deep down, he always thought that he -- his body -- was 'tainted' by them. 

Sanji activates his new attack, "Collier Fortress", and does an amazing kick straight onto the speartip of Longinus, shattering it and delivering one mother of a caved-in face to Killingham. Killingham gets sent barreling through a bunch of houses, ranting about what an insult to the House of Rimoshifu. 

Sanji continues his monologue, which is really the primary thing to focus on here. His body doesn't belong to Germa. It was toughened up by Zeff, by Ivankov, and by the sacrifice of his mother Sora. And as he remembers one of Sora's lines to him about a child being born with emotions, Sanji's eyebrows revert from its Germa state to its normal one. Sanji notes that his body, his legs, are all a gift from his late mother. And he needs to be able to protect his body, otherwise he can't protect anything else. And that's a beautiful thing to end on. 

Sanji thinks of the foes he had defeated in the past, a nice 'greatest hits' of his most difficult foes. Mr. 2. Jabra. Absalom. Wadatsumi. Judge. Queen. 

And then he swoops in, all business, onto Killingham, who's wondering why his regeneration is depleting. And Sanji kicks him in the face again. It is very painful looking. And Sanji continues to attack again, thinking that he needs a stronger defense than just Armament Haki. And Sanji just spams Collier on Killingham, kicking and kicking and kicking. Killingham gets pissed off, angry that he keeps experiencing his neck bones being snapped over and over again. He's still regenerating, but a bit slower than before. Sanji delivers a cool line that since he's still figuring out this Conqueror's Haki thing, he's going to do the next best thing and make sure that Killingham just wishes that he were dead. And we get a 'Enel shocked' expression from Killingham. 

Killingham realizes, though, that Sanji is subconsciously channeling a bit of Conqueror's Haki, and is on the verge of unlocking it. So he pulls a hail mary and activates Omen, covering his centaur body in pitch-black knight armour called 'Omen Panzer'. It is so cool, actually, with the black flames flickering off of him. I really like Killingham! 

The two get some banter about the 'manners' of breaking necks, and Sanji offhandedly says that when breaking a rabbit's neck, you need to do it quickly to prevent undue pain to the animal. Sanji does a kick on the Omen armour, but it's a bit too hard and Killingham boasts that the only thing that can break Omen Panzer is Conqueror's Haki. The two of them have a clash, and when the smoke clears... the tip of the reforged Longinus shatters. 

Sanji, elsewhere, looks at his burning legs. He thinks to himself of Iva's advice that love should be defense, and that in the last attack, the defense is so strong that receiving a hit feels like he's the one landing it. In his mind, Sanji tells Zoro that he could be Luffy's sword, and he'll be Luffy's shield.

And as he does so, black lightning just explodes and erupts from the forest as Sanji properly and fully unleashes Conqueror's Haki... 

And does an amazing spinning kick right onto Killingham's face, shattering the shaft of Longinus, his helmet, his armour, and his face. Badass! And more to the point, very well earned. The emotional journey might not be the smoothest, but Ivankov deconstructing Sanji's worldview and him slowly building up to a new application of Conqueror's Haki that we've not really seen before is amazingly well done. An amazing mini-arc for Sanji! I don't think this overtakes how much love I have for the Brook arc in Elbaph right now, but my boy Sanji is a very close contender. 

Random Notes:

• Yeah, been super busy which is why even my buffer for random content have disappeared. Likely to not really change up until the next year rolls around, sorry-not-sorry.  
• I've seen some people baffled that Killingham doesn't know who one of the most prolific members of the Revolutionary Army is, but I highly doubt he even knows who Dragon is. He's a Celestial Dragon! He doesn't give a shit. 
• Ivankov and Killingham's fused form is most certainly a reference to that glorious and cursed art that Oda drew in one of the SBS of "what if Ivankov ate Kaidou's fruit". 
• I like that during his speech to Sanji, Ivankov leaps out of the window, and leaps back in. Bless you, Iva. 
• I normally don't care about translational differences, but while I appreciate the 'get off your high horse' pun, it's nowhere as strong enough as 'bow down'. 
• The Irish on Zoro's shirt in the cover image of 1197 is an Irish poem called Rop tu mo bhoile, much more famous internationally as the Christian hymn "Be Thou My Vision", which has the lines "be thou my battleshield, be thou my sword". 
• While it was a bit of a surprise that one of the super-duper-awesome-ultimate-grade swords just shattered in this fight, it gets reconstructed with Omen Panzer. Only to snap off again. I do think that the blades 'lent' to Killingham and Summers are Omen constructs, so this might not be the last we saw of Longinus. 
• Missing from Sanji's "greatest hits" are Pearl, Gin (kind of), Kuroobi, Chessmarimo and Satori. While I could understand excluding most of them, I am surprised that Kuroobi and Gin aren't in it! Sanji certainly felt like he exerted more fighting them than freaking Absalom. 
• This is one of the very rare times that Sanji calls Zoro by name! It hasn't been lost to fans that it was brought up in the SBS that Sanji and Zoro only ever refer to each other by name on really serious moments, with maybe single-digit numbers of this occurring despite their rivalry. 
• If Omen Armour is an option, is it something available to all Omen users? Is Summers (who was worried about his defense) just an idiot, then? I would buy it, Summers looks way more of a fool than Sanji is. 
• I like that Sanji compares Killingham to a rabbit. It's not something that he would know, but during God Valley, the Celestial Dragons really did get a lot of mileage calling the peasantry as rabbits to be hunted. 

Bleach TYBW E49 Review: finAl bAttle

Bleach, Thousand-Year Blood War, Episode 49: The Blade

This review was... an interesting one to write. The two final episodes of TYBW, episodes 49 and 50, were delayed a bit as the anime team went to polish the final episodes. And I did my original review of 49 as the episode came out, with a gigantic chunk of speculation on what could be plot threads that may or may not be resolved in episode 50, which I genuinely thought was going to devote at least some parts of its runtime (about less than half) to tackling some of the questions and unresolved plot threads here. Then episode 50 came out before I had the chance to review this, so it ended up feeling a bit disingenuous giving a huge chunk of speculation. And I also didn't want to clog up 50 with a lot of rant on what should have happened in this episode. 

And let's be clear -- this episode, 'The Blade', was a fantastic, adrenaline-filled rush to the end. For what was maybe a couple of pages in the manga, this is an insane improvement to Uryu shooting Juhabach with an arrow and Ichigo slicing him in half. We get an actual climax, and I don't even disagree with what some people are calling the biggest fouls in this episode. It's just that... taken as a whole, there are a bunch of stuff that the anime adaptation introduced that was literally dropped for no reason, stuff that could have been impactful and good, and they even took extra time to work on this episode. So... yeah. I have saved a majority of my ranting about the 'what could have been's  at the bottom, but I would acknowledge these two things: that the episode rocks, it's a massive rollercoaster of an action-packed episode, I enjoyed this whole season... and I'm still dissatisfied with a bunch of stuff specifically because the anime had promised to address them. 

Anyway, this is going to be a long review. Everything here except maybe five shots are all brand-new as we gear up to a final battle. 

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The final battlefield is finally set up, and it's a bunch of ominous red and black shadows and trees and tentacles filled with eyeballs. Loads and loads of eyeballs. There's a nice establishing shot, before Ichigo and Uryu charge in and do what they've been doing for a couple of episodes now. Ichigo unleashes a nice giant Getsuga Tenshou (not the big ink-moon thing from his hell-chain Bankai, though) and Juhabach unleashes a barrage of cool laser blasts from the eyeballs that open everywhere. It's something that he does a lot, and just so that I don't repeat it too much... the laser effects and the explosions are animated quite well. They're nice. They're cinematic. 

Basically the final battles are set up. Ichigo and Uryu face Juhabach in Soul Society. A group of Hollows -- Harribel, Grimmjow, and Nel's trio -- are in Hueco Mundo. And the rest, a large group of captains Kyoraku, Hitsugaya, Soi Fon and Byakuya; plus Tatsuki and the two young cadets Shino and Ryunosuke are in the human world. We get a brief check-in with Tatsuki, Shino and Ryunosuke in the human world where they are protected by Okikiba. ...who gets identified, gives a nod, and disappears for the rest of the episode. I mean, I guess somebody liked 1st Division co-Vice-Captain Okikiba enough to give him a scene? 

Shino and Ryunosuke have gotten a fair amount of extra lines and scenes, all of which amounting to basically the same hot-blooded 'new young recruits showing bravery in the face of crisis' stuff common to shonen anime fare. Which is all right. It's basic as all heck, but I get where they are going for, and at least we always get the sense that Kubo had wanted to make a point with these two losers ever since the beginning of the TYBW arc. I don't like how they are handled here, but at least I can appreciate the thematic cohesion. 

But a bulk of the screentime are still the captains doing captain stuff! Kyoraku slashes. Hitsugaya uses ice blasts to freeze some tentacles. Byakuya does a cool pose and slashes the tentacles. Soi Fon, angry that she was forgotten throughout the entire last cour, gets a slow-motion pan as she juliennes a bunch of tentacles. In Hueco Mundo, Nel, Pesche and Dondochakka run away from the laser beams, while Harribel and Grimmjow slash the beams. Ditto in Soul  Society, where Ichigo and Uryu float away from the big explosion in the cold open. Uyu's quad-bow thing looks really cool! There's a lot of split-second shots of Ichigo and Uryu charging in and using their abilities. Ichigo rams the blade down as he slides down one of the tentacles, and it's always a fun delight to see Uryu flying around shooting arrows. 

We get a nice bro moment between Ichigo and Uryu, and as much as I'm going to complain about this episode later on (and believe me, I will), I am so happy that none of this moment between the two most major characters of the arc was in the original manga. In fact, none of them even have character moments in the finale, I'd argue. Uryu makes a chuckle here, a pretty typical 'cool guy doesn't show emotions' chuckle, tells Ichigo that it's just like the good old times, and they do a combo attack. Ichigo attacks Uryu with 'all he's got'. Uryu expands his cross-shaped bow, Ichigo yells Getsuga Tenshou, and the yellow reiatsu wraps around Uryu's arrow and he launches a big motherfucking giant golden-blue arrow at Juhabach. The animation is awesome, and a giant path was carved across the terrain. 

It does nothing to the invulnerable Juhabach, of course, but nothing will until the end of the episode. At least it looks cool. 

Speaking of looking cool, what follows next is another set of really cool scenes. Soi Fon makes a crack that they are the Gotei 13, and jokes that future generations will make fun of them for sending the Stealth Force as a vanguard. She strikes a pose, wind whirls around her, and she charges forwards with her Shunko, unleashing a string of giant wind-blasts as she rockets forwards. Tier Harribel gets a very cool close-up shot as she unleashes her Cascada attack, green water filling up and contrasting well with the red background, and unleashes the torrent of water at Juhabach. Juhabach laser-blasts the water away, but this is a distraction for Grimmjow to attack, flipping and unleashing a ton of claw attacks (Desgarron, although Grimmjow doesn't yell the attack name) to turn Juhabach into cubes. Byakuya does his 'ultimate move' that he's only done once in the manga, Shukei: Hakuteiken, where he gathers all the petals around his sword and charges at Juhabach like a spear. The animation for Byakuya is particularly cool, giving us even a split-second of a demonic face when the petals gather. 

And of course, none of this awesome barrage really matters. It looks cool, though. Ichigo, Grimmjow and Byakuya all deal slashing blows to Juhabach at the same time, and Juhabach just monologues and mocks them. Byakuya in particular gets fucking impaled with a close-up of him coughing up blood. The cubed-up Juhabach speaks even as the cubes reassemble, impaling Grimmjow with a ton of shadow spears. There's s couple of cool shots as the Cube-habach reassembles, all the while Harribel's green water and Juhabach's pink lasers contend in the background. And then Harribel gets slashed, and the two Espada fall. And Juhabach begins beating up more people. Ichigo's sword gets caught and starts to crack again. Uryu jumps up but a giant eyeball opens up next to him and zaps him with a big laser. Ichigo also gets stabbed through the back and he also vomits out blood. Soi Fon and subsequently a very unbothered-looking Kyoraku also gets zapped with lasers. There's a chaotic scene where Ryunosuke, Shino, Tatsuki and Hitsugaya all cover each other from attacks, but the volume and frequency just knock everybody down. 

(Tatsuki is just out at this point. She's... she's got no powers, so it's unsurprising, but really, is she the best of the human world representative that we could get? At least Shino and Ryunosuke were deflecting lasers with their swords). 

We see a shot of everybody that gathered for this finale all taken out... and I genuinely thought this was when we're going to get more reinforcements. And we kind of do, but the main fighters are still the batch we saw at the end of 48. Holes in their chests and stomachs and whatnot, and everyone just stands the fuck back up. 

Juhabach does a monologue, with the animation focusing on the shadows making a dome around where Juhabach is, and how this is the first step that Juhabach needs to do to merge the three worlds together into one single sea of blood spanning the entire world or whatever. I gloss over Juhabach's monologues since we've heard it for like seven episodes straight at this point, but I still have to note the great work that the voice actor put in. 

We then cut to the Twelfth Division. And can I say that these guys get an unreasonable amount of increased screentime in the TYBW arc? Insanely so? I have kind of looped around to liking them now, actually. I used to be unable to name any of them other than Akon! But no, put some respect to Akon, to Hiyosu, to Rin, and to Kuna. They've gotten a lot of lines, and even though it's a typical action movie countdown or whatever, they try their best to do something about it. And I do think this is the theme of this finale, even though they don't actually go out and say it -- even the weaklings have something to contribute. As Akon refuses to give up as his three fellow scientists panic, we cut to crybaby Shino in the Human World, trying to protect his wounded friends even as Juhabach's monsters goop in. 

And of course, this is when Kyoraku and the other three Captains praise him, cut up some tentacles and strike a cool pose. It's a bit cheesy that we just got shown them all blown to bits, but I like it. 

Ichigo and Uryu also get a conversation as they both lie down on the battlefield. There's a bit of a barb-trading. Uryu mocks that hearing Ichigo whine is the main thing that makes this actually feel like the world ending. Uryu then gives a very brief discussion of the Still Silver Arrow. We don't get an explanation as to why the magic arrow can stop Juhabach (not even the manga's explanation) other than the customary one-second flashback shot to Ryuken's operation (which is such a non-sequitur if you don't know the context that the anime never explains), and Ichigo gives us the nice question of 'why haven't you used that'. And... it really does at least set up this arrow business a bit better than the manga. It's still somewhat bad from a narrative standpoint, but it's an abject improvement from the manga. Uryu asks Ichigo to create an opening in Juhabach's defenses so he can shoot his heart. 

Because this is just an episode where the animators pull from everything, we get the coolest shit ever as Uryu's reishi rises from his back, spreads out into a cape, and he starts puppeteering himself with Ransotengai. The shot is insanely cool and Uryu looks badass as shit. This is followed by yet another cool shot of Ichigo charging into battle, an orange streak slashing everything in his pathway. 

Akon's science team gets invigorated by seeing Ichigo, deciding not to be undaunted by percentages and data, and they decide to do something. Speaking of people getting up, Harribel also shrugs off her injuries, and asks Grimmjow if he's dead. Two dozen laser beams aim at Harribel, who stands there unflinching before Grimmjow jumps in-between and tears the laser blasts apart. Grimmjow, in his typical asshole fashion, tells Harribel that she's next after he deals with Juhabach. The animation team clearly likes the Espada as much as I do, with the sheer amount of increased screentime that these two got!

In Soul Society, we get the return of... the Fullbringers? Both Grimmjow and the Fullbringers had their return teased in the manga quite early on, and when they actually do show up in the manga things were already so rushed that their big contributions amounted to piddling matters. Grimmjow absolutely got a ton extra to do here, but the Fullbringers... well, they're not as popular. They still get a nice narrative conclusion to their little character arc, or at least Ginjo Kugo does. Ginjo, Tsukishima and the ever-voiceless Giriko observe as Rukia unleashes her barrier, revealing that she has protected the crew with her and kept them safe. Rukia, Chad, Ganju, Nanao, as well as Yukio and Riruka. It's a nice check-in with them even though they don't do much, but we see what they're doing while all of this is going down. Orihime and Rukia get some cool lines about protecting the place Kurosaki will return to. 

While the animation shows that Ichigo and Uryu is fighting against Juhabach's tendrils (including a nice shot where Uryu's Ransotengai is helping him fly around before the threads are severed), we get a monologue from... Shiba Ganju?

GANJU???? GANJUU??????

Yes, Ganju. Ganju gets a moment. He uses Yukio's teleportation dimension ability to hop up to the hole in the sky the episodes have been focusing towards. Ganju mutters that Ichigo is always fighting for such huge things, and he resolves himself to help Ichigo carry his burdens. He jumps into the sky towards the hole...

Meanwhile, in the human world, things are moving quite rapidly and in motion as we follow a giant stream of Senbonzakura petals. We get some laser beams, and it was a bit hard for me to miss the first time around, but Byakuya gets hit and falls out of the sky, his eyes whited out and his body burning red from the lasers. This is the last we see of Byakuya for the entire episode, and... he did get that cool Hakuteiken moment and he did get impaled the worst out of the four captains, but it was a bit of a shock. 

The petals (and some petal constructs shaped like paper airplanes) pull away to reveal that Kyoraku, Hitsugaya and Soi Fon are riding on a giant Hyorinmaru ice slab that the petals were protecting. 

BACK TO SHIBA MOTHERFUCKIN' GANJU. He's still jumping towards the hole in the sky, and in dramatic fashion he unleashes Seppa: Turn to Sand! And he blocks the hole!

In Hueco Mundo, little Nel sees it and yells at Pesche and Dondochakka to launch her. Pesche, not questioning anything, picks up his boss, yeets the child, and Dondochakka uses a kanabo to send Nel to plug the hole with her widdle head.

In the Human World, randomly running next to the four captains... is a fifth captain. Dog!Komamura, who we get a wonderful short foreshadowing last episode, runs up the side of them and behind Komamura who else is there but TETSUZAEMON IBA! Vice-Captain of the Seventh Division, the yakuza man, future Captain, who UNLEASHES HIS ZANPAKUTO. 

IBA!!!! Iba, whose Zanpakuto is still unnamed, still listed as 'Iba's Zanpakuto' in the fan Wikis! He sure releases that sword!

See, I don't care for Ganju, but Iba? Iba is my boy. 

And I get it. I was baffled when Ganju jumps up, but when Iba shows up too, I get what they're going for. That Juhabach's plan, the one thing stopping his assimilation from going from 99% to 100%, is three weaklings. Ganju, easily the most irrelevant of Ichigo's little rescue squad. Iba, the forgotten Vice-Captain who didn't even get his Zanpakuto name revealed. Neliel, reduced to her smaller form, tossed by two weakling Hollows. Akon's science division and both Shino and Ryunosuke also count, since they get moments later on too. I get that. It's just abrupt and comes out of nowhere. 

But oh well! Akon's team continue to attract the Hollows that we see rampaging in Soul Society a couple of episodes ago. Some of the Hollows are being wiped out by Juhabach, but Akon and team are doing whatever they can even as their strange, giant multi-fingered base has the fingers wiggling creepily. God bless the Twelfth Division!

We then get an insanely fast-paced sequence as there's a lot of explosion and slashing as Grimmjow gets close to Juhabach again, there's a lot of lasers and slashes and whatnot and Grimmjow gets blasted away with his arm being ripped off. Harribel charges in with Cascada and her giant shark sword, and we get a cool clash and then she gets slashed, right through her midsection with a lot of blood. Again, the animation team loves Grimmjow. We get a close up as he crawls on the ground, growling and snarling and even giving us a version of that famous Orihime shot from episode 45. 

Harribel then tells Grimmjow to 'eat her'. That's how Hollows survive, by eating each other and becoming stronger, and while Harribel was stronger than Grimmjow (#3 vs #6 by Espada rankings) I don't think that really matters any more, at least not for this fight. And Harribel is the one Hollow that would willingly sacrifice themselves. Light novel continuity aside (which I don't think is high in the priority of any of the anime staff's minds), it would actually be a tragic and beautiful end for Harribel, the Espada that represents 'sacrifice'. I think her willingly sacrificing herself to save Hueco Mundo, as one of the few Hollows to love the realm, would be a good end. 

Speaking of good endings, we get to see Orihime and Rukia fighting against the tentacles. They are about to be ambushed by a huge horde... when a blast of green light appears with a flash from off-screen, and Ginjo jumps in. Tsukushima asks Ginjo if he's okay fighting for the Shinigami, to which Ginjo replies all tsundere-like that he's doing it so Ichigo has somewhere to come back to. They clearly didn't devote much time or animation budget to this moment, and we don't even get a Cool Action Scene (tm) for Ginjo. But I feel like it's enough. We have the spirit of this nice character development for a former antagonist happening in the midst of all the chaos. I hated the Fullbringers and still think they're some of the worst villains in Bleach, but I do appreciate this moment, and I find that at least for Ginjo, this does help wrap his little story up in a bow. 

Speaking of the man, Ichigo continues to charge through the little ground-zero line that Uryu has carved onto the ground, slashing tentacles and whatnot. Juhabach extends like six shadow-hands to grab and block the blade, and Ichigo breaks through and forces Juhabach to create a shadow-blade construct out of his goopy shadow body. As he swings to decapitate Ichigo, we get a shot of Uryu taking aim (similar to how he took aim at Renji). 

In the Human World... KOMAMURA! DOGGY KOMAMURA! He's leaping down with an insane, feral look on his face. 

He gets impaled immediately by Juhabach's shadow attacks, and it looked painful and looks fatal if you ask me, but everybody in this episode is shrugging off mortal blows. But can I just say that it is so cool that Komamura gets a moment. From the afterlife (extra-afterlife) flashback last episode, to this? We actually get a payoff for Komamura turning into a dog and walking off to battle with Iba? This is an actual payoff? It's one of those scenes from the manga that I felt they could've left as-is and I don't think many people will complain, but I love this. I love that Komamura gets a moment. He doesn't deliver the deathblow or nothing, but his great sacrifice for Genryusai's sake, as misguided as his powers punished him for, at least allowed him to be there for the final battle. He's a dog, one that isn't even able to wield a sword no more, but he's still going to bite god for his master. 

While this is going on, we get some nice, glorious action movie nonsense from the captains. Soi Fon activates her Bankai, Jakuho Raikoben. After her Bankai being mostly useless any time it shows up in the anime-original scenes, Soi Fon launches the thing (which is animated beautifully, with the exhaust a nice contrast against the red/black backgrounds) and Kyoraku hangs on to one of the missile fins.

I am sorry, what? 

This is so glorious. This is more ridiculous than the stunts in a Fast & Furious movie. The missile detonates, while Soi Fon and Hitsugaya give one-liners about how responsibility drives them. Hitsugaya then uses his Bankai to and uses an extra block of ice to push Kyoraku onwards, apparently Kyoraku having been able to tank the whole explosion from Jakuho Raikoben. I'm not questioning it. It's gloriously over-the-top. We even get a nice moment where Soi Fon notse that she appreciates her Bankai now, since it was a point back in the Arrancar arc that she hates her Bankai. 

Juhabach's lasers bombard Hitsugaya and Soi Fon and finally take the two of them out, and Kyoraku gets trapped in a giant shadow pillar even as he tries to reach for Juhabach. Oh noes! 

In Hueco Mundo, we also get a nice moment of character development. Grimmjow actually leaves Harribel behind, refusing to eat her. He makes a big deal about this being that he simply refuses to take orders from people, but Grimmjow's backstory from the Arrancar arc was that he had refused to consume his own Fraccion for power, a nice hint of nobility under all of his destructive bluster. So that's a nice moment in the middle of all this chaos. Grimmjow charges in and we get a really cool sequence of him jumping around and breaking the ground and shit, and... I just gave up trying to describe this scene. It's cool, and runs on for quite a bit before we get a cool shot of Grimmjow's face... and then he gets impaled through the chest by Juhabach.

In Soul Society, Juhabach also sees Uryu's aiming at him, and unleashes a ton of laser blasts. Uryu releases his arrow, which is just a regular arrow that flies... right into Juhabach's hand, who grabs and shatters it. Ichigo gets captured by a ton of shadow hands...

And we cut away to the awesome science gang. The science gang is luring Hollows to their lab, and then the weird creepy fingers just slam down and start masticating the Hollows. I... I don't question this. They consume the Hollows, and Akon orders his crew to fire, and a giant eyeball-cannon (of course it's an eyeball) appears, charges and unleashes a bright green-red laser. It gets blocked by a bunch of shadows... and a bunch of Juhabach's tentacles coil down to attack. 

And at this point YASUTORA "CHAD" SADO APPEARS! Right out of Yukio's Invaders Must Die portal, and uses his Brazo Dereche del Gigante to block the laser beams. Chad!!! Surely this is more dignified than fighting statues!

Yukio gets to do the really cool thing, and it's also a nice little character development for him, having had his TYBW contribution be constant reminders to everyone that he's just here to move people around and that he is not going to fight. The little twerp actually has matured, and actually jumps down and plugs his ability into Akon's computer. Telling Akon that some stuff just isn't about logic, he plugs in his Invaders May Die... which has been upgraded from a PSP to a DualShock Controller complete with a mini screen. It took a rewatch for me to realize what's going on, but Yukio takes control of the beam and makes it bend as it dodges the Juhabach tendrils. That's cool! 

The beam from the science division slams onto Juhabach's head and actually blows apart some of the shadowy armour, while Chad declares that this is about pride. That's a Fullbringer reference! I get that. And you know what? I like that Chad gets a nice little moment. 

Juhabach appears to be unaffected, though, and we get a whole mass more of eyeballs and vines and shit. The three people holding back the skies from closing finally get overwhelmed. First Ganju gets swallowed up, then poor Nel gets her head glorped by the shadows, and finally Iba gets overwhelmed. Then other people get consumed by shadow, too. Yukio, then the science team of Kuna, Hiyosu, Akon and Rin. Then Chad. Then the fallen Tatsuki and Shino. Harribel. Ginjo. Nanao. Tsukishima. Giriko. Rukia. Orihime. All the eyeballs start to glow with blue light as Juhabach continues his monologue. 

Everything turns blue... AND THEN THE STILL SILVER ARROW STABS JUHABACH! Blood on the arrow!

...no, it's still not explained why Juhabach's Almighty doesn't see this. But the blood is there!

The anime doesn't say it outright, but a bunch of other things also happen. Grimmjow struggles, all bloody and shit, and chomps down to Juhabach's shoulder, sending a wave of blue energy (which is unexplained, it might be something to do with Hollow reiatsu? Is that laser what made Juhabach lose concentration in Soul Society?) and strips off Juhabach's shadow cloak as well. 

It's not just Grimmjow being badass, though. Grimmjow flashes back to Urahara (who's still fainted somewhere) and curses Urahara, noting that Urahara has done 'something' to him. Do we get an explanation for this? No, but at least there is some explanation to how Grimmjow is able to attack and be so effective. It's nowhere as epic or as sensible / foreshadowed as the Still Silver or Mimihagi, though. 

In the human world, Kyoraku finally manages to struggle, touch Juhabach and dispels the shadowy cloak as well to reveal Mimihagi inside Juhabach. 

Basically, this happens more or less simultaneously, and it makes each world's Juhabach avatar vulnerable. Again, I really did wish we spent just a little bit more time explaining what the hell happened and why shadow cloaks are dripping off. But it's time to deliver the killing blow. We get a very cool shot of Ichigo dragging his sword across the ground while sparks fly. 

In the other worlds, Grimmjow gets knocked back and reverts back to his non-Resureccion form. But help comes from more weaklings, Pesche and Dondochakka, who arrive on their giant worm. They DOUBLE RIDER KICK Grimmjow to push him down the blade he's impaled on, so he could pierce Juhabach. An unexpected bit of black comedy in the final strike!

And in probably one of the more controversial bits, Kyoraku activates Kageoni and reveals that he hid Ryunosuke in the shadows. Ryonuske slams his sword into Mimihagi, and this is apparently enough to deal the killing blow to that Juhabach. It's... I dunno. I get that they wanted to give one of Ryunosuke or Shino a big moment, but this could've happened in a different moment. I get the spirit, but I felt like any other character would've been more impactful for the Shinigami side instead of this guy. 

But of course, Ichigo gets to do his final bisection of Juhabach from the three pages we got in the manga. He swings his giant blade. Uryu watches as the shadows consume him -- in a change from the manga, he's smiling instead of wearing a tense expression. Ichigo swings his blade, Juhabach grabs it, seemingly to shatter it... and it explodes, revealing original Shikai Zangetsu within. This... I've given up trying to understand the explanations for Zangetsu's post-reforged forms, and just accept this as just a cool thing it can do. Juhabach flashes to that one dream he had earlier in the season, realizes that it's a proper vision and not just a dream... and gets cut in half by Ichigo. 

There's also a nice, cool extra scene of the visuals of the masses worshipping Juhabach as the red strings are all severed. Juhabach thinks of Haschwalth showing him the dream/vision, and that's his last thoughts before finally, just like the manga, Juhabach is sliced in twain, ending the Thousand-Year Blood War. 

And again... it's a very fun action episode. It was tense, it was fun, there's a lot of really cool moments and surprising character arcs for a lot of our characters. I will rant. And I have a long rant below. But I will also want to say that this is so, so much more epic than the original version of the fight, which amounted to 'shoot arrow, slice him in half' without all of this raid boss stuff going on. There's still a lot that could be improved, but from where it started? It was a really fun one. 

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My Little Dissatisfaction Rant:

• And before anyone says 'there's no time', I can really say that giving any of these things I bitched about as much screentime as motherfucking Okikiba got in this episode, like five seconds, would have stopped my complaints. Like, I was quite happy with the Ginjo resolution and he had maybe one, two lines here and didn't properly get an action scene. 
  
• So let's get the big one out of the way. Isshin and Ryuken. The two dads are notorious for showing up and doing jack shit in the entire TYBW arc. They... do the exact same thing here. And I don't even mind the thematic handwave of 'fathers standing aside while their sons become men and save the world'. I don't even really want Isshin and Ryuken jumping in with Bankais and shit, but the fact that they do the same 'Still Silver Arrow' delivery service and don't give us any more information? We don't get the discussion that the Still Silver was made from blot clots of Quincy killed by Auswahlen and stuff, or that it's taken from Uryu's mother other than the oblique flashbacks. The fact that they show up a couple episodes ago, and do nothing, say nothing? A quick rewrite even if we didn't give any of them screentime:
• Establishing that they are salvaging the silver clots from the dead Sternritter, which would also account for their behaviour throughout the various cours because the anime introduced them early. Why would the anime even introduce them early? 
• Fighting Juha shadows in the human world (thematically appropriate) or the Soul Society (where they are). 
• Rescuing the wounded and ferrying them away from the battlefield. 
• Talking or holding Ichibei off. 
• I would even take a scene of the two of them perched on a building nodding at Ichigo and Uryu. I would take even that. But we don't even get that. It really is just a gigantic disservice to the two characters. I honestly don't even think I care for the two of them as characters, but the fact that the manga and anime have established that they show up in this final arc, that they are present in the battlefields and we don't account for them is bizarre. 
• Antithesis. While the anime cocked and fired the additional foreshadowing of Kyoraku, Ukitake and Mimihagi doing stuff, we had the whole discussion about how the Antithesis is able to counter Juhabach's Almighty, and we get to see this when Uryu does some future-swapping bullshittery during his 1v1 against Juhabach. I would thought that it would be a very simple reason of how Uryu 'got' Juhabach with the Still Silver, but we don't get that.
  
• There have been a lot of fans analyzing the arrows that Uryu fires and some people think there's a missing Antithesis effect that may be fixed in the BluRay release or something, but either way the fact that this isn't made clear in dialogue or animation is a big miss. 
• Ichibei? We get a couple of extra sinister scenes showing Tite Kubo's intent (which was clarified in his online Q&A as well as the Can't Fear Your Own World novels) that Ichibei wanted to put Ichigo into the Soul King throne, and we get a bunch of dialogue and even visuals showing that this might be explored and concluded in this episode. There's even the extra scene of Ichibei drinking a dragon from ink or some shit. But nothing of the sort is brought up either here or the next episode. 
  
• A bit of a smaller nitpick, but nothing about Adyneus's backstory is really told to us, so those blurry, one-second flashbacks are all we get. It's enough to piece together (heh) the story if you take into account other ancillary material, but the ambiguously-canon CFYOW novel should not be required reading, not when you had a lot of extra time this episode to devote to Akon's group.
  
• I really thought we were going to get a proper 'Soul King flashback', even if it was just a couple of minutes, which would explain Adyneus, Ichibei, Mimihagi/Pernida and Juhabach's backstory. I had thought that it was why they truncated 'God Like Me', but we don't get any of that. 
• Likewise, not as crucial as the other stuff, but we also never learn what made Uryu so special that he survived Auswahlen. Unlike the others, this wasn't foreshadowed all that much, but I really thought it would at least get addressed in what was the reasonable assumption that Ryuken gets more to say and do in this anime adaptation. 
• Perhaps another big glaring confusion is where Abarai Renji disappeared off to. Did the anime staff think that he was actually defeated by Juhabach last episode, when that was the whole 'Kyoka Suigetsu' thing? That whole illusion establishes that the Renji that was 'wounded' was actually Ichigo, which was actually Aizen, right? Was he just defeated offscreen during the Kyoka Suigetsu moment? None of Ichigo's other major allies really get to do anything but defend themselves against shadows, and that's okay since they've done some cool stuff in previous episodes, but they were still accounted for. 
• Less egregious than Renji, but the following characters were all shown to still be standing around and not taken out by Lille or Gerard, and I felt any of them could've been among the initial Shinigami characters that got taken out in the first 3 minutes (instead of showing Kyoraku, Soi Fon, Byakuya and Hitsugaya get beaten and get up a minute later), or maybe taken Ryunoshuke's place at the end: Ikkaku, Yumichika, Rangiku, Izuru and Hanataro. Shit, Hanataro would genuinely be cool as the weak guy that does something. 

More Random Notes:

• 
  I don't mind these characters being MIA. Some may be a bit more annoying than others, particularly in the matter that they exited, but I get why they didn't have them around: 
• Kenpachi was explicitly shown to be the most injured after his Bankai fucked him up in the Gerard Valkyrie fight. 
  
• Mayuri, too, was probably the single captain in the worst shape after his fight with Pernida.
• Aizen did also get a canonical defeat in episode 48, which is true to the manga. A bit disappointing, perhaps, but at least it's a reason for his absence. I'm in the minority that thinks Aizen wasn't necessary for the final battle after his cool moment with Juhabach, though, and I understand many people find this supremely disappointing. 
• Urahara and Yoruichi were also quite wounded from the Askin fight, so there's at least an in-universe reason why they're absent, even if I have to point fingers at Grimmjow being able to survive and run around to survive like a dozen more deathblows from Juha. But at least they are accounted for. 
• Shinji and the rest of the Visored is a bit of a dead horse to beat, but at least Gerard sending them flying does give us an in-universe reason why they're absent for the final battle. It is annoying, admittedly, that the anime resurrected Rose and Kensei basically to pose once in the Gerard fight. 
• People complain about Tessai not showing up, but I can buy that he, Ururu and Jinta in the human world are just too far off, or busy rescuing civilians or something. 
  
• In a nice touch, Nanao is actually waving around Shinken Hakkyoken. While I never bought that this was ever going to matter against Juhabach, it's nice that she gets to wave around her unique Shikai for the three or four seconds that it showed up. A bit nitpicking and honestly she's done a lot this cour, Rukia is also shown only swinging her sealed zanpakuto and uses neither Bankai nor Shikai. 
• Out of the Fullbringers that show up, notably Riruka doesn't do anything, but she at least had dialogue in previous episodes. Giriko, meanwhile, just literally stands there, with his contribution in this entire arc being... absolutely nothing. 
  
• The animation team really loves Grimmjow, don't they? The animation in this episode is as fluid as it could be with so many moving parts, but they really gave Grimmjow a lot of additional acrobatics and unnecessary flips as he jumps around. 
• In contrast -- and I do know that this episode is already insane in the amount of stuff that goes on -- there was a point in the first couple of minutes where I think they just didn't animate Byakuya's Senbonzakura petals and he just does a cool pose, tentacles blow up, before we cut to Soi Fon. That's all right, I suppose, since Byakuya should also be able to do some basic swordsmanship. 
• 
  Juhabach's first line in this episode is 'there is nothing left to say to you all', then spends the following 25 minutes just continuing his monologues. Classic Juha!
• There really shouldn't be a reason for Nel to continue being a child throughout this episode. I know that she used the reishi-suppressing bracelet for Uryu to do the Antithesis on a couple episodes back, but if that's the reason why (beyond authors liking the comedy), Neliel is an idiot for not using any random rock to facilitate that swap. 
  
• Ryunosuke and Shino originally were shown protecting a fallen shinigami with a burned face, who I don't think was meant to be anybody. 
• Like, no, seriously, I'm just a bit miffled that we didn't get our original supporting cast shown at least holding off the tentacles or getting one-shotted by Juhabach. Ikkaku, Yumichika, Rangiku and Izuru in particular. Shit, it would at least give us a proper Izuru moment after his cyborg-zombification! 
• Hitsugaya is in his original kid form throughout 48 all the way to the finale. Post-finale Hitsugaya is still in his younger form, but it is surprising that we don't get him busting out his Adult form at least once in this chaotic fanservice final arc. 
• It is interesting that both the Still Silver and Grimmjow's modified bite seems to unleash some Blut Vene looking marks on Juhabach's body. What does this mean? I dunno.