Bleach, Thousand-Year Blood War, Episode 46: The End
After 'Life to Defend You', it is a bit jarring (if not unexpected) to return fully to a more straight-up faithful adaptation of the manga material. And this is, admittedly, material that I have complained heavily about. Out of everything in the final chapters for Bleach, these fights are the ones I associate the most with the spiraling mess that the final couple of volumes ended up being.
But there are two crucial aspects to these fights -- Juhabach's total domination of Ichigo; and the Uryu/Haschwalth Antithesis-Balance fights -- we actually have build-up to them. One major problem of the Juhabach and Ichigo fight in the manga is that we spend so much time building up to Ichigo rebuilding his true Zanpakuto and him running out to the throne room... only for Juhabach to instantly one-shot Ichigo before he even got to do anything with his manga. Having not just 'Life to Defend You' to really show off Ichigo, Orihime and Rukia doing stuff against Juhabach and having a good show before that big moment of domination? That works so much better. It might be a more traditional shonen way of 'the heroes do well until the villain does a power-up', but it is most certainly better than the abrupt nothing of the manga. Juhabach actually having good monologues and properly expounding on his objectives, motivations and values is also nothing special in the grand scheme of action anime, but it does a great job of making me care for this moment.
And the Uryu/Haschwalth fight is... it's still bad, and it really is eclipsed compared to the fights we saw fragmented throughout the last four or five episodes. But again, at least we have a proper confrontation between the two -- and so it doesn't feel quite as rushed. I still don't like the Uryu/Haschwalth fight and how it ends, but it's something.
I'm going to cover all the Juhabach-vs-Ichigo material first, then the Uryu-vs-Haschwalth because it's divided quite cleanly between the two.
Anyway, the episode picks up where we left off, with Orihime's big dramatic sacrifice. And of course it doesn't hold, although I kind of wished that maybe we cut to some of the Uryu/Haschwalth fight to milk the omment a bit more instead of resolving it within five seconds. We get an unexpected cameo by Tatsuki, who feels her best friend's death or something in the human world and walks up to the window and cries. We cut back to the throne room where finally Renji, Chad and Ganju show up and regroup with Ichigo and Rukia, who both disengage their Bankai and inform them of Orihime's sacrifice. I do like that Ganju goes "that means the world is saved, right?" God damn it, Ganju.
And interestingly -- and probably one of the most interesting scenes for me in this episode -- is Ichigo walking off and saying 'not yet', with his footsteps creating pools and a small lake behind him. All of this culminates to a gigantic curtained throne, presumably the Soul King's throne, manifesting in front of Ichigo. Waterspouts whirl around Ichigo; and all the imagery of the Soul King Adyneus's death in the primordial world has always used lakes and waters. I do hope we do get a brief flashback later on of Ichigo and Ichibei's discussion. Ichibei wanting to groom Ichigo up into the replacement Soul King was always something hinted in the manga (and confirmed in novels and built up in the anime), but I do want to see it spelled out properly.
But then, of course, things don't quite happen that way. The colours distort briefly, ominous music plays, and everyone turns around to see Orihime floating in the sky, all horror movie style. Eyeballs appear and Juhabach reforms. We get the explanation that Juhabach got the full power of The Almighty back (which the voice actor has a great time hamming it up, saying the name of that power) because of the day/night cycle. Which... is a bit anti-climactic since the audience didn't really see that, but sure.
Juhabach reforms and begins to give a rant about how 'that version of the future has never existed'. This is Juhabach's bullshit The Almighty powers, very JoJo and very nonsensically reality-warping. It's not just the power to see the future (as what we saw with Haschwalth's version of The Almighty) but also the power to jump to other timelines and select them. In the manga the explanation was done well, but the way they got around the Almighty was just a vague handwave and I'm curious to see how they do it now.
Juhabach unleashes a blast of Conqueror's Haki reishi that forces all the characters other than Ichigo to their knees. Ichigo charges in, and Juhabach knocks Ichigo backwards, showing off his two swords in a hilariously mocking "did you think you are the only one who can wield dual swords?"
Juhabach then goes on his 'grains of sand' monologue, essentially explaining multiverse theory and how Juhabach can jump from one grain of sand to the other to select the futures that he wants, allowing him to reject futures he doesn't want and make a mockery out of the idea of 'hope defying fate'. There is a lot of holes with how this power works, but it's been compared a lot to quicksaving in a video game, and there are a couple of unstated limitations -- clearly there's some wibbly-wobbly memory stuff since Ichigo, Orihime and the rest of the people in that room remember the 'old' grain of sand/timeline; he can't time-travel into the past; and it's clearly not all possibilities if Juhabach can't just select a timeline where he wins.
Juhabach then gives another speech about how the Wahrwelt he's going to create is a world without conflict, similar to what Orihime desires. Ichigo then goes into a speech about how despair has been something he's familiar with, since that's how he continually goes stronger. We get a nice flashback to scenes from the original anime of Ichigo's victories over various opponents, while he's activating the fiery chains of his Bankai. The moon effect happens again, and Ichigo goes into his Bankai, Tensa Zangetsu...
And it's immediately broken by Juhabach. Juhabach does say that "this is why I needed you, my son"... which the episode doesn't make fully apparent due to the placement of the scenes (there's a huge chunk of dialogue after this on the other side of the battle), but this seems to be talking about Haschwalth instead of Ichigo. Because the Auswahlen happens and kills Haschwalth, and this appears to be how Juhabach manages to break the Bankai.
So it is the implication that Juhabach needed that little boost (or perhaps The Balance, specifically) to break Ichigo's true Bankai, which is interesting? It does fix a weird plot hole beyond 'Juhabach is being a stupid arrogant idiot' with his random Auswahlen, and does make these scenes more dramatic. Ichigo dramatically explode sin power only for the scene to immediately cut with the blade being snapped in half, and Juhabach dropping the tip of the blade. This is 'respect to Ichigo's power', that it's a powerful Bankai, and he's jumped into a future where he's already broken it. Juhabach then snaps off Ichigo's horn and launches it at him, before beating up Ichigo.
And now some more anime-original fight scenes, as Renji finally stands up, activates his own Bankai, So'o Zabimaru... and Juhabach teleports behind him. He goes on a deviously assholish speech about how he likes the word 'Bankai' as it's normally associated with hope for the Shinigami, but he's about to one-shot everyone that can do Bankai and make it be despair. We don't see the exact wounds, but as we cut away to Rukia, we see pieces of Renji's bloody limbs fall down onto the ground which is surprisingly brutal. Juhabach then grabs Rukia by the face, and looks like he's about to crush her skull in... although we don't see it happen, we do see Rukia's sword arm visibly snapped like a twig.
Ganju and Chad also get impaled unceremoniously with shadow-pillars. And Ichigo watches this while Juhabach monologues about how Ichigo could only overcome despair 'simply because I wasn't there'... the final shot of the episode before credits is a black screen with an amazing pained scream by Ichigo's voice actor Morita Masakazu.
The other half of the episode is the Uryu/Haschwalth fight. Haschwalth explains that the 'time limit has already passed', and that that he's going to fight with his own powers now. Haschwalth does his manga counterpart's claim that "my original power is more suited for battle than His Majesty's", which... has always felt bullshit whichever version of Juhabach's powers we're talking about, but particularly egregious here.
The anime doesn't really call it into stark attention here, but Haschwalth also is portrayed and animated as being a lot more stoic and less hammily-mocking as he has been in the past couple of episodes, which I thought was a nice touch to show him when he's being host to Juhabach's powers.
And Haschwalth's fight against Uryu is... it's animated well. The scenes from the manga are adapted faithfully. I just never found this fight to be particularly engaging, and with this being really the only times we've seen these powers in a full fight (yes, we did see Balance and Antithesis cameo in the Squad Zero fight if you know what you're looking for) it really does take the wind out of the sails. Haschwalth's Balance reflects misfortune back at the opponent, and Uryu's Antithesis can swap events that happen between two objects. It's essentially a game of 'no, you' except Haschwalth has some stuff about how he can absorb damage with his Freund Schild/Friend Shield. There's some nice animation with the giant CGI balance, sure, but while I know why the fight is what it is, it really doesn't leave me much to discuss.
And Haschwalth does go on one of the 'letter rants', going on and on about the balance and putting everything on the balance. This is something that a lot of the Sternritter does, like As Nodt and Gerard Valkyrie and Mask and Pepe and Askin... but Haschwalth's little rant really does get eclipsed by Juhabach's and it's frankly just not that interesting. There's some nice nods to how humans place right and wrong on a balance and sort out what's right by themselves -- a lot of this really does tie to the Bazz-B relationship, but we don't really get this bit until the very end. And I really feel like Haschwalth has enough of a character buildup from that flashback that we really didn't need to fall back to the writing crutch that's this big theme-motive rant.
We then get misfortunes and wounds being reversed on each other, and the anime shows off the anime-exclusive scenes from previous cours of Uryu using Antithesis in the Squad Zero fight and earlier in this one. So that's a nice bit -- and I do hope that Antithesis is used a bit more as Uryu is clearly going to be more involved in the finale (and gives more weight about Haschwalth giving the cryptic hint that Uryu might be the only one that has the ability to challenge the Almighty).
There is one really nice additional scene where Haschwalth compares Uryu to the stupid humans. And then Uryu goes through all of his friends. Ichigo, Rukia, Orihime, Chad and Renji are all idiots. But if being an idiot makes Uryu the same as them... he can live with it. It's a really nice way to showcase Uryu's true loyalties and go through all that 'nakama' stuff. Not the most revolutionary, again, but quite needed here -- particularly with the Haschwalth/Bazz-B contrast at the end. Especially with Uryu comparing himself to being a cold intellectual like Haschwalth, who puts things on balances.
Haschwalth questions what merit these bonds have, since Uryu has gained such an immense boost in power and ability by simply being associated with Juhabach, but Uryu is adamant that his bonds and his friendship are more important. Of course, this is right when Juhabach does his Auswahlen and kills Haschwalth, and that there's no need for 'self-interest' because they are friends.
(It is also nice that only Haschwalth is shown being Auswahlen'ed here, instead of alongside Gerard, which adds to the dramatic moment here).
And of course, Haschwalth lies there dying, and Uryu kneels next to him. Haschwalth goes on a bit of a last-minute rant about how he's totally proud of his status, how his was the power that Juhabach decided to take, and how he could be of service to His Majesty. But on the same breath, he also tells Uryu to use Antithesis to transfer his wounds to the dying Haschwalth, and he flashes back to his own friend who he betrayed for power and out of impulse -- to young Bazz-B -- and the last shot of that post-credits scene is the little logo that they had as a child.
And honestly?
This was great. There was a lot of expansion for Juhabach's dialogue, of course. Him mocking the concept of Bankai, and having a slight theme hammering the 'despair and hope' on Ichigo really does work well, particularly building up on the previous one. Juhabach breaking the Bankai after we saw what Ichigo could do with it, and also seemingly massacring the rest of Ichigo's friends works a lot better as a gigantic gut-punch. But I do really feel like while the actual Uryu/Haschwalth fight is still kind of lame, the conclusion and the little discussion between them is well-done. Having Uryu actually have stuff to say about his own friendship and having it be the one that shakes Haschwalth... and particularly having Haschwalth's death tie into the Juha/Ichigo fight is nicely done.
It's still not perfect and I can still poke a lot of holes in the Juhabach/Haschwalth power sharing dynamic and The Almighty in general, but overall? A nice execution if they really had to keep all of the scenes in the manga intact during the adaptation.
Random Notes:
- Oh, there's also a brief moment in the middle of the episode of Akon and company in the lab, trying to figure out stuff about the reishi imbalance. They discuss how they need a large amount of energy to solve the reishi imbalance, and Akon falls on the solution of opening a gate to Hueco Mundo. This is an unexpected but very welcome return to how the Arrancar and Hueco Mundo were kind of built up in the beginning of the arc but we never really got any follow-up to that.
- There are some theories out there between episodes 45 and 46 that Uryu putting the Leiden Hant on Haschwalth to dispel his Almighty powers is what caused Juhabach to regain those powers, and... it does push some blame to poor Uryu, but I do like it as an explanation a lot better than 'oops, it's no longer night in this strange spirit-world where you don't really see the sky'.
- Previous episodes have shown shots of the human world where Karin and Yuzu are reacting to massive unexplained earthquakes; or Tessai, Ururu and Jinta fighting Hollows. It is a bit weird that Tatsuki was literally just sleeping through the whole damn thing and the skies outside her house is just rainy.
- We do get a lot of Ichigo/Orihime shipping moments in the last couple of episodes which does explain the big love-triangle choice, but I do like the brief bit where Renji rushes over to Rukia's side in this one.
- After all the hullaballoo with Byakuya telling Rukia that her Bankai needs care to disengage, Rukia just does so basically instantly here. Although I suppose it isn't particularly uncommon in Bleach that power-ups that are supposed to have drawbacks get instantly handwaved by the next appearance.
- I like that out of the characters around, Renji immediately goes to realizing and pointing out that this might be something that the 'damned priest' Ichibei is doing.
- With how serious Juha has been throughout this whole final fight, I really loved his sass with mocking Ichigo's dual swords.
- The fight also has Uryu show off his new four-pronged bow, which... kind of feels really lackluster after him showing off far more elaborate forms and abilities throughout the past dozen episodes or so with his Vollstandig.
- The addition of the previous fight does make it kind of funny when we get the manga dialogue of Uryu asking Haschwalth if he "wants to see [his] Schrift" and Haschwalth saying that he would've used it earlier in the fight if it was enough to beat him. Except Uryu did use the Antithesis to get the Leiden Hant on him. So this dialogue is kind of off.
- I know how Antithesis worked so I have been looking for moments where Uryu is using it, but I wished that the flashback to the previous episode actually showed the glove materializing around Haschwalth's hand to properly show off the Antithesis.
- Ganju is 10000% absent from Uryu's list of his comrades, but that honestly makes sense and I genuinely don't think Ganju deserves to be in that room. Not over so many other characters running around the battlefield at the moment.
- Ichigo's Tensa Zangetsu in this episode is 100% identical to the blade we see in the manga's version of this scene, which is noticeably different from his dual-horned, spade-blade Bankai last episode. The huge red fiery effects from the anime is still here, though, which confused me for a bit into thinking that Ichigo's Bankai is just revised. But apparently it's a Bankai with multiple forms?
- Notably, while Ichigo does say 'Bankai' last episode, he never identifies it as 'Tensa Zangetsu'.
- Orihime's powers from last episode is given the name Rokutenshinshun in the cutaways.
