Bleach Thousand-Year Blood War E06 Review: All Things In The Universe Turn To Ash

Bleach, Thousand-Year Blood War, Episode 6: The Fire

Slightly late talking about these Bleach episodes, mostly because I was a bit preoccupied playing Pokemon! I did have a lot of these reviews drafted up beforehand, just... didn't quite have time to edit them, and I wanted to finish off Stranger Things before. 

Anyway, "The Fire" basically is just the couple of chapters of Yamamoto facing off against 'Juhabach' and showing off his Bankai and the four facets of it. And... that should really be the review. I really shouldn't really need to talk too much about it, since I'm really talking about a decade-old manga volume at this point. Sure, there are a couple of extra anime-only scenes, but... but holy balls, they really did go all-in with crafting and animating this episode. One of the unfortunate side-effects of the Bleach manga's pacing is that due to the author's habit of making huge full-page or double-page spreads, it does leave a lot less space and these fights end up sometimes feeling less light fights and more of a superpower showcase. Which is definitely something I did feel when reading Yamamoto and Juhabach's fight for the first time in the manga. 

So the anime basically... took all the huge, impactful scenes from the manga, but expanded upon them with some real smooth animation, and the sheer intensity of flame animation and the darker shading on the characters and surroundings when Yamamoto's flames are active ends up painting so much of the episode... that when the flames are removed thanks to the first Bankai effect, you really do get punched in the visuals and realize how much the flames have been dominating the screen before you. 

There are also a lot of additional action scenes tossed in-between the flashy usage of powers, of Yamamoto and Juhabach jumping around and unleashing blows and slashes at each other, that is snappy and fluid and amazingly choreographed which doesn't feel repetitive or out of place in the fight. I did pull up and look through the chapters this episode is based on, and it actually surprised me how much the episode adds without actually feeling like it's heaping a huge amount of padding.

Like, just using examples from the earlier parts of the fight, the anime adds a lot of extra scenes that feels badass and fits the manga -- from Yamamoto using flash step to rescue Kenpachi from being throttled, and the little details of his Shunpo leaving trails of flame; or later on in the fight when Juhabach tosses a bunch of roof-tiles at Yamamoto and he yells so loudly that the tiles return back to Juhabach as fiery projectiles, or just several extra usages of Kyokujitsujin blowing shit up... really great stuff. 

There's also a lot of brief flashes to when Juhabach sees Yamamoto a thousand years ago when he was younger, recalling the old Quincy extermination... which ties in nicely to the first of our anime-original scenes... which is Uryu content! Uryu is hanging out under a bridge next to a river, finding a hidden page about a Quincy extermination done 1000 years ago (as opposed to 200 years ago), with a picture of young Yamamoto wreathed in flames. He later recounts his own friendship with Ichigo and wonders how he can justify working with Ichigo after the two series of genocide the Shinigami did to his people. Nice tie-in!

I also really like a scene translated very faithfully from the manga -- Kyoraku and Robert arguing about the presence of their respective leaders invigorating their troops... and then three Sternritters that have been shown to be pretty invincible -- NaNaNa, Bazz-B and especially As Nodt -- just try and dogpile Yamamoto and getting absolutely incinerated in a gigantic pillar of flame visible by all combatants. 

We get a brief, fluid clash (which is mostly original to the anime), Yamamoto then unleashes his Bankai -- Zanka no Tachi. Specifically, the East part of his ability, Kyokujitsujin (Rising Sun Edge). This is the aforementioned moment when a screen filled with fiery reds and yellows and heavy shadowing suddenly implodes into white and regular colouration, with a heat haze all around them. Amazing animation here and one that I really can't explain in screen caps. 

The cutaways to other people in the Soul Society experiencing the surprise drought is well-done; the showcases of Unohana, Ukitake and Kyoraku recognizing the ability, are all neat. Absolutely wonderful is that animation as the desiccated-looking longsword strikes down, not making contact with Juhabach's body from head to toe... and just the briefest contact with the ground makes sparks... and then SUDDENLY GIGANTIC FUCKING EXPLOSION AND ANNIHILATION OF THE TERRAIN. Glorious. 

There is a lot of talk between Yamamoto and Juhabach about their battle a thousand years ago, which of course is a great excuse to keep flashing back to young Yamamoto. We then get to see Yamamoto absolutely creating gigantic explosions of destructive power with this ability before moving to West: Zanjitsu Gokui (Remnant Sun Prison Garb)... which leads me to such a bizarrely surreal scene where Haschwalth mutters about how Yamamoto's explanation of a 15-million-degree-Celsius flame wreath doesn't make sense since the flames wouldn't be visible, and his conclusion that the 'flames' we see is Yamamoto's pure Reishi leaking out and taking the form of flames. 

Yes, in this manga with... with everything ridiculous in Bleach, the visibility of a superhot flame is what we'd be concerned about. It's not even real fire, it's spirit fire!

Yamamoto mocks Juhabach a bit, telling him that it's okay to run... but he'll still fucking murder him. Juhabach launches a huge Quincy arrow, before a bunch of prayer ribbons unfurl out and Juhabach uses Kirchenlied: Sankt Zwinger, which... it's apparently a defensive spell that will annihilate any who enters the domain. We don't actually see what this spell can do, though, because Yamamoto basically destroys the ground that the Sankt Zwinger pillars are on with his third ability. 

Then Yamamoto goes to South: Kaka Jumanokushi Daisojin. Great Buried Ranks of the Ten Trillion Fire-Dead. And... this causes zombies to happen! Skeletons that are burnt to death by Yamamoto's flames return to torment Juhabach. And... the skeletons are CGI, which are very conspicuous... but they're also shaded rather creepily, and they are meant to be unsettling. Not the biggest fan, but I wouldn't say that it ruins the episode for me. Like the manga, there is a great usage of cutaways to show the zombies from Juhabach's viewpoint where he sees the skeletons reform into his former minions Zeidritz, Hubert and Argola... while from Yamamoto's point of view they are just skeletons. 

Yamamoto apparently arrives at the (later proven to be untrue) conclusion that the Sternritter need to fully understand the Bankai before stealing them. He notes that Juhabach might have a sense of humanity left in him... before unleashing the final North ability: Tenchi Kaijin. Heaven and Earth End in Ashes. 

We get the kanji, before a glorious flame-wreathed Yamamoto slashes through the black screen and the Kanji and half of Juhabach's body. Immediately after Juhabach falls, rain begins to fall... and then Juhabach, or rather "Juhabach", apologizes, leading Yamamoto to suddenly realize that something is wrong. 

And the real Juhabach shows up, as the Juhabach that Yamamoto has been fight reveals himself to be Royd Lloyd. 

Now the anime skips behind the rather bullshit and honestly convoluted explanation that there are two Sternritter Y, Loyd Lloyd and Royd Lloyd. I never really cared too much for the 'one copies abilities, one copies memories' part of it, but a quick 'they are twins with the same ability' line would've probably worked a fair bit to explain the situation to people who didn't read the manga. 

And as Yamamoto himself noted to be one of Juhabach's defining characteristic, Juhabach basically just blows up Royd Lloyd after praising his performance -- this isn't a man who would be normally be shaken by something like Kaka Jumanokushi Daisojin, but I guess Yamamoto himself has softened over the years, and the sheer rage and desire to wipe out Juhabach with his own bare hands blinded Yamamoto to this fact. And... it's something that they didn't even really change too much from the manga, but the voice acting, the music, the sheer emphasis on Yamamoto's rage... yeah, you really do believe that he's completely lost his cool and his ability to strategize properly. 

Oh, by the way, this is where we get the second extended scene original to the anime, which... I 100% believe was probably in Tite Kubo's drafts which he didn't manage to put into the manga when it was rushed to conclusion. In the manga equivalent of this scene, we did get Juhabach say that he went to the underground prison to meet Aizen, but we never really get to see the conversation. 

Here, we do! It's short, it's something that we can infer from later scenes with Aizen in the manga, but it's so great to see it. To see Juhabach talking to Aizen, trying to recruit him, and Aizen mocking Juhabach for being a Quincy Emperor following the footsteps of a mere Shinigami... and then Juha leaving Aizen behind because his Hogyoku biology makes him too hard to properly kill or restrain in time. 

Yamamoto goes Bankai, which gets stolen by Juhabach... and then we get a fun scene where Juhabach summons a gigantic Reishi bow, shoots an arrow down... which he uses as a big sword. I guess this falls under "Quincy only uses bows and arrows"?

Then Juhabach slashes Yamamoto, and we get basically a perfect recreation of the manga panel, albeit with coloured blood, as Yamamoto accepts his death calmly and is bisected by Juhabach.

A great, wonderful and high-octane episode. Again, a lot of the emotions that don't necessarily hit as hard in the manga are translated amazingly into the episode, and even then the additional scenes that fill in plot holes; as well as just the expansion of action scenes in general, do make this episode such a visual treat to watch. 

Random Notes:

• Yeah, I'm going back to 'Juhabach' spelling. I'm sorry, it was way too much effort for me to try and catch every time I didn't write it as 'Yhwach'. 
• We saw As Nodt and Bazz-B win their fights... so I guess NaNaNa beat up Rose off-screen, then.
• There is a moment when Yamamoto releases the East version of Zanka no Tachi and we see Cang Du using Daiguren Hyorinmaru and it's melting... and I find it hilarious that Hitsugaya is going 'hah-ha, you can't use your ice powers'. Poor kid would've been in trouble if he still had his Bankai at this point... 
• Yamamoto moves Kenpachi away from Juhabach... all five feet away. It's rather unbelievable that he didn't get caught in Zanka no Tachi East or West...
• Was there a reason why Unohana, the former Kenpachi and one of the strongest captains, is hanging out in the barracks? I guess as medical support. I vaguely remember this being addressed. 
• Always love the fun little detail of Yamamoto's Zanjitsu Gokui melting the very concrete that he's walking on. 
• Fake Juha does have a good point -- Yamamoto is a Shinigami... raising the dead for a spell. 
• Okikiba Genshiro bite the dust as the real Juhabach blows up the 1st division barracks. Yeah, we even get a flashback because it's doubtful anyone even remembers him.