Bleach, Thousand-Year Blood War, Episode 7: Born in the Dark
Another banger episode! And... this one perhaps didn't have the same amount of high-octane action content as episode 6, but we do get a pretty great, brief action sequence at the end. But I really do feel like this episode followed in the emotional highs of the previous episode.
And we start off with a shot of brand-new characters to us -- the original members of the Gotei 13! Which ties into Juhabach's line in this episode reflecting how Yamamoto and his original court guards were originally no more than a group of brutal butchers out to kill and pretending to be civilized. And... well, we get to see all 13 of them, plus Yamamoto and Unohana. Or Yachiru, as she's known at that point. It's a bit of a slightly-earlier foreshadowing of her identity, though one that I think is done pretty well cause the focus is on Yamamoto and the other 12 members just kind of zoom by. They are pretty brutal, murdering people by bashing their heads together, doing some martial arts kicking, and this one dude with glasses just calmly walks up to a Quincy and cuts his throat out.
Some fun designs there, with my favourites being the creep with exposed metal teeth... or are those implants? The lady with an eyepatch and two super-long pigtails also look very cool, and I also like the super huge guy with the two braids/queues. Some of them have interesting shikais, too -- I can see a spear and a club somewhere there, but we don't really linger too much on them.
And very unexpectedly, CHOJIRO MOTHERFUCKING SASAKIBE helps in taking down Juhabach, jumping out from behind him and stabbing him in the back before Yamamoto attacks with Zanka no Tachi. Okay, that's all pretty unexpected and very badass. This last arc really likes Sasakibe for someone who dies in the first episode!
This cuts into the nice scene from the manga of young Kyoraku asking Yamamoto about the picture of his Bankai and Yamamoto's cryptic answer that it's a monster that made things worse for Soul Society... and then we cut to the present day where Yamamoto's body just sliiiiiides off down the slash and clatters to the ground. Some very great voice-acting by Kyoraku, who loses his cool and is about to dash all the way to Yamamoto before Robert Accutrone just riddles him with bullets. Juhabach then summons a bunch of Reishi arrows and just bombards the shit out of Yamamoto's corpse after it tries to grab Juha's leg, again, another moment that wasn't super clear in the manga but was definitely a lot more brutal and overkill here.
Juhabach also eulogizes Yamamoto a bit, talking about how he isn't fighting at full strength because he refuses to get his arm healed by Orihime, which in turn reflects how he refuses to ask help from humans whether it be from pride or shame. It's a moment that I feel was a bit 'yeah, Yamamoto, you're dumb' when I first read it in the manga, but with this episode, I feel like it's contrasted a lot better with Byakuya's speech later when he begs Ichigo to help Soul Society.
We get an amazing scene of the voices disappearing -- and the little flames spluttering out as the Sternritter's Soldats show up and start massacring the random Gotei troopers is a lot cooler in the anime compared to the scene I kinda complained about before with Ichigo listening to everyone's voices. Ichigo just Getsuga Tenshou's super hard and gets out of The Jail, and bursts out into the Seireitei and is greeted by Akon.
...who immediately collapses thanks to throwing knives in his back, thrown by the Sternritter, Shaz Domino, who is about to explain his deal... and he gets absolutely and instantly one-shotted by Ichigo. Poor Shaz Domino, even the author forgot you existed!
Ichigo lands next to Byakuya and we get that aforementioned sad scene and him begging Ichigo for help... and I really do think that this would've been a good place for Byakuya to die. Okay, maybe in an ideal world perhaps he would put up a bit more of a fight against As Nodt or something, helped to rescue Renji or Rukia or something, but... he didn't really do much after being resurreced, and the last act of Kuchiki Byakuya being the proudest of the proudest Shinigami finally breaking down and asking humbly for the humans for help? That's great. We get a scene of Senbonzakura shattering later on, which in the manga seemed to be Byakuya's death until his random reappearance later...
Anyway, Ichigo time! I do really like that we don't see Ichigo's expression from the moment he sees Akon all the way to Byakuya's earnest speech and we get the most glorious expressions as Ichigo's reishi aura just... just causes the rain around him to evaporate. We get the badass entry as Ichigo's Tensa Zangetsu slams down in front of Juhabach and Haschwalth, before he lands himself, and we get to see a glorious raging Ichigo, beautifully animated, and even a split-second that I screencapped here where his eyes glow red.
Ichigo just doesn't give a shit anymore, just demands to know if Juhabach is the guy he needs to lay waste to, and... we get a pretty smooth clash-clash-clash between Ichigo and Juhabach. It's not as long or as well-choreographed as the Yamamoto fight, but it makes sense with how raw Ichigo is feeling right now. Some really great remixes of the old anime's battle themes as Ichigo lands. Not to talk poorly of the previous episode, which relied more on sound effects and voice acting, but man the soundtrack in this sequence of Juha and Ichigo is just on point. There's a sequence where Ichigo is being bombarded by the Quincy spell Qualkreis (an anime-original spell!) where Nothing Can Be Explained plays and the chanting is so haunting!
Juhabach eventually pins Ichigo down and seems to slash him through the neck... but then we get a very cool mechanized sound effect and Ichigo has activated Blut Vene! I guess Quincy powers aren't as effective against other Quincy powers, and Juhabach explains about how Ichigo's powers and constant Getsugas ended up causing Quilge's pure-Quincy Reishi to mix with Ichigo's own. An explanation made a lot more clear with animation! Speaking of explanations, Juhabach also drops a lot more hints about Ichigo not knowing the truth about his heritage or his mother, because, well, surprise, Ichigo's a Quincy!
The Sternritters all retreat, but Ichigo tries to attack once more and Haschwalth just easily cuts off his Bankai in half, leaving Ichigo stunned as the Quincies retreat, leaving the good guys all defeated, while Juhabach mutter cryptically about Ichigo being his son 'born in the dark'.
Random Notes:
- Less images here, partially because I went a bit overboard in the previous episodes but also because... well, the animation in this one is super cool and it's one of those action scenes that really can't be judged with images alone.
- It is a good thing that I delayed a bit before posting this, because the magazines or something ended up releasing the names and squadrons of the original Gotei 13. It's so funny because in the week after that, the fandom was trying to match the five great clans to these designs... and turns out that it's just the Shihouin clan leader.
- 2nd Division, Shihouin Chika (the darker-skinned, short-haired woman)
- 3rd Division, Izuhara Kinroku (gaunt glasses man who beheads people)
- 4th Division, Shijima Chigiri (emo long-haired man)
- 5th Division, Obana Danjiro (short-haired man with funky greaves)
- 6th Division, Saito Furofushi (eyepatch, twin-pigtails lunatic girl)
- 7th Division, Shigyou no Busuna (felt coat, mustachioed barbarian guy)
- 8th Division, Katori Batsunsai (Lisa/Nanao-looking girl with a spear)
- 9th Division, Kumoi Entetsu (maniac with exposed metal teeth)
- 10th Division, Otogawa Furouki (long-haired man with straw hat)
- 12th Division, Zenjou Jiuhin (big tattoo-faced guy with queues)
- 13th Division: Sakahone Saizou (skinny old man)
- Ah yes. Shaz Dommino. The Stern Ritter. Kubo deadass just forgot about him when he wrote the manga, didn't he? I think a later databook or something says that he's Sternritter Epsilon or Delta or some shit and a creation of Gremmy. Poor, poor Shaz.
- Okay, they were just goons, but the Soldats murdering the Gotei goons are surprisingly pretty damn brutal!
- We get our first full shot of Meninas MacAllon here, still appearing way earlier than she would in the manga, standing over Rukia.
- I really couldn't tell in the manga, but the anime's version of Tensa Zangetsu really did look ragged throughout this fight, especially with the repeated Getsugas Ichigo is doing in the jail, and then the clashes with Juhabach. Man, he just got that weapon back after the Fullbring arc!
- Actually, the Fullbringer arc, as much of a 'filler' it is, does really explain just why Ichigo is so fucking outraged at the Soul Society being fucked up... considering the events from Ichigo's perspective, after finding himself so alone and without friends and allies in the Fullbringer arc, what Ichigo saw last was his former enemies turned allies turned friends moving heaven and earth to come in, beat up a bunch of enemies just for him and not out of duty or a greater cause or anything. And then to listen to so many people get hurt and killed while he's helpless in the Jail...
- ...yeah, makes you understand why Ichigo doesn't recognize Juhabach's voice or appearance a bit better, huh?
- I glossed over it in the review, but Juhabach does use a brand-new Quincy spell not in the manga, Qualkreis, German for 'Torment Circle'. It is a bunch of pillars that auto-fire arrows and slams rocks to pin Ichigo in place.
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