Bleach TYBW E21 Review: Named Vollstandigs!

Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War, Episode 21: The Headless Star

Huh, that was not the extended battle that I was expecting. But that's not to say that this isn't a good episode, no! I thoroughly enjoyed watching this episode and perhaps it's becuase I had no idea what's going to happen for a good chunk of it. The past couple of episodes focusing on the fights for Komamura, Renji, Rukia and Kenpachi were by and by pretty excellent adaptations, but ultimately they have been playing things relatively safe. The Rukia and Kenpachi fights in particular got a huge amount of improvement thanks to their respective pacing, but from this point on is where I feel like the Thousand-Year Blood War started to show the biggest cracks in its writing. 

And the manga version of this entire sequence basically boils down to Kubo bringing in everyone important that's still conscious on the Seireitei, have them face off against each other... and then Ichigo and Uryu shout some words at each other, we cut away a bit and then the big battle melee that's promised is over only Pepe to show for it. Rereading this sequence in the manga, the best action scene is Ichigo and Candice fighting for a bit in the manga, and it was highly inconclusive. This manga doesn't quite make it as well as it could've been, but a combination of the Bambis having more of a fight, as well as the hectic action scene of the Sternritters dogpiling Ichigo makes the whole sequence feel a bit more faster-paced in a good way. 

We start off this episode with yet another representation of the cult that worshipped him in the past, again, from the chapter 'God Like You' that's been interestingly chopped up and divided up across the various episodes. I do wonder if we'll get a proper explanation of Juhabach's backstory in a proper monologued fashion? Juhabach wakes up and thanks the soul of the dead for allowing him to wake up -- which implies that him absorbing the souls of the fallen Quincies to be a necessity for him to essentially 'recharge'. Again, the improved execution scene of BG9 and Cang Du a couple episodes back really does help to sell this sequence, and while I'm not sure if it works with Arrancar Quincies, we shold remember that Ebern and Luders were both also executed by Juhabach. 

We then cut away to the aftermath of the Kenpachi/Gremmy fight, with the giant stone fort collapsing, and Kenpachi taking stock of his wounds before walking up to find Yachiru's clothes and badge. This is probably one of the few times that Kenpachi got so rattled, and he yells at the nearby Squad 11 goons to go and hunt down Yachiru. Again, it's really kind of sad considering what happened to Yachiru -- a mystery that was set up pretty damn well in the manga but we just fall short from a proper conclusion back in the day. It would be a low-hanging fruit -- even lower than anything else in my wish-list -- and I really do hope that this gets a proper payoff. 

And then... Kenpachi gets bullied by Candice Catnipp, Sternritter "T" of the Thunderbolt. I've always felt like this was such an annoying moment back in the day, and... I've warmed up to this sequence a bit. Mostly because I've warmed up a bit to Gremmy in general -- back in the day I really did wish that Kenpachi got a more 'traditional' brawler fight instead of Gremmy's bullshitting, and to see Kenpachi wounded and then nearly get taken out by four kill-stealers who also take the time to murder Kenpachi's minions in front of him felt particularly bad for him. 

What is bad, however, is the shading on the wounded Kenpachi throughout this whole scene and when he's talking to Ichigo. It felt particularly unfinished and honestly rather comical, and I really wonder if they simply didn't have time to finish the clean-up for this scene. The rest of the episode flows pretty fine and I get that much of the quality control probably went to the action scenes, but even as someone who normally doesn't care about these things it felt particularly jarring.

We get a showcase of the powers of the four Bambis from the manga -- "Thunderbolt" Candice Catnipp launches lightning bolts, "Power" Meninas McAllon is really powerful, "Glutton" Liltotto Lamperd can extend her mouth into a giant mouth and eat anything, while "Zombie" Giselle Gewelle is able to heal from giant gashes, and her blood, when splattered onto people, allows her to take control of them. I actually really like the contrast between the four voice actresses of the Bambis, particularly Liltotto Lamperd and her utterly deadpan delivery. You can just tell she's just not that enthused about the whole thing and is tired that her buddies are so easily distracted and/or are just dumb.

For what it's worth, Kenpachi still tries to move even while half-dead, which the anime expands a fair bit. That's very much appreciated. The end result is still the same, but we really get to see Kenpachi still trying his damnadest to survive while he keeps getting zapped again and again by Candice and megaton-punched onto the ground by Meninas. And then, of course, we get Ichigo's dramatic entrance. Or, well, not-so-dramatic entrance. 

As we covered a couple episodes back and is recapped by Juhabach later on in the episode, Ichigo's clothes are essentially a form of Oken, allowing him to pierce through the 72 layers of barrier between the Soul King Palace and the Seireitei. We still have the comedic moment of Ichigo crash-landing through a random building, but a lot of the distracting jokey dialogue is cut in favour of the Bambis reacting in confusion, and then Ichigo speed-blitzing through them to talk to Kenpachi. It's actually a nice, sweet moment between Ichigo and Kenpachi that gets drowned out in how action-packed the story before and after this moment are, and it reminds me of Ichigo arriving to see the near-death Byakuya in the first invasion. 

And then we get a vastly expanded version of the original Ichigo-vs-Candice fight. And I do really like that Ichigo doesn't quite hold back against the Sternritters. The anime actually removes a bunch of Ichigo's lines about how fighting girls, other than the 'idiot, dodge!' after Getsuga Jujishou. Again, while Ichigo isn't particularly brutal about it, I definitely appreciate that he's treating the four Bambis as actual opponents, happy to kick or punch them in the sternum to knock them around. 

And I really do like the sequence of the Bambis charging towards Ichigo, and he just tosses them around and overwhelms them with his superior speed slamming them into buildings. This entire scene is actually from the manga, including Liltotto's Glutton trapping Ichigo's cape, but it went by so quickly and so much of the focus is on Candice that the manga version of this fight didn't really feel like Ichigo fending off four combatants at once.

We get a pretty funny sequence of Candice unleashing her lightning blasts and ranting about the effort that it takes for her to keep her hair that way. I do like the little pop-up bags that the Bambis hit to cause their customized Quincy bows to get launched into the air and expand, which are pretty cute. Candice launches her Galvano Blast attacks at Ichigo, destroying the outer layer of his outfit and revealing his inner clothes, and shows off his brand-new twin swords. The barrage of bitch-basic arrows obviously does nothing, though it leads to the comical moment of Candice being thrown onto a building... and then Meninas, Giselle and Liltotto slam onto her one at a time. With Liltotto deliberately kicking her in the face for good measure. That's fun!

Meanwhile, Juhabach begins his ritual with Uryu and Haschwalth, and Askin cryptically wonders if he will be 'chosen'. 

Candice then tells her allies to activaet Vollstandig, and... in the manga, the other three refuse to do it because "it's tiring", and while Liltotto complains a bit in a modified version of her manga dialogue, they actually do so in the anime. We start off with the manga's version of Ichigo fighting Candice, who uses two of her lightning-bolt wings as swords... and Ichigo draws a line with his sword and unleashes a tiny Getsuga Tenshou. 

Giselle, Meninas and Liltotto then all activate Sklaverei, absorbing Reishi from their surroundings to go into their holy forms, which... I don't think we've seen anyone but Quilge Opie do? It basically confirms that all Quincies (or Sternritters) can use Sklaverei, and, well... we actually get names for these three ladies' Vollstandigs. We can't get BG9's Schrift, but we can damn well get their Vollstandig names, huh? This is all done in a bit of a parody of transformation sequences, with Giselle and Meninas hamming it up, and Liltotto just... hovering in place and deadpanning the 'Sklaverei' line. 

Giselle's Vollstandig is called Azhalbiora, with skeletal wings and tail; Meninas's is called Pornipora with a lot of pinky-pink stuff, and Lilttoto's is called Gagael with giant bear traps for wings. The three Vollstandig-upped ladies attack Ichigo, with Meninas going in with her Dumbbell Dusters that expand and retract. Liltotto also joins in the fight by extending her jaw-like constructs, creating an attack called 'Spork', and later on 'Spife'. 

Giselle meanwhile rattles off a bunch of cartoon bones and creates a quartet of Spooky Scary Skeletons Dancing Dead Boys Club to attack Ichigo... she's not in her full zombie-mancer mode, and it really is interesting to see just how varied the 'Zombie' powers are. Ichigo scatters the skeletons, which rise up and pin Ichigo in place while Giselle swoops in with two skulls on her hands called 'Munchy Munchy Babies'. We don't really get to find out what this does, however, becuase Liltotto summons a gigantic bear-trap construct called 'Golden Crunch' and eats up both Ichigo and Giselle. Meninas also zooms in with 'Halteres', transforming one of her dumbbells into a giant axe... and the end result is Giselle getting comically decapitated by Liltotto's Golden Crunch. 

And I really do love this. It really does make the three Sternritters here do something in the interim, and makes Ichigo look even more impressive than his manga counterpart at this point! Candice then pushes her friends aside and continues the manga's version of events, although she enhances her own Vollstandig with Sklaverei, getting some additional tattoos and revealing her holy form to be called Barbarriel. 

And then we get the epic sequence where Candice literally hurls a massive wave of electricity called Electrocution, and Ichigo counters with two swords -- Getsuga Jujisho. This leads to an impressive blast that slams onto Candice... and, well, it blows up her arm. Typical Bleach. We retain the truncated sequence of Giselle healing Candice's arm, and Candice yelling at Giselle to not use blood. 

And then... Bazz-B shows up and Burner Fingers all four Bambis, which I thought was still kind of a silly thing for him to do. This was always a bit confusing, but there was a greater focus at these guys arguing about who gets the credit -- the Bambis earlier when they are hovering over Kenpachi, and now Bazz-B wanting to take the credit for Ichigo's defeat. However, three more Sternritters -- Pepe Waccabrada, Robert Accutrone and NaNaNa Najahkoop all show up. Robert briefly wonders if they can share the reward, but the Bambis recover quickly and say that it's nonsense and the one that deals the final blow will receive all the glory. 

And with all the hectic action scenes of Ichigo fighting the four ladies, it really makes it a bit more sensible that he doesn't even realize that Juhabach is doing some kind of a ritual from his tower, essentially taking advantage of Ichigo's recent arrival to make use of the however many seconds that the barrier is open to create his path to the Soul King's Palace for 6000 seconds.

I do like that the original lengthy explanation by Juhabach is actually split up, with Mayuri delivering around half of the original chapter's exposition instead. In context, it definitely makes more sense, and we also get the ide that the Shinigami are also now aware of what Juhabach is trying to do.

It also is curious that the Zero Squad allowe Ichigo and his allies to do this. They would know that Juhabach can make use of the temporary opening of the barriers to rise up to the Soul King Palace, right? I really do hope that we get more context to at least Ichibei's motivations throughout all of this. Mayuri even calls out the Zero Squad on this, which I thought is interesting. Kyoraku also gives us an explicit line where he deduces that Juhabach is hunting for the Soul King, and we also get a brief cut of a non-speaking Aizen in his prison. 

Ichigo charges towards the tower, but the Sternritter dogpile him. Interestingly, they removed a sequence where NaNaNa tries to jump at Ichigo and cuts out his involvement in this whole sequence entirely. We do get Meninas, Robert and Bazz-B's attacks intact, particularly the very cool shot of Robert in full Grimaniel form shoving his gun in Ichigo's face. 

However, Renji's Zabimaru swoops in to block Bazz-B's Burner Finger before he can shoot, and we get the arrival of Ichigo's allies -- Renji, Rukia, Byakuya, Ikkaku, Yumichika and Shuhei.

...No Shinji. They even cut out his confrontation with Bazz-B, which should've happened slightly before Bazz-B's arrival in this fight. Poor, poor Shinji. 

Anyway, Byakuya uses a wave of Senbonzakura petals to stop the Sternritters from chasing after Ichigo, who darts straight towards where Juhabach, Uryu and Haschwalth are. He's yelling at Juhabach, but then gets even more surprised when Uryu steps up and starts shooting Heilig Pfeils down at Ichigo. This was where I thought they would add a Ichigo/Uryu fight, and honestly, I still really think a proper clash between the two would've worked a bit better here. 

But... again, maybe it's the music and the pacing of the anime, but Uryu's rain of light arrows onto Ichigo is done pretty well. Ichigo's yelling, Uryu's calm stoic look, and the slow shots of the light arrows piercing Ichigo's body from head to toe as he yells at Uryu at what the fuck he's doing. As the arrows rain down towards Ichigo while Uryu tells him ont to stand up against His Majesty...

IN COMES CHAD.

Chad with hs motherfucking Brazo Derecha de Gigante, the giant skull-Fullbring shield arm, which shatters and protects Ichigo from the arrows. This is 100% more Chad action than what Chad actually did (which is jack-all) in the original Thousand-Year Blood War arc in the manga! 

Orihime then arrives with Santen Kesshun to deflect the rest of the arrows, and the three friends watch as Uryu goes into the light pillar, with Juhabach ominously declaring this to be an 'eternal parting'. Uryu confirms that he has said his farewells, leaving Ichigo screaming out Uryu's name as the three main Quincies rise up to the sky. 

And... we'll see! This has been a very bombastic episode thanks to the added sequence. I am still slightly disappointed that the Ichigo/Uryu fight didn't happen, but I will also concede that they really did elevate the source scene with the pacing and music. Now the next sequence of fights really did feel like Kubo skipping through around 20 chapters and a half-dozen fights and leaving our heroes with just Giselle and Pepe to deal with, but I really do hope that the events leading to the Aushwalen to be rearranged and done a bit better... and for Squad Zero to do something more, too. Anyway, I enjoyed this episode!

Random Notes:

• While I appreciate trimming down the jokes, I am disappointed that they cut out Candice yelling at the other girls that Juhabach will reward them with whatever they want. Meninas thinks of girly sparkly stuff, Liltotto thinks of food, and Giselle thinks of an entirely blank panel... and I thought that punchline was kinda cute.
  
• A fair amount of the combat banter that's cut -- Lil, Meni and Gigi complaining about being tired; Ichigo saying that he's not used to fighting women; and Ichigo and Candice comparing the amount of swords they use -- are all cut and it's for the better. 
• We also cut out a comedy sequence of Ichigo complaining that Renji's Zabimaru rescue cut his neck and hair. 
  
• Okay, without making too many fanservice jokes... but the camera really likes Candice, huh?
• They cut out Shinji and Momo saving Omaeda from Bazz-B, and preventing Bazz-B from attacking Kenpachi and kill-stealing him as well. While I get why they cut out the Renji/NaNaNa sequence, this one really could've been expanded into something. At least if they didn't do anything with it, though, we didn't have to have the assumption that Shinji just got jobbed off-screen by Bazz-B.  
• Another scene cut is the ritual of Haschwalth creating a giant six-pointed rune in order to create the giant pillar-lift thing, though obviously the effect is pretty much the same. 
• Haiiii, seppuku!
• The Kuchiki siblings realize that Kenpachi is near-death. Byakuya tells Rukia off because she hasn't recovered fully from using Bankai. Okay, fair enough, but you are still completely fresh and hasn't even been in a battle, Byakuya. Are you just holding off until the last possible second before saving Kenpachi, you petty nobleman?
  
• Also, if Byakuya had actually died in the first invasion as Kubo originally planned, then Ichigo's arrival just in time to save Kenpachi would be a nice reversal of that since he's gotten power. Oh well. 
• Liltotto at one point straight-up calls Candice a 'bitch' in English. 
• I really did have to look up the original designs of Liltotto, Meninas and Giselle's Vollstandigs before the Sklaverei enhancements and boy, they were really boring! It's just literally weird custom wings and a halo -- something that Bazz-B also suffers from since his holy form is literally just two sticks. The manga version of Liltotto's Vollstandig is also extremely bland, just being jagged wings instead of the jaws-as-wings that she gets here. Generally, I do think that this puts the other Vollstandigs more in line with characters like Quilge, Mask De Masculine, As Nodt and the other elite guard characters and I really do hope that at the very least Bazz-B gets a similarly anime-upgraded holy form. 
• ...Kyoraku my man, what are you doing? The other captains are fighting, okay. Urahara and Mayuri are doing tech and support stuff. But you don't even have the excuse of being held back by a barrier this time.