Bleach TYBW E23 Review: "L" Is For The Way You Look At Me

Bleach, Thousand-Year Blood War, Episode 23: Marching Out the Zombies 2

And now we wrap up the whole Giselle storyline as well as the concurrently running Pepe fight. And... it really is interesting how they chose to handle Pepe in this anime adaptation. In the manga, a lot of Pepe's buildup that portrays him talking to characters like Askin, Bazz-B and Haschwalth -- all characters that would ultimately be important to the end stages of the Thousand-Year Blood War arc -- all ended up kind of building him up to be nothing. Pepe keeps getting scenes where he goes 'geh geh geh' and continues to be pretty recurring in the background, and has enough lines to separate him from the other true 'background flies' like NaNaNa or Robert. But when it ultimately came for his fight to shine, all he did was cause some havoc in what's basically a rehash of the Giselle fight; ultimately his rants about his theme (love) were way less interesting than As Nodt's fear or Gremmy's imagination rants; and a villain that mind-controls people with 'love' has already been done -- in a much better and far more unsettling way -- with Tsukushima from XCution. 

Ultimately, Pepe in the final arc had about the same amount of relevance with a character like BG9 or Mask De Masculine, just a character who's there with a little gimmick to give a fight for a single character (Byakuya, in this case) but a combination of Pepe's design and the fact that this was a payoff to a lot of buildup that never had any resolution ended up making Pepe deservedly end up feeling like a gigantic disappointment. The placement of his fight didn't help, either, where it's smack dab right after the Ichigo's arrival. 

And there could be a lot of discussion, I think, on whether cutting down Pepe to the absolute bare minimum to still adapt his fight (he basically loses almost all his scenes prior to his arrival with NaNaNa and Robert in the anime, and maybe had 2, 3 lines in group scenes?) is the right way to go... or if they should've doubled down on his creepiness and build him up. I think the character was always kinda meant to be a joke, though, so I honestly didn't mind the execution so much? Unless they change the ending of the fight to make him not get one-shotted by Zombie Kensei and eaten by a pissed-off Liltotto, there really isn't a way to make Pepe's ultimate fate not look pathetic without some heavy rewrites. 

Anyway... the episode blazes through Mayuri's fight against Zombie Hitsugaya. We get a brutal beatdown as Ikkaku gets his leg frozen and then stabbed right through the right side of his chest, before getting slashed through the back. Yumichika tries to save Ikkaku, only to be kneed in the gut with an ice-knee-spike, bashed in the face and slashed through the chest. Yumichika still tries to release Ruri'iro Kujaku, and it's always a nice, understated moment as Yumichika is willing to release the Shikai that he has hidden with his vanity in front of everyone present if that means it'll protect his best friend... but alas, this is the last thing Yumichika and Ikkaku get to do in the TYBW arc. I didn't really expect them to add much, and the anime kept all of their otherwise excellent scenes, but I did feel like if there was room for expansion, Ikkaku and Yumichika really could've gotten some. 

We get some discussion between Mayuri and Giselle about the nature of zombies and how different it is to control zombies that are actually truly dead or just mind-controlled with blood. There's a fun exchange where Mayuri sneers at the thought of mind-controlling someone that can't resist, which isn't fun for him... while Giselle replies with a hilariously hypocritical "how should I know, I'm not a sadist." 

Charlotte Chuhlhorne zips in all bombastic and stuff with an epic entry in front of Zombie Hitsugaya. He compliments Zombie Hitsugaya's beauty, before he gets one-shot by Zombie Hitsugaya and left bleeding on the floor. Now it's very very likely that it's just Mayuri wanting to protect an interesting test subject, but Mayuri did tell Charlotte to dodge and protects him with a forcefield mesh thing... though he does leave Charlotte to 'stay there and bleed to death' as punishment. 

And then in the scope of around 5 minutes we get the fight between Mayuri and Zombie Hitsugaya, which I think was a couple of chapters in the manga. It really is a bit different when the multiple chapters being adapted are pure fight scenes, because it flows very quickly. There's another hilariously hypocritical line about Mayuri saying "I don't like harming people without their consent", before he delivers the line "Captain Hitsugaya... there are several drugs I want to test on you. It's all for the sake of the Seireitei." Which we'll be hearing over and over a bit. 

And the fight goes on very rapidly. I really do like the first clash between the two, with Mayuri unleashing some... Spider-Man webbing goop that explodes upwards before the wto engage in some swordfighting. Mayuri installed some organic coral eyeballs on the hilt of Ashisogi Jizo that allows him to auto-parry sword strikes from Hitsugaya. Mayuri's boasting ends up goading Hitsugaya into kneeing Mayuri, and he uses some kind of a disc to attack Hitsugaya's knee... and then Hitsugaya goes Bankai: Daiguren Hyorinmaru and slashes through Mayuri's sword and his ice-strike blasts Mayuri through the back. 

It's brutal, shocking, and honestly easily one of the coolest things that Hitsugaya has ever done. Between his rapid victory against the three supporting cast members and utterly overpowering Mayuri several times in these traditional fights, I get the idea that the zombification is Hitsugaya with all his inhibitions and shackles and insecurities removed, turning him into a perfect ice-killing machine. 

Unfortunately, he is up against Kurotsuchi Mayuri, the king of winning through entertaining bullshit plot devices. 

As Mayuri bleeds to death, Hitsugaya's vision cuts to Mayuri saying the exact same thing he did before. "Captain Hitsugaya... there are several drugs I want to test on you. It's all for the sake of the Seireitei." As Mayuri goes through the same auto-counter boasting, Hitsugaya goes Bankai immediately this time and flash-freezes Mayuri, turning him into an ice sculpture that shatters. We get a nice cut from the dying Mayuri saying "You're strong indeed, Captain Hitsugaya..." immediately to "there are several drugs I want to test on you."

Zombie Hitsugaya finally is bamboozled by this apparent time-loop... and since this is all done with the power of Mayuri's drugs, I don't think he's altering the fabric of space-time itself and is just fucking with Hitsugaya's senses like a Naruto genjutsu. I guess he would be either fighting Mayuri all in his own head, or he's just pantomining the fight without actually fighting someone?

Either way, Mayuri reveals the drug that has splashed onto Hitsugaya, how it 'rewinds time' at the point where he kills Mayuri, due to some fuckery with his hippocampus. There's a cool line that 'if you don't kill me, your future will continue on forever, but if you do kill me then you can't move onwards'. Mayuri tells him that some debilitating effects usually appear after 10 loops and Hitsugaya collapses to the ground. It's honestly kinda bullshit, just like most Mayuri scenes, but it happens very quickly in the anime, is entertaining and we actually get to see Hitsugaya do some really badass scenes in these fights with Mayuri.

As Hitsugaya collapses, Mayuri gloats, activates Ashisogi Jizo (with a very cool effect of the baby face appearing in the middle of the sword and morphing the single blade into a trident) and talks some hypocritical stuff about how it 'pains him' to administer a drug to someone that can't fight back. Mayuri injects the drug into Hitsugaya. Some real great voice acting on Hitsugaya's voice actor's part as he screams the hell off his head. It actually sounds rather disturbing. 

And then, the zombified forms of Matsumoto, Kensei and Rose all show up behind Mayuri, and he remarks about how ridiculous it is for so many captains (and one vice-captain) to get zombified... and he sics Luppi, Cirucci and Dordoni on them. We only get to see the initial clashes, sadly, and we don't get an extended version of this. Not even a couple of blows. Oh well. We cut away from Team Mayuri, and just like the awkward sequence of events, the climax of the Mayuri/Giselle sequence would later be told to us after it's over and after Mayuri wandered over to the other battlefield. 

All of the Mayuri/Zombie Hitsugaya scenes take up the first 10 minutes of screentime, leaving less than 13 minutes for them to adapt the Byakuya-vs-Pepe fight... and instead, the animation team decided to animate the offscreened fight of Byakuya trouncing the other Sternritters present. Which... again, honestly, I'm not complaining! I know which one I'm far more willing to watch. It was always kind of bullshit and an obvious handwave from Kubo that NaNaNa, Robert and Candice were just taken out offscreen by Byakuya, while Pepe gets three or four chapters to himself. And if the intention was to actually make Byakuya look badass, then showing how Byakuya did it is most certainly appreciated. 

Byakuya first gets blitzed by Robert Accutrone, Sternritter "N", who runs around him in his Grimaniel form, shooting green Reishi bullets and zipping all around Byakuya while he effortlessly deflects the attacks. Then Candice Catnipp, Sternritter "T", charges in with her two thunderbolts, dual-wielding them as swords. NaNaNa Najahkoop, Sternritter "U", uses his ability Morphine Pattern and creates a U symbol on Byakuya's chest. The anime doesn't explain this (and the ability doesn't get explained until later) but NaNaNa's ability "The Underbelly" allows him to see weaknesses in someone's Reishi. 

But, of course, because he's up against Kuchiki fuckin' Byakuya, the Matrix-vision of Byakuya's body causes NaNaNa to freak out a bit because his Reishi has 'no flaws'. NaNaNa summons his holy bow, which takes the form of three rings, each of which shoot three darts each. Kind of a shame that we don't see him go Vollstandig (he did when he bull-rushes the Shinigami two episodes ago) but eh. Byakuya unleashes the Shikai of his Senbonzakura, and NaNaNa gets engulfed with flower petals and gets knocked against a building and falls. 

Candice is about to launch a Galvano Javelin at Byakuya, and... she runs out of power as her Vollstandig wings disappear. It's a bit more understandable that Candice is in a non-optimal state compared to NaNaNa, though, because she has been fighting Kurosaki Ichigo and, if you want to count it, she's been bullying the wounded Kenpachi and launching thunderbolts at him. Either way, Byakuya just taps her with Senbonzakura, sending her skidding to unconsciousness... and I think this is Candice's last appearance in the arc?

And then Robert Accutrone appears behind Byakuya and nearly shoots him straight in the head. He does a backflip to avoid Byakuya's sword strike, before declaring that he wants to defeat Byakuya and Ichigo... and we get a version of his manic death scene in the manga with his panicked face about how he "wants to go to the side of His Majesty", knowing full well what happens to the lower level Sternritters that Juhabach leaves behind on the Soul Society. 

Robert then uses Sklaverei, activating his higher-tier version of Grimaniel. He gets extra green reishi boots and gloves, while Byakuya unleashes Bankai: Senbonzakura Kageyoshi. As his completed Grimaniel forms, a fancy mask that covers the lower half of Robert's face, his nose and his forehead manifests... and he just speed blitzes forwards towards Byakuya. This is way more than what I expected for Robert, who was more of a fan-favourite minor character because he was so weirdly under-utilized, and I am so, so glad that he gets one final 1v1 fight before his death scene.

The explosion of Robert's charge towards Byakuya is also extremely great, creating a giant gust that tears apart the terrain while we cut to the iconic corridor of blades of Senbonzakura Kageyoshi. Robert Accutrone shoots a single green bullet... which gets cut up by the wall of sakura petal-blades before it, sliced in half and utterly overwhelmed before the petals themselves cover Robert and tear him apart. 

And then we cut to canon manga material, flashing to the defeated bodies of NaNaNa, Candice and Robert around Byakuya. Superb. This was much-needed, and while my ideal version of this scene still extends the 6-v-7 fight, extending the canon fight that we knew happened off-screen and giving at least two minor Sternritters a more dignified exit than what they got to the manga (since NaNaNa still shows up a couple more times down the line) is much appreciated. 

And then... sigh, here comes Pepe. 

We start off with Meninas and Liltotto being baffled at Byakuya's sheer strength, with Liltotto being particularly confused since Byakuya was previously defeated by As Nodt. Liltotto grouses over Pepe disappearing, since his ability would have been useful. Meninas meanwhile says that he doesn't like Pepe since he's a repulsive pig. Simultaneously, Shuhei shows up, having apparently defeated a Sternritter... and is shocked when he saw Byakuya defeated three in the time he took out one. 

And... well, Shuhei is already mind-controlled by "The Love", and he immediately slashes Byakuya. It's an interesting form of mind-control and would probably be a bit more impactful, again, if it was given more time to sink in how horrifying it is to keep every single other aspect of your sentience and mind with just the added compulsion of "I love Pepe-sama, I need to kill you for Pepe-sama"... with Tsukishima. Except minus all of the buildup of Tsukushima's execution (heh) and all the discussion about trust, reality and paranoia. 

As Shuhei slashes impotently at Byakuya, Pepe arrives in all his glory, this fat man with an eyeball staff he never uses sitting cross-legged on a floating basket. He introduces himself as Pepe "the Love", and launches a love beam at Meninas. Meninas immediately She-Hulks out her right arm and bonks Liltotto away. And this line is already in the manga, but I've never realized that Pepe talks about how "I've never thought about claiming sole credit if all of you die!", explaining the otherwise utterly bizarre sequence of him attacking fellow Sternritters. Being three episodes apart instead of multiple chapters that range several months apart also make Pepe's arrival to credit-steal also a bit more connected. 

Pepe gives a truncated version of his manga speech about love, about how all battles are born from love... and it's shortened to just a short speech that Byakuya interrupts. People argue about how interesting these speeches are, and for the most part I do appreciate Bleach going on its 'I have devoted my life and soul to revolve around this single aspect' villain rants... but Pepe's always felt like Kubo was phoning it in. 

Byakuya also says that Pepe's ability is a glorified mind-control one, and resolves to cut down the caster. Pepe unleashes his love beam, which is depicted in the anime as some kind of a liquid that splashes all over the terrain (a less-cool version of As Nodt's fear ink) and the love beam hits Byakuya's Senbonzakura sword. It's... it's admittedly a stupid decision by Byakuya and even he admits it himself, because the Zanpakuto are living spirits and they do have a heart. Senbonzakura cuts Byakuya briefly. Pepe brags that he never needed to steal Bankais since Zanpakutos already have hearts in the first place. 

Also, while Pepe is doing his speech and stuff, this fancy jazz music which I think was last played briefly when Shinji does his Bankai plays in the background. It... it kind of fits Pepe? And while I don't care for this fight or the character, I do appreciate that both the background music and the voice actor did a neat job at selling this fight. 

Byakuya then just chucks Senbonzakura away, in another mistake and an attempt to prevent Senbonzakura from coming into harm... but then Shuhei picks it up and dual-wields it to attack Byakuya. We do get a fun sequence of Shuhei chasing Byakuya across rooftops while dual-wielding the weapons, and I do like the second pinwheel-blade of Kazeshini trailing behind him. It's a scene that happens pretty quickly and didn't get much focus before we cut to Byakuya's face as he muses about using Hakuda (hand-to-hand combat) against two Zanpakuto isn't effective. It is a bit of a shame that Shuhei doesn't use any of Kazeshini's actual abilities, though. 

Pepe pours it on with a Love Kiss that's just ineffective against Byakuya because he has plot armour. No, really, he's wearing the Oken cloak. I assume that's why Pepe's Love Kiss didn't work on him, because Byakuya most certainly has the capacity for love. He has a wife and a sister! Regardless of whether it's the Oken or Byakuya just being that mentally disciplined, Pepe gets so offended and activates his Vollstandig: Gudoero. He, uh... becomes a giant fat old man dressed up as a cupid. 

And Pepe's Vollstandig sequence is... cut mercifully short. He uses Love Rope to stab Byakuya briefly, then pulls out his bow and arrow from his mouth... before immediately gets kicked in the face hard and thrown into a building by Zombie Kensei. This whole sequence doesn't take a single minute, I think, and I feel like that really does truncate this arc as best as they can. Zombie Kensei and Rose show up with those Spawn markings over their eyes, which is a mark of Mayuri's own zombie antidote taking over them. Shuhei tries to attack, and gets clotheslined by Zombie Kensei and smashed to the ground. Poor Shuhei. In this arc alone, he's been bullied by Driscoll, by Mask, by Pepe, by Byakuya, and now by Zombie Kensei. 

Zombie Kensei returns Senbonzakura to Byakuya, while Mayuri shows up. He introduces the two Zombie-Visored Captains as his 'Zombie Unit', and Byakuya gets absoluetly and rightfully pissed at what Mayuri did. Mayuri defensively notes that he saved them from Giselle's "The Zombie" powers, and we get a flashback to the resolution of the fight earlier in this episode. We get an explanation to the flashback that he injected his antidote into the blood of his own zombie Arrancar. (That doesn't work on him, of course). Mayuri's drugs does some multiplication-and-replication, replacing the zombie blood with a "blood-like substance". Which, of course, is based on blood samples that Mayuri took without consent from the rest of the Gotei 13. I love how Giselle is just bamboozled by what's going on, and Mayuri explains it in layman's terms: "your zombies are my zombies". 

To be fair, Mayuri at least is just taking advantage of what's already going on, and both Rose and Kensei are technically dead. They did get better and restored to normalcy post-TYBW, so clearly Mayuri restored them back to life. As Kensei and Rose rise up under Mayuri's control, Mayuri declares that 'Zombie Girl' has lost,  and she gets stabbed in the heart by Zombie Kensei. 

And... I do wonder if this is Giselle's exit for the anime's version of this arc? In the manga, Giselle does survive this, hang out with Zombie Bambietta, and team up with Liltotto... and then get seemingly killed offscreen in a very anticlimactic way, and I don't think the anime would lose much by eliminating Giselle here. 

We cut back to the present day, where Byakuya and Mayuri argue about semantics. Byakuya is pissed because he sees letting the zombified captains die is much more dignified than parading them around as zombies, while Mayuri gives some spiel about 'ensuring the Seireitei's safety in death'. And, to be fair to Mayuri, this kind of scientific nonsense is how he fights. 

Pepe tries to take over the zombies, but turns out that he can't bypass Mayuri's zombie control. He then gets subjected to a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure ora-ora-ora-ora punch barrage courtesy of Zombie Kensei. It's brutal, Pepe gets beaten up and launched into a building. Pretty fun, and in a nice little detail, Zombie Kensei is in full Bankai form, with Tekken Tachikaze active. This little change does subtly make Pepe look a bit better since with the exception of Ichigo's fight against the Bambis, most other Vollstandigs were taken out with Bankais. It makes Pepe's Gudoero feel a bit less useless and ever-so-slightly adds to the claim that the Shinigami need their Bankai to win. 

Pepe struggles to stand up, and we get an anime-only shot of Pepe's diaper split apart showing his ass-crack... okay, anime team. Liltotto shows up behind Pepe with a very awesome tranquil fury on her face. Liltotto wordlessly activates her Vollstandig, Gagael, and Pepe tries helplessly to crawl away as Liltotto extends her mouth with The Glutton, saying that this is payback for making them fight each other. Pepe pathetically and comically cries as we see Liltotto's mouth expand... and then cut to black and credits. 

The post-credits scene is a shot of Juhabach, Uryu and Haschwalth arriving in the Royal Palace, the blast of their Quincy elevator pillar vaporizing the bridge to the Soul King's Palace.

Ultimately, I do appreciate a lot of this episode. I still think that showing Mayuri's scenes not in chronological order is kind of weird, although that is certainly true to the original source material. I do wonder if we cut to the Mayuri stuff as it happened instead of putting it as a flashback when Mayuri and Byakuya talked to each other would be better? But Zombie Hitsugaya's fight against Mayuri was very entertaining, Byakuya dominating the three Sternritters is amazing, and... Pepe is... competently done? They kept most of his most essential scenes and kept him irritating and disgusting, which was the whole point of his character, but it's basically the abridged, bare-minimum version and he doesn't overstay his welcome... which is about as much Pepe as I can tolerate, anyway. 

Random Notes:

• 
  Yes, I know that his name is officially spelled "PePe". Unlike NaNaNa, though, Pepe isn't anywhere as funny for me to warrant remembering them.
• The actual story arc that this episode adapts should actually be called "Rubb-Dolls", but clearly the anime team knows that it's rather ridiculous-sounding. It works in context, anyway, since Pepe creates 'love zombies'.
  
• I know that it got overwhelmed by Zombie Hitsugaya, but you'd think that the Gotei 13 would benefit a lot from Mayuri mass-producing that instant-counter technology. 
• Leave it to Mayuri to basically 'hack' and 'cheat' his way through properly practicing swordfighting techniques and just making a technology substitute. I bet all the more traditional Shinigami are seething at this. 
• Mayuri injects his drugs with this very weird horizontal device that looks like a weird flat cake-cream baster instead of a syringe. Of course he has to stand out and look different even with something like a syringe. 
• Something that I kind of hoped the anime would explain is what happened to Nanao Ise during this sequence. We last saw Nanao grabbing Rose and Kensei's corpses when Gremmy created that giant rock-stage, and Giselle managed to get those two Visored captains. It's easy to see Giselle approaching them and taking the dead bodies (I guess Gremmy's death either stuck, or Giselle throttled the two captains herself) but it's weird that Nanao's never acknowledged. I don't think she's the type to leave her allies behind, nor is Giselle the type to spare someone, especially one of a vice-captain caliber.
  
• Luppi fights against Matsumoto, which is a nice little callback to how the two of them fought each other in the early Arrancar arc; while hand-to-hand brawlers Kensei and Dordoni clash, and Cirucci and Rose fight with whip-like weapons. 
  
• Byakuya's Oken clothing also absorbs NaNaNa's Underbelly attack, which might be why NaNaNa can't find any weakness on him. Plot armour! 
• Any guesses now on what Robert Accutrone's "N" stands for? It's obvious that his powers revovle particularly around his speed and acceleration, and I know the Sternritters has used a lot of fun, ridiculous words like X-Axis or Vanishing point or Yourself, so, uh... the Nearby? The Nimble? The Navigator? The No-schrift?
• Got to love that brief shot of chibi-Cirucci showing up and trying to splash Mayuri with her blood with an absolutely pissed off expression on her face. 
• Among Mayuri's explanation is him noting that Giselle's blood depends on how much spiritual pressure the target has, which explains why Giselle can't just cut her finger and splash her blood on Ichigo or Kenpachi or Mayuri... and probably why she tried to goad Ikkaku and Yumichika to create a much bigger wound on her. 
• Interestingly, in the manga, this is the last that we see of Sternritter "P", Meninas McAllon -- fighting Liltotto and dispatched offscreen. Liltotto actually explicitly notes that Meninas shouldn't be 'dead', but we never see her afterwards, not even during the Auswahlen. (In Can't Fear Your Own World, she's gets turned into a Mayuri zombie post-war) I do wonder if Meninas is going to get at least a formal defeat in the anime, since she's a fair bit more prominent here?