Bleach TYBW E24 Review: The Unseen Meeting

Bleach, Thousand-Year Blood War, Episode 24: Too Early to Win, Too Late to Know

Hooo boy! What an episode, huh? What an episode. It really does get me unreasonably hyped for the rest of the anime, and... it's not because of what you think. The Squad Zero facing off against Juhabach's Schutzstaffel is cute and all, and I'm happy that they're doing a lot of remixing and restructuring of the fight. It's this restructuring that made a lot of the Thousand-Year Blood War arc in the anime feel so much better and more fleshed-out... and it was always from this sequence in the manga onward that the restructuring of events are going to make it or break it. Yes, it's nice that it seems like we're probably going to get a proper showing of the Squad Zero being defeated instead of all the hype literally crashing onto a wall and dying because the fight happened off-screen after a series of 'Squad Zero is overpowering! No, wait, the Schutzstaffel is overpowering! No, wait, Squad Zero just got beaten off-screen!'

 

No, what I am the most excited about is the presentation of aspects about the Thousand-Year Blood War that gives context, motivation and world-building that is never told to us in the source manga. It's all clearly stuff that the author Tite Kubo had in his notes but didn't get the chance to put in his manga, and while the specifics are a bit different, I do like that we get a fair amount of the revelation done in the Can't Fear Your Own World novels and other post-Bleach material released afterwards. 

Which is to say... it's stuff like seeing Juhabach's fight with Yamamoto a thousand year ago, or Ichigo's mysterious flashbacks in Irazusando that really make me super-excited that this much-maligned final arc of Bleach will finally make some sense. 

And the first five minutes of this episode is pretty short, but it adds so much to the lore about Juhabach, as well as his motivations and those of Ichibei Hyosube. Juhabach's motivations was randomly given to us by... Askin or Haschwalth, I don't really even remember, near the last ten chapters of Bleach or something. And that's bullshit, and it took the Can't Fear Your Own World novels to, again, explain everything. Now we get to see Juhabach meeting with Ichibei prior to the Licht Reich invasion a thousand years ago. Ichibei arrives in Silbern to propose a non-aggression pact, but the voice-actor for Ichibei does a great job at showing just how much of a condescending 'you know nothing of the world, Juha' prick Ichibei is being right now. He basically tells Juhabach to go off and enjoy the prosperity of his empire without worrying about anything else in the other realms. "It's a win-win pact, I see no reason to refuse." Yeah, never trust that from someone on the other side of the table!

Juhabach, of course, is immediately pissed off, saying that he's being deceived and being treated like an ignorant child. Ichibei then reveals a bunch of stuff to us that we wouldn't know about the Bleach universe, again, until basically near the end of the story and randomly info-dumped to us. Ichibei asks Juhabach who created the border between life and death in the first place after the prehistoric world was a primordial soup? Who caused the fear of death? The answer to both is the Soul King. 

Juhabach counters with the fact that he has heard so many anguished cries of the souls that return to him as the Father of Quincies, and those who fear death, and those who cling to their lives... and Juhabach gets pissed off that Ichibei is talking about peace when so many people, according to Juhabach, suffer from the existence of death itself. 

Juhabach shows off some of his Reishi-absorbing powers, while Ichibei warns Juhabach offhandedly not to say his name so casually -- something that will be relevant and a nice foreshadowing of Ichibei's real role in the Squad Zero. 

Juhabach then activates his multiple-pupils, the power of The Almighty, and all hell breaks loose. Ichibei's left hand starts to morph and transform, sprouting an eyeball with two pupils that manga readers would recognize as Pernida Parnkgjas, the Left Hand of the Soul King. Meanwhile, Juhabach is being escorted by a group of Sternritters like Argola, Hubert and Zeidritz (characters who appear as zombies, and later on in Bazz-B's flashback) but of note is this one random anime-exclusive Sternritter girl that machineguns the shit out of Ichibei. Ichibei pulls out his brush and creates a forcefield that blocks out the bullets and holds them in one place like he's fucking Magneto or something. Ichibei launches back the bullets back, and the big guy among the ancient Sternritters, Argola, jumps in the way and blocks the bullets. 

"Pernida" manifests in Ichibei's hand, which itself is a huge ball of questions on just how this works. Pernida unleashes a blast of energy that seems to cause Juhabach to see the same brief bits of flashes that Ichigo and the audience have been seeing. I am waiting to see all of these told to us in full context! One particularly cool shot is an ominous shot of Ichibei's silhouette, and presumably he was presiding over the Soul King's dismemberment in the past. 

Ichibei admonishes Juhabach for knowing nothing, and reveals that Squad Zero and the Soul King maintain the balance of this fragile world. Juhabach gets some bright blue lines running down his face, and jumps towards Ichibei, grabbing his hand and sending the same blue circuitry running down Ichibei's left hand. I think this is the same super-version of Blut Vene that Juhabach would use in his full fight against Ichibei (and his real left hand) in the manga! Juhabach says something strange, about how "my father's hand is nothing more than a sacrifice to his child. It can give life, but cannot take it away."

Ichibei says that Juhabach can't see through the Soul King, and the left hand starts to glorp and transform into the man-sized hand creature that is Pernida Parnkgjas. The strange hand just... slams down upon Juhabach and disappears? Juhabach's Almighty eyes returns to normal pupils, and it's implied that... Ichibei 'sacrifices' Pernida to seal off Juhabach's troublesome Almighty eyes, but this is also how Juhabach gains possession of Pernida? It's really great, again, to see just how some of the more bizarre aspects of the Thousand-Year Blood War's final stories happened, including everything about the body parts of the Soul King. That's great!

Ichibei ominously says about how Juhabach's eyes will be closed forever until the day he dies, and I assume he doesn't know about the whole Quincy prophecy of Juhabach being able to resurrect after a thousand years? But it frames Juhabach's first invasion in a new light, where he's actually severely nerfed by Ichibei prior to the fight and he's fighting Yamamoto and the original incarnation of the Gotei 13 basically without access to the Almighty. 

We get a short scene of Juhabach saying that he's glad that he doesn't have the Almighty eyes anymore, since he doesn't have to keep seeing his father, the Soul King, and his humiliation over and over again, which I think is something from the source material? It sounds like a familiar speech. He tells the Soul King to vanish along with the world, and be a grave to the (split) three worlds. Again... it's context to Juhabach's actual motivation, done first-hand with him in a relatively much more vulnerable position, and I am loving this being shown to us right as Juhabach is at the precipice of breaching and blaspheming the Royal Palace. 

More hints about Juhabach and the Soul King's relationship are dropped to us as Haschwalth talks about how he feels Juhabach's pain... but Juhabach growls about how he feels not a shred of emotion looking at what's a decaying grave. He wants to end this world of deceit and recreate the world with his own two hands. 

And... this is where the aforementioned change is made. In the manga, it was Kirinji Tenjiro of the hot springs that shows up to face off against Juhabach. He activates his Shikai, Kinpika, which does absolutely nothing because we cut off to see the Giselle and Pepe fights, and we come back we just see Kirinji being utterly ineffective in even landing a hit because of Sternritter "W", Nianzol Weizol's ability. And then Senjumaru Shutara arrives, deals with Nianzol, and... and Kirinji presumably just stands in the corner like a complete idiot. 

Apparently, the anime is far more willing to eliminate this one moment of incompetence from a member of the Squad Zero compared to Hirako Shinji, so we cut out Kirinji's entire contribution here, and this episode basically just focuses on Senjumaru, Nimaiya as well as the trap. 

But first, some random goons fight each other. Haschwalth sends out some Soldat to charge in, while Senjumaru summons some weird, robotic troops that jump down from behind her. I am actually surprised this scene is kept in since I remembered reading these sequence of chapters weekly and remembering how utterly boring it was since it's soldiers and not even soldiers with names facing off against each other. 

The opening credits roll, and we get the story from Team Ichigo's perspective as they're about to be launched into the Royal Palace. Shiba Ganju and his pig shows up, and... sure, he does exist. I always felt like Ganju was such an irrelevant character to bring back, and he has so much less of an excuse to hang around compared to Chad or Orihime, but... he sure does show up, I guess? Ganju tells them that he has a map of the Royal Palace that he got from his sister, Kukaku, and that's the reason he wants to come with them. 

We cut out a conversation from the manga between Ichigo and Urahara where Urahara tells Ichigo that anything Ganju can provide is already taken care of, so Ichigo's just throwing Ganju a bone, but here... I guess they need that map? Whatever the case, Ganju joins Ichigo, Chad, Orihime and Yoruichi as they are launched in a pillar into the heavens. We get a shot of other characters like Byakuya, Renji, Rukia, Bazz-B, Kyoraku and Robert watching the pillar swaying through its flightpath, and I absolutely love the snide remark from Mayuri going "if I designed that thing, it'd fly straight". Never change, Mayuri. 

We cut to the Royal Palace where the black-suited royal soldiers murder the Soldat and charge at Juhabach... and then with an almost comical sound effect that felt like it should've been in the background of a One Piece Gear Fifth episode, their swords are unable to touch Juhabach.

And this is the arrival of Sternritter "W", the Wind, Nianzol Weizol. Not the wind, but the wind. As in, it's not the wind as in the force of air that blows around, but the wind as in you winding a rope or winding a ribbon.

Nianzol is a weird freak with two tongues, a lisp and no shoes and he's basically here to show off how powerful the Squad Zero is. Nianzol waxes lyrical about the power of The Wind, and he can basically repulse anything because they all get 'winded' away from his body. He shows this off by ripping apart the space between a bunch of generic soldiers, and apologizes for not explaining things properly since it's a 'bad habit' of his.

Senjumaru then counters that she also has a 'bad habit' of her own... and then reveals that with her golden mechanical arm, she's already sown a brand-new robe on Nianzol's body. I don't think it's ever explained how Senjumaru is able to get around the Wind other than the fact that she's just that good? Her Reishi and her ability to stealth around is just that good? Anyway, Senjumaru has a bad habit of leaving her needles in the clothing she sews, and Nianzol just explodes with a dozen gigantic needles. Goodbye, Nianzol Weizol, you at least lasted a bit longer than "the Roar" and "the Question". 

We briefly cut to Team Ichigo, and... it's all fluff, really. It's a bit more discussion about Uryu, some reminiscence about their last rescue mission, and some more context about the Royal Palace and the Soul King. It's something that long-time Bleach fans would know a bit more (even those that watched the anime only) but it really is nice for people who watch this anime a bit more casually. And even then, giving us more information about the Soul King's context makes sense for these characters specifically... because Ichigo just got a whole lot of new context about the Soul King thanks to Irazu Sando.

We then cut to Uryu as he's being discussed, and there's a brief ominous shot of his eyeballs with some Blut lines on them. This is anime-original, and I'm actually not sure what's going on here. Is he using The Antithesis? Somehow? I've had Antithesis explained to me a couple of times and I'm really still not sure how that ability works outside of the fight with Haschwalth, and I would totally love to see Sternritter Uryu get a couple extra fight scenes, actually!

What happens next is the start of the great buildup of the Squad Zero/Schutzstaffel fight, which is to say that it's the only part of the Squad Zero/Schutzstaffel fight we ever get to see. I do really fervently hope that even if everything happens exactly the same way that they did in the manga, we do fill in the gaps and see just how our Squad Zero guys get taken out!

We get the arrival and badass introduction of the Schutzstaffel. Sternritter "X", the X-Axis, Lille Baro. Sternritter "C", the Compulsory, Pernida Parnkgjas. Sternritter "D", the Deathdealing, Askin Nakk le Varr. Sternritter "M", the Miracle, Gerald Valkyrie. Askin drops a brief line about how he's the only Sternritter from the lower ranks to be brought up, before he slashes and breaks Senjumaru's puppet arm and needle. Senjumaru summons a giant samurai soldier guy. Pernida then breathes very loudly, with some great effect of his cloak rippling, his eyes glowing and some eerie sound effects as Senjumaru's minion gets literally crushed into a ball, frame by frame. It's gruesome! Lille Barro then boasts that the losing side always finds out that they're losing too late (which is a variant of the episode title), before shooting a gigantic hole through Senjumaru's head. 

That shot is pretty damn cool, actually, and I'm surprised it's not censored! Senjumaru's hole-y corpse falls down and a ridiculous amount of blood pours out... just as Pernida uses his powers to snap Senjumaru's corpse, and ball it up into a meatball and rolls it away. Gruesome! 

Gerard asks if that's the best that Squad Zero can do, while Lille Barro boasts about the strength of his majesty's Schutzstaffel. Lille then starts sniping, tearing a hole on all five of the floating palaces and snaps them all in half, sending them falling out of the sky. This was always one of the cooler shots from this segment of the fight, I feel. 

However, as Lille kneels before Juhabach, the background behind him -- the destroyed palaces, the pillars and everything... starts to be unraveled and retracted into the sky, because they've all been under what's effectively a particularly elaborate illusion. The real Senjumaru, completely unharmed, is standing on the other side, and the real Royal Palace is completely unharmed, hidden on the other side of the sky, by "Osho" Ichibei Hyosube. With a gigantic kanji stamp saying 'hidden'. It's a cute little hint about Ichibei's true powers. 

Lille tries to shoot Ichibei, but turns out that the 'cage' made it in time. And this cage is created by "Grain King" Kirio Hikifune, who calls it a 'womb'. It's a pretty cool shot of seeing a gigantic wooden cage of interlocking branches while the pieces of Senjumaru's false sky get retracted up into the sky. The cage instantly grows and is able to instantly heal, despite Lille Barro's attempts to shoot in-between the spaces of the cage, or shooting multiple times into the same spot. Kirio explains that her cage feeds on reishi, which means Lille's reishi bullets can't pierce it since it gets absorbed by the trees. 

And then we get the badass arrival of all the Squad Zero members, who arrive one by one. "Hot Spring Demon" Kirinji Tenjiro leaps down from the skies and lands in some splashing hot water. Hopefully to meet a more dignified defeat than his manga counterpart. As even more pages of cloth are moved away, "Great Weaver" Senjumaru Shutara walks up and introduces herself. Swinging in like goddamn Spider-Man is "Grain King" Kirio Hikifune.

And the best Squad Zero member has his own spotlight shine down. In English, he declares himself as "I am the number one Zanpakuto Creator!!!" and does his awesome countdown of ten nine eight seven six five four three Ni-Mai-ya Oh-etsu. 

God damn, Nimaiya, you're a big, hammy bastard. As epic music plays in the background, Nimaiya draws Sayafushi from its jelly cage, and I absolutely love how the anime team handles Sayafushi, animating it as constantly vibrating and giving us some lightsaber sound effects when Nimaiya does swing it. Nimaiya boasts and tells all the Quincies to come at him at once, and this is where Nimaiya beats the shit out of the Schutzstaffel single-handedly. 

Gerald Valkyrie charges in first, slashing with his sword while Nimaiya is commenting on how his blade feels wobbly... and just dodges by bending backwards really far. Really love the effect of Gerald's slash being so powerful that it cuts gouges into the tree trunks and the pillars around them, and Nimaiya's line about "a hug from a man is always going to be dodged!" or something along those lines is always funny. 

Gerald is about to unleash a next attack, but then Nimaiya just jumps in front of him and Gerald falls to the ground and blood splurts out from his wound. Nimaiya does his ten-nine-eight countdown badass boast again, and boasts that his sword kills with a single attack, yo. Lille thinks that it's a trick, and fires at Nimaiya... but the space behind them explode. Nimaiya says that he didn't even parry or anything, all he did was to hold the sword in front of him and it's so sharp that the bullet that Lille shot was split in twain upon contact. Lille opens fire a bit more rapidly, and this time Nimaiya does charge forwards and parry the shot, he charges in and slices Lille's fur-covered rifle in half, and then slashes Lille across the chest as he crumples to the ground. 

Pernida begins to wibble-wobble, and knowing what we do know about Pernida, the shape of his protrusions make a bit more sense. But we get a very cool shot of Sayafushi piercing Pernida's center of mass, and a shot of Askin not even able to react in the foreground as Pernida falls backwards. And then Nimaiya blitzes in and rams the sword deeper, dropping Pernida and slashing Askina cross the chest in a single motion. 

Askin isn't dead, but simply jumps backwards in time with the blade and is only grazed with a shallow wound. Nimaiya praises Askin's skill... before rushing in and slashing him again across the torso. And thus, Nimaiya Oetsu beat all four of Juhabach's Elite Guard.

He then explains a bit about Sayafushi, how it's a failure of a sword because it's so sharp that no scabbard can hold it, and he has to carry it around in a tank of thick jelly. Nimaiya says that it's a sword he can't send down to the Seireitei... but he's glad that the Quincies decided to invade since it means that he has the chance to put this into use. 

In the manga, at this point Askin shows off a bit of his Deathdealing power for a whole chapter... but I'm going to assume that this sequence is going to count as the fight between Askin and Nimaiya next chapter after Juhabach revives the Schutzstaffel... and the reason why I'm confident that there's even going to be a proper fight between these sets of four characters next episode. 

Because the next scene is all completely original. In the manga, Nimaiya (and Kirinji a bit) fight and take out Askin, before they all storm Juhabach, which leads to Aushwalen, the resurrection of the Elite Guard, and the infamous offscreen defeat of Squad Zero. Here, instead Juhabach lobs a Quincy medallion which somehow passes through Kirio's wooden cage... and swaps places with it, in a way similar to One Piece's Trafalgar Law's abilities. Juhabach stands outside of the cage and face-to-face with Ichibei, shocking all of the other Squad Zero members. This isn't exactly explained, but... but it's Juhabach, so I don't really find it hard to believe that he's got yet another bullshit power on top of his many bullshit powers. Or it could be Uryu's Antithesis. I just really want Antithesis to do something in this manga beyond that disappointing slap-fight with Balance. 

Nimaiya praises the 'king' for his 'rising'. Haschwalth asks Squad Zero why they are unconcerned with his majesty, and Kirinji does a reverse boast, saying that with the Osho up above, it's the Quincies that should be worried. There's a badass line where Ichibei is described as being so bloodstained that not even Kirinji's hot springs can wash away the stench of blood. Ichibei and Juhabach face off against each other, and Juhabach continues to use Ichibei's full name, leading to a creepy smile from Ichibei as he warns Juhabach not to use his name so lightly. And as Ichibei is the last combatant here to get a name-screen, we cut to credits. 

And, again... I am excited about a lot of things this episode. As much as I did brush off the 'canon' material, it was cool to see the characters flex against each other. Senjumaru, Nimaiya and Lille get a lot of great sequences, and I really am anticipating the fact that the 'hour-long finale' of this cour would not just be Ichibei versus Juhabach, but include either or both of the full Soul King flashback (which this episode sets up) and Squad Zero fighting against the Schutzstaffel, showing us how they actually lose. Both of these are really two of the weakest points of the original story, and if these could be fleshed out in the anime by any degree then I'm a happy, happy Bleach fan. 

Random Notes:

• Despite emphasizing Blut as much as it did in the manga, the anime has been absolutely not been showing off Blut at all, even though other Quincy abilities like Vollstandig and Sklaverei have been a bit more emphasized for other Sternritters. I think Juhabach and Uryu's eyeballs are the first time we've seen Blut being used since the first invasion? 
  
• I've never really realized it until now, but the fact that Bleach is originally a manga about shinigami, or the gods of death... it's so appropriate that the crux of the motivation of imprisoning the Soul King is about life and death itself being split apart.
• I am disappointed that Ganju arrives on his pig, but the pig doesn't ride with him to the Royal Palace. That pig is like 40% of Ganju's personality.
• A lot more of Ganju's comedic lines are cut, but I can safely say that absolutely nothing of value was lost. I'm not a big Ganju fan, if you can't tell. 
• I don't have a chance to mention it, but Senjumaru's line "become rust on the Soul King's blade" is a cool line.
• It really is a weird decision that the anime doesn't actually tell us what the letters mean. Nianzol introduces himself as "the Wind", and Gerald name-drops Lille's "X-Axis". And some characters do introduce their Schrifts, like Quilge, Pepe and Mask... but it really does take out half of the fun because back in the day it took months for us to really know what "X-Axis", "Deathdealing", "Miracle" and "Compulsory" meant. 
  
• They cut out Gerald's line, admonishing Lille Barro for leaving a body in his majesty's path... which is the reason Pernida rolls Senjumaru's body up in the first place. I actually am slightly sad this interaction was removed, mostly because I like Gerald's hamming it up. 
• I can never spell Parnkgjas right. 
• Oh yeah, there is an extra scene showing Nianzol's bloodied corpse falling down from the skies as Senjumaru tosses him over the edge of the bridge. That's unnecessarily but hilariously cold. 
• No, seriously, I went from not giving a shit about any of the Squad Zero members to unironically counting Nimaiya Oetsu as one of my favourite characters to be introduced in this arc. The voice-acting really does a great job at selling his presence, while I count his manga counterpart to just be annoying. 
• Who else thought that Juhabach was going to finally use the Bankai he stole from Yamamoto when he pulled out that medallion? Me, that's who.