Bleach TYBW E25 Review: "Squad Zero is Mightier than the Entire Gotei 13"

Bleach, Thousand-Year Blood War, Episode 25: The Master

Oh boy, these two-parter! It took me a longer time to really write down the review for these two episodes because, for the most part, it remixes so much of the original Squad Zero versus Schutzstaffel fight in the source material... almost beyond recognition, really! And that's a good thing. 

I think I'll have to stop and preface the review for episodes 25-26 of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War arc by quickly establishing how these events happened in the manga. Remember that the members of Squad Zero has been hyped up so much in the manga as being more powerful than the Gotei 13. And what we got when Juhabach goes up is... Squad Zero one-shots Senjumaru, then it's an illusion all along, Nimaiya one-shots the entire Schutzstaffel, Juhabach activates Auswahlen and revives the Schutzstaffel, and when we cut back... all the Squad Zero members are killed off-screen, leaving us to the Juhabach and Ichibei fight on the skies of the Soul Palace. In addition to the off-screen defeat, we also get a lot of frustrating sequences that imply that characters like Juhabach, Uryu, Haschwalth and Tenjiro are just... standing in the background doing nothing while their comrades fight. 

Here, the events are rearranged to preserve most of the action scenes that were in the manga, but everything happens more simultaneously that both sides -- both Squad Zero and the Schutzstaffel -- all look less incompetent or plot-armoured. They all end up putting up a fight, and in the Schutzstaffel's case, actually get to use their Vollstandigs and abilities against the Squad Zero. I don't really care for 'power-scaling', but it also makes it a lot more easier to swallow their later defeats. In the manga, it's implied that they barely used their Schrifts and were able to take down Squad Zero, but were defeated by captains even though they went into Vollstandig. 

Anyway, the Squad Zero's random offscreen defeat -- without a satisfying fight -- has always been one of the bigger flaws of this segment of the Bleach manga. And... and I honestly would've been happy with just a clash between them, but the anime really went above and beyond in at least trying to make sure that the 'Squad Zero is mightier than the entire Gotei 13 combined' boast sounds realistic and not just hyperbole. 

But we first start off with the characters on the ground. Urahara is drawing on the ground, and the Earth-bound Visoreds finally arrive. The Visoreds really do have their screentime basically truncated in the anime, and I really can't blame the anime team for doing this. Frankly, I'm surprised they're still even kept, though I'm definitely not complaining. Love, Hachigen and Lisa don't really do anything at all, though Hiyori and Urahara retain most of their banter. I do really like Hiyori basically calling out Urahara for letting Ichigo's team go on ahead, and quickly surmises that Urahara is essentially using them as a sacrificial vanguard to buy time while Urahara waits for his master plan (with what the Visoreds are doing off-screen) to be done. It's a nice little scene that really does wonders for Urahara's character, and I really do like that there's someone that can see through his 'friendly kooky mentor' bullshit and call out his well-intentioned but ultimately friend-sacrificing plans. 

Oh, and Shihoin Yushiro shows up. Yoruichi's completely irrelevant little brother, the current head of the Shihoin clan, who's a crybaby that... gets more screentime than established characters like the Visoreds and doesn't even contribute anything really to the story. He exists!

We then get the opening, and most of the rest of the episode takes place in the Soul Palace! And... it's a fun time! Ichibei and Juhabach begin their confrontation, with Ichibei chastising Juhabach for continually using his full name with no care. Ichibei then draws two ink-lines on the floor, boasting that he will defeat Juhabach within that distance. This infuriates Juhabach, who makes his own boast as to how Ichibei will die within three steps of those lines. 

We then get Ichibei's calligraphy writing creating the kanji for 'seal', "封", which is pretty awesomely animated. Ichibei points out that Juhabach just said his name again... and Senri Tsutensho, a gigantic spiritual hand manifests and slams the shit out of Juhabach and pushes him through the sky. Ichibei just casually shunpo's above Juhabach as he's flying through the air, and Juhabach also finds out that he's lost his voice thanks to speaking Ichibei's names a bit too much. Ichibei summons another Senri Tsutensho to slap Juhabach towards the ground. 

Juhabach then stabs himself in the neck, and gives himself a voice, before yelling out "Sankt Bogen". He summons his sacred bow underneath him, and launches several gigantic Quincy arrows upwards. One of them scratches and draws blood on Ichibei's back, while another one propels Juhabach back up so he's eye-to-eye with Ichibei. In motion (and a lot faster than a week-to-week manga), this whole sequence ends up feeling very fluid and paced much better. Ichibei finally gets tired of this shit, before saying that he's now going to have to kill Juhabach. We get the anime's take on Ichibei's nightmarish face, and... it's cool, but I feel that it doesn't quite have the impact of Kubo's heavy inking in the original manga. 

As the two 'kings' above draw their blades, we cut down to Nimaiya and the rest of Squad Zero facing off against the Quincies below. I do like that Nimaiya's about ready to fight against Uryu and Haschwalth, kind of boasting that he's going to go for the successor first... and then Kirio's womb snaps apart. I think the anime implies that this is Pernida's power, since the branches are being twisted? Or it could just be Haschwalth using The Balance to reverse the fortunes and misfortunes? Either way, Kirio just breathes out a bunch of seeds and reconnects the Womb again. 

Tenjiro finally makes his battle debut here, using the sealed form of Kinpika to lob a ball of hot springs water down at the Quincies, which transform into a gigantic torrent of water. Uryu hirenkyaku's away and comes face-to-face with Senjumaru Shutara... and all of this is brand-new stuff, mind you. Squad Zero and the two heirs just kind of ignore each other in the manga! Senjumaru charges Uryu with her weird puppet hands and her needle Zanpakuto, and Uryu counters with Blut Vene. Or maybe the Antithesis. Senjumaru's powers are a bit confusing at how he could 'sneak' into places, but if Uryu's Antithesis power just counters that, I can see why Senjumaru can't one-shot Uryu the way she did to Nianzol. Uryu summons his own bow and starts fighting. 

Tenjiro, meanwhile, does the shikai reveal that the previous chapter cut out, pulling off the cover to his blade and unleashing Kinpika as he prepares to fight against Haschwalth, who he traps in the spinning ball of hot springs water. We... still don't really know what exactly Kinpika does? Other than shine? I guess it's just attacking you with the Bleach equivalent of a lightsaber. Which was always what I assumed from the name Kinpika, but it's a bit disappointing to see that after all these years, what we saw was really what we get. Tenjiro at least got his cool water-bending powers going for him, I suppose. 

Haschwalth counters with his Freund Schild (Friend Shield), which in the manga we wouldn't see until much later. And this is cool! We get to see what the endgame Quincies' abilities are, even if they're not explained or elaborated upon, and this really does end up building anticipation for anime-only watchers as opposed to offscreening everything for the sake of 'not spoiling' the powers. 

Nimaiya complains that he's got his prey stolen by his fellow Squad Zero members, and is actually implied to want to go up and fight Juhabach... but then Askin stands back up. In the manga, this sequence happens right immediately after Nimaiya slashes Askin the first time, but it's a great change to move it to this part of the anime's version of the fight, which helps to not cheapen Nimaiya's initial one-shotting while also making Askin feel so much more tenacious and undying. 

Askin's monologue is cut down a bit from his manga, including a narrator explaining what 'lethal doses' are, but he does get to describe what the Deathdealing does and how it manipulates the lethal dosages of substances -- like blood -- in someone's body. Askin turns Nimaiya's blood into poison for him, and I absolutely love that Askin goes "it's a hard power to understand, right? Don't worry, you're about to die anyway", which is a fun twist on how Bleach characters (hi, Rose!) really love to go on and on about how their powers work and tell it right to their enemies' face. 

Uryu and Senjumaru's fight continue to go on as this happens, with a very badass sequence as Uryu unleashes a hailstorm of Licht Regen down. Some really great usage of sound effects, too, as Senjumaru's pupper hands click together, extend their fingers and she just starts weaving with red string to create a spinning umbrella shield to protect herself from Uryu's arrows. That's so badass, and the red string animation looks so fluid. The animation in this episode is pretty great, by the way. I don't think I praise it quite enough, but it's definitely pretty well-done. Senjumaru's umbrella spins around, and she mocks Uryu by saying that his arrows are reduced to basically spherical droplets "like the spring rain". Senjumaru later sends the spheres flying back up towards Uryu, knocking him out of the sky. 

Haschwalth and Tenjiro are fighting, and Tenjiro brings extra attention to the Freund Schild. Now in the manga, we would later see that Freund Schild would have certain damage-deflecting abilites... but almost comically, Tenjiro just stabs the shield with Kinpika, pretends to panic... and then just wrenches the shield away from Haschwalth and tosses it aside. That's how you deal with a magic shield, I guess! Tenjiro and Haschwalth then have a samurai clash as their blades connect, they zip past each other... and Haschwalth loses, splurting blood out of the cut made by Kinpika and falling to the ground. Nothing remotely close to this happens in the manga, but it absolutely makes sense that Uryu and Haschwalth would join the battle (or be forced to battle by the Squad Zero members), and that they would also get the power granted by Juhabach with Auswahlen later on. 

Askin shows off his bangles and pulls out his holy bow from one of them (that must be a very collapsible bow!). Askin gives a brief monologue about how he sometimes comes off as being too much of an underling, and how it's one of his charms... and then Nimaiya just stabs himself and allows himself to bleed out to lower the amount of the now poisonous blood in himself. Askin points out that this means that Nimaiya would still bleed out to death... at which point Tenjiro shows up with his hot springs and replaces Nimaiya's blood with his hot springs blood. It's actually one of the few abilities here that's foreshadowed, since Tenjiro already gave some exposition about how his hot springs abilities work back during the training episodes in the first cour. 

Nimaiya, freshly rejuvenated, slashes Askin and takes him out. The two have a brief banter about underestimating the enemy and looking cool, before Askin also falls. 

With Haschwalth, Uryu and Askin all taken out again, Kirio Hikifune comments -- almost self-aware about the disappointing equivalent of this scene in the manga -- about how "this is how the Squad Zero fights!" And you know what? That's cool. I really didn't think we needed to see this, and I thought that most of the expanded scene would be after Auswahlen, but it does make sense to have the Sternritters offer a bit more resistance, and for Uryu and Haschwalth to fight -- and fall. Again, the one-on-one matchups also helps to give Senjumaru and Tenjiro some extra time to show their own individual abilities off. 

We then cut back to canon material with Ichibei and Juhabach fighting in the sky. And... this is always a scene that's going to be hard to adapt in the anime, without the huge blotches of ink covering the speech bubbles. I've always thought that it's such an effective usage of medium in the manga's equivalent of this, with Ichibei's ink-splotches covering the words and speech bubbles of the names that he cuts. Instead we just see Ichibei and Juhabach talk and fight, and... it does admittedly lose something thanks to this, but there really isn't a good way to adapt it into animation well. Both the voice actors involved really do carry this sequence, because both baritone voices really do sell the scene. 

Ichibei's brush cuts names, not flesh, and he's cut the name of Juhabach's "arm" into half (the wordplay doesn't work well in English) to halve his powers, and later on splits Juhabach's name in half (into just 'Juha') as well to halve his power. Ichibei starts mocking Juhabach as he bats him back onto the platform where they begun their fight. 

And then... we briefly cut away to the Quincies on the ground. Giselle is munching on Bambietta's body, with her eyes glowing for extra horror effect, and it's as uncomfortable as it originally was in the manga. She keeps bashing Bambietta's zombie corpse until she looks fatally dead, before going all goo-goo-ga-ga over Bambi's corpse. Liltotto shows up and finds Giselle... and we cut out Robert Accutrone entirely from this sequence. 

In the manga, this is where Robert shows up behind Liltotto and starts ranting in madness about Auswahlen and how His Majesty has abandoned the weak below and are about to sacrifice them all, before he gets blasted and killed by the Auswahlen. Basically the only Sternritter killed by it, despite the Auswahlen showing to also hit Bazz-B and NaNaNa in the manga. The anime exorcises Robert entirely from this whole scene, and I'm of two minds about this. Either (a) Robert is being kept alive for a potential future storyline in subsequent seasons, or (b) Robert actually just died fighting Byakuya. His screaming against Byakuya does mirror his death-scream in the manga, so it could really be either one?

Anyway, Liltotto seems to have gathered a bunch of Soldat behind her when she's discussing what happened to Pepe, Meninas and Candice with Giselle... and these guys will be somewhat important for the upcoming scene. 

As Ichibei prepares to apparently destroy Juhabach (or rather, 'Juha'), he starts chanting and I absolutely love that the combination of this ritual, some fancy sparkly effects and the choir music in the background really does help to sell Auswahlen as this huge moment that's reality-shattering and about to be something major. 

"Silver emblems, ashen meadows, circular path buried in light. Eye of agate, tongue of gold, skull cup, coffin of Adnyeus. The object we raise is your heart... AUSWAHLEN!"

Juhabach summons a gigantic halo of light in the sky, before psychotic roots that look like how the Blut has been portrayed start to rapidly fire downwards like pillars down onto the Seireitei. This is so much more epic in the anime, and... we get to see the Quincy Soldat all running around the battlefield below, still waging war and fighting the Shinigami... and then the Auswahlen start hitting them and vaporizing them.

Liltotto still saves Giselle from the light pillars, but their Vollstandig wings shatter and are reduced to fragments of light that get absorbed into the pillars. We get to see the downed NaNaNa get hit by the light pillar (he's fine, though, he shows up later) and Bazz-B, in the middle of a fight, also gets engulfed with it. In an anime-original scene, we get to see Meninas carrying the wounded Candice away and get slammed down with a pillar. No sign of Robert anywhere, still, which gives me hope for some Robert content down the line. Maybe we'll find out what "N" stands for! Mayuri and Liltotto both separately figure out that Auswahlen is draining power from their souls and sucking it up into the caster. 

As Juhabach talks about 'comrades', we get a ranting speech particularly from Liltotto and Bazz-B, getting absolutely pissed off with a gerat shot of the two of them screaming in indignance at Juhabach. This was always a scene that only really paid off for Bazz-B in the manga, but with how much the anime seems to be favouring the female Sternritters, I'm actually rather excited to see if we'll get an expansion and a conclusion for Liltotto's character. 

The energy sucked up by Auswahlen condenses into an orb that slams down onto Juhabach, which then expands outwards again. The scale and the animation is very cool for this, too, really showing the sheer scope of how Juhabach is manipulating the souls of his dead army. This blasts away Kirio's Womb, shattering the cage into brambles. The fallen Quincy bodies start to sprout their Vollstandig powers. Special mention has to go to Pernida, whose wings take the form of hands.

Again, from a power-scaling perspective it really does make sense that the Schutzstaffel, even if they have to win against Squad Zero, would do it in their Vollstandig forms. Or, well, at least the four non-heir ones use Vollstandig, anyway. This counts as a nice little early appearance for Gerald's angelic wings, Askin's bizarre dot-and-line wings and Lille Barro's... weird... eyeball-hole wing things? Worth noting that this is how Lille's Vollstandig looks in the later fight against Kyoraku, but in the manga's equivalent of this scene Lille's Vollstandig are feathery angel wings like Gerald's. I like this change, which makes it a bit more consistent with Lille's later portrayal.

Haschwalth gives some monologue about Auswahlen to a surprised Nimaiya, as we cut away to see the seared skeletons of the Soldat on the ground. Haschwalth draws out his sword and declares that 'Squad Zero will be purged' as the episode closes and the end-roll plays. 

The post-credits scene adapts Kyoraku and Ukitake's meeting, with Ukitake finally arriving back onto the battlefield after being MIA since the beginning of the season. We get a nice hint of Kamikake, with the drawing of the shadow and the eyeball behind Ukitake looking so badass and creepy in a great reflection of Kubo's original art style. Kyoraku muses about how the Squad Zero let the Royal Palace get invaded, before heading off to 'grab a drink'... an interesting change to the manga's equivalent line, which is a bit more explicit that he's heading to Central 46 to talk to Aizen. I'm really thinking that it's still going to be the same thing, but I guess the anime's just builing up a bit more anticipation as to what Kyoraku's doing? 

Yeah, anyway... amazing change. Again, on paper, a fair amount of the scenes are taken from the manga, which is what I wanted the anime to be anyway (at least until the last 5 chapters). It's just rearranged, expanded, and scenes are reshuffled a bit so that both Squad Zero and the Schutzstaffel all look good. No one's just standing there doing nothing, everyone's using some sort of power to take out the enemy, and the Auswahlen feels a fair bit more grandiose than its very randomly-done counterpart in the manga. Now at the moment of writing I have also watched episode 26, and the vastly expanded Squad Zero versus an Auswahlen-empowered Schutzstaffel in that episode is basically such a great accompaniment to the Ichibei vs Juhabach fight taken from the source material. 

A lot of the changes they made in the anime in regards to certain scenes like Ichigo's training, Uryu and Haschwalth's dynamic, how they handle Pepe, some extra fights for the lesser Sternritters, have been all pretty great... but this is the kind of major change that we're waiting with bated breath for the anime, and, honestly, until I watched episode 25 and 26, I wasn't sure we were going to get! Very fun time. 

Random Notes:

• I always forget that Hiyori was Urahara's vice-captain during Turn Back the Pendulum. Hiyori fights with Shinji so much in the Aizen arc that I forgot that her original captain wasn't Shinji, but Urahara. 
  
• I've always hated Yushiro not just because he wasn't foreshadowed and literally came out of nowhere, but in an arc where a lot of established characters like Ukitake, Shinji, Love, Kensei, Soi Fon, Ikkaku, Yumichika, Grimmjow, Neliel, the Fullbringers, the Visoreds, and so many others are already jockeying for screentime... yeah, a random new character no one cares about is not someone we want to really see.
• Always enjoyed the little hop that Ichibei does when he draws the line from where he's going to beat up Juhabach. It's a nice bit of levity before all the nightmare faces that the Eyeball Monk's going to make afterwards. 
• The visual of a hand hitting Juhabach and the 1000 ri distance are a reference to how the Buddha subdues Sun Wukong in Journey to the West, though the specifics are obviously different.
• I've always thought that in the manga, Juhabach gave himself the power of "The Voice" in English, just like how the Sternritter schrifts were formatted, but it's just him speaking in full Japanese about how he's restored his voice. 
  
• Senjumaru offhandedly notes how Kirio Hikifune's Womb (that's basically the name of the ability, I suppose) also drains Reishi from the air, making it harder for Quincies to gather reishi. Doesn't stop Askin or Uryu from creating reishi bows, but I suppose it would prevent bigger abilities like Sklaverei?
  
• Also, Askin starts saying his 'fatal flaw' catchphrase in this episode. I didn't find an organic place in the review to refer to it properly. 
• Who the hell is 'Adnyeus'? The subtitles call it that, but most people seem to be of the opinion that this is a misspelling (accidental or deliberate) of Adonaeus, the gnostic archon of the sun.
• RIP for any chance of Bazz-B getting a better Vollstandig than two sausage-wings, I guess. 
• It's neat that the anime remembers (and adapts) the line where Liltotto explicitly notes that Meninas and Candice are wounded but still alive... but actually do show them still alive. In the manga they never reappear after this point and their fates of whether they got Auswahlen'ed or not is left in the air. In Can't Fear Your Own World the two of them would be gathered up by Mayuri and turned into zombies, but I'm doubtful that this course of events would still be kept by the anime.