Reviewing Bleach Fillers -- The Bount Arc, Part 1

Bleach, Season 4: The Bount Arc [Episodes 64-91]

A couple of years ago from now I watched and reviewed all of the One Piece filler arcs, and I decided to -- slowly -- do the same with Bleach. It was a bit hard because I had a bit less free time after the pandemic is over, but it is kind of nice to have a show that I don't necessarily have to pay full attention to, y'know what I mean? Bleach is also nice in that its anime is actually sorted into 'seasons', and while this won't be exhaustive, some of the fillers are literally just contained in these 'seasons'. 

So yeah, this is my review of Season Four, or the 'Bount Arc', the first filler arc in Bleach. I've never watched the original anime to completion -- I watched a bunch of the action scenes, of course, and I watched the majority of the Ichigo-vs-Ulquiorra, followed by Ichigo-vs-Aizen season when they ran on TV. But I've never really watched any of the filler arcs except for a couple of episodes of the Zanpakuto Rebellion one. 

The Bount arc runs through 28 episodes, taking place chronologically between the end of the Soul Society arc (after Aizen's party goes back to Hueco Mundo) and before the arrival of Ulquiorra and Yammy. There are a couple of scenes that adapt some of the human world civilian scenes that take place in the canon manga, but ultimately most of this is anime-original. It's a convenient enough spot to insert a filler arc, and... it's a pretty long one! And, well, filler arcs in anime will always fall under the problem that nothing here is going to really matter or be followed up on in the long run, and a lot o anime fillers really do struggle in trying to make fights and antagonists that are somewhat relevant, but ultimately don't matter in the grand scheme of things. 

What I do like, and maybe this is just me being nostalgic for 'old-school' Bleach in general, is that the arc initially just starts with the human cast of Ichigo, Chad, Uryu and Orihime, plus Renji (who hops in with a gigai body) and Kon (who ends up being a major supporting character). The arc also revolves around Mod Souls, which is a nice concept that was part of the world-building in early Bleach chapters but is ultimately entirely forgotten by the canon manga. It's neat that the villains here are essentially rogue mod souls!

The concept of this arc is admittedly somewhat of a 'ripoff' of what was going to happen soon when the Arrancar arc begins with Orihime's kidnapping. Because, well, Orihime is kidnapped by a trio of mysterious hooded figures with strange powers, and a lot of the early episodes are just one-off conflicts as Ichigo and company try their best to deal with their dwindling group of friends, and later on when their school gets held hostage. Again, nice to see some of the 'civilian' world get a bit more of a spotlight, even if admittedly episodes like the ones where the Mod Souls got turned into dolls and paired up with the humans ended up dragging on at times. We get introduced to a cast of colourful power-wielders, namely giggling girl Ririn (who casts illusions), foppish showboat Kurodo (he can mimic people's appearances) and quiet Noba (who has space powers). 

And it's interesting that these three guys are actually Mod Souls like Kon. It takes something that was already established in prior Bleach canon and expands upon it, and while it's admittedly a bit odd that they have weird powers unlike Kon, it's very much something that makes sense in the continuity that some other Mod Souls are running around wild if it happened to Kon. Turns out that the whole thing is something set up by Urahara as a training arc for Ichigo and company -- and the excuse that Ichigo needs to learn to properly control his Bankai after his original explosive first usage is one that makes a lot of sense. Uryu also gets a bit of spotlight here too, because Urahara wants him to learn how to be useful when his powers are, at the moment, unavailable to him. 

There is a problem with the Mod Soul guys where their powers are insanely diminished from their original couple of debut episodes when they actually do become allies. Again, I get that the main characters are Ichigo and his buddies, but it does still feel rather off. 

Again, these are all facets that I would totally believe would be an actual 'filler' chapter within Bleach manga itself, perhaps not with the stretched-out/padded-out sequence that the Mod Souls and Bounts have, but it does help to add a degree of 'legitimacy', if that's the right word, to this arc. 

And around six episodes in, we finally get to see the titular Bounts, who Soi Fon and Yoruichi are investigating in the background while our heroes are fighting the Mod Souls. We get the revelation that the Bounts are a tribe of humans equivalent to the Quincy, who go around devouring souls like vampires. Oh, and they're immortal. It's a pretty simple concept, and, again, fits as a standalone enemy in an arc that can be conveniently ignored for the rest of the series. While the writers of this arc couldn't predict the true significance of the Quincies to Bleach lore in the final arc, it's neat to use the Quincies as a benchmark for the weirdness of their new enemies. 

The Bounts, in addition to being creepy vampires, also have abilities called 'Dolls', basically their version of a Zanpakuto, but they're all like manipulated artificial beings that obey everything their summoners say. Again, I do feel like this is neat enough as a filler arc goes, having something that functions similarly to what the canon characters (namely the Shinigami and Arrancar) use, but are different in just a bit of a critical aspect. 

The beginning part of the Bounts fighting admittedly ends up being a bit slow, and there's definitely a sense that they're trying to ape the introduction of both the Gotei 13 and the Espada's introductions by showing a lot of distinct designs in a shadowed area. There's also a fair amount of the vampire vibe going on, at least in the initial first couple of encounters with the Bounts. 

And as far as being a quirky villainous subgroup goes... the Bounts are... okay? I've seen better, and all of Bleach's major antagonists qualify into the whole 'quirky villainous subgroup' category, but the Bounts are meant to be disposable, one-note antagonists. But with them having to carry a whole season, it really doesn't bode well that a lot of them barely have any more of a personality than your average filler movie villain, which at least has the excuse that they only have to hold a presence for around 1.5 to 2 hours.

I do like, though, that we are introduced to a sympathetic Bount character immediately, the female Soma Yoshino, who befriends Uryu very quickly and is quickly shown to be a bit of a rogue element among the Bount 'coven'. She opposes the main villain Kariya Jin and butts heads with some of his other minions, and it's from her that we learn a bit more about the Bounts, and their plan to create a portal to Hueco Mundo. Yoshino is also disgusted with the direction that the Bounts have gone in the recent years, particularly how they have consumed souls with the intention of killing them. 

I suppose Uryu is the secondary character with the biggest focus here. This filler arc takes place in a part of the canon story where Uryu has lost his Quincy powers and wouldn't gain them until the beginning of the Arrancar/Espada arc, and there's a fair amount of story attempt where Uryu has to be constantly protected by Ichigo, Chad and Orihime, being dragged around and taken hostage and stuff. His Quincy heritage makes him a target for the Bounts, but he ends up sympathizing with Yoshino and befriending her.

Speaking of people being depowered, there's also an interesting bit where Rukia, once she rejoins the main cast... just never gets to use her Sode no Shirayuki. The real-world reason is that the reveal of Rukia's shikai won't take place until the Arrancar arc, of course, when she kills that one minion of Grimmjow's, but the anime just kind of shrugs it off with Rukia being 'unable' to use anything more than Hado for this arc. Far more interesting, though, is that Chad and Rukia are shown mulitple times that they're just trying to build up their power to catch up to Ichigo and the Shinigami, and Ichigo himself has his character arc in this season be him trying to control his Bankai -- something that Urahara explicitly notes as being something that he activates under exceptional means when he fought Byakuya in the Soul Society arc, and I do like that it's a bit of a 'power limiter' for him when he's fighting the Mod Souls and the Bounts. 

And then... well, the first batch of episodes where the Bounts actually show up are honestly rather generic. I do really like the fight against Ho and Ban, who use the dolls Guhl and Gunther -- two bottlecaps that manipulate the water into monstrous water structures. The fight against them takes place in a hospital, which is a nice scenery that we don't really get to see a lot of in Bleach. These two really didn't have much of a personality to speak about, but I do like the format of our familiar heroes fighting and overcoming simple-to-understand powers. 

We also get a bit of a multi-Bount fighting, with Kariya Jin's main flunky, Koga Gou, hunting Uryu and Yoshino; while the snake-wielding Utagawa Ryo menaces everyone. Utagawa uses his snake doll Friede, that's able to transform anything that resembles a snake into snakes? Utagawa sticks around for a fair bit, and I do kind of think that the writers must be using the early Arrancar arc (which would be in the manga at this point) to build up hype. Utagawa is the 'Luppi' of the group, menacing our heroes and looking like a rather difficult fight... and then when conflict arises among the ranks of the bad guys, he gets effortlessly defeated by the 'Grimmjow' analogue, Ichinose Maki. Utagawa is a pretty generic 'sneaky' villain, being dishonourable, taking hostages and betraying Jin the first chance he gets before getting killed. The snake powers are cool, though. 

I do think that the character that adds the most colour is definitely Ichinose Maki, because of his backstory. Of course, when we actually do see the canon Kenpachi that precedes 'our' Kenpachi, Maki's devoted loyalty gets called into question... but I absolutely love that this builds up on details that exist in the canon manga. The mention that Zaraki Kenpachi rose up into the ranks of captain after defeating his predecessor gets a neat little follow-up in Maki's backstory, where Maki is a very devoted follower of the previous Kenpachi. He ends up coming into conflict with 'our' Kenpachi, who views Maki as being such a 'vine' that he's not even worth fighting. Maki ends up wandering around, exiling himself from Soul Society, before stumbling upon another powerful man that saved him from a Hollow -- Kariya Jin. 

Again, this connection to Soul Society lore is great and I really do like that this arc just builds up on the concept of Mod Souls, or the Thirteenth Division's might-makes-right mentality. All of these will ultimately still be handwaved away as filler that won't really matter in the main story, but there's a nice bit of 'legitimization', I feel, that makes a good filler as opposed to bad ones. 

The first real 'half' of the season ends with an assault on the Bount mansion to rescue Uryu. We get a pretty fun fight between Ichigo and Utagawa, then Ichigo and Maki. The climax, of course, is Yoshino facing off against Kariya, with Yoshino being inspired by Uryu and his 'pride' as a Quincy -- even a powerless one. I don't really think the relationship between them was meant to be romantic per se, since Yoshino's super-old, but regardless Yoshino ends up dying and being used as part of a ritual by Kariya to create a bunch of brand-new bug dolls. It's relatively dramatic, all things considered -- again, Yoshino herself is kind of a flat 'she is an ally' character, but the story is done relatively well. 

...and then we break from this tension to episode 17 of the season, which is filler-within-a-filler, with Lirin and Kurodo doing some Home Alone nonsense and getting caught up in hijinks. This is probably the most bland part of the season.

The final part of the season feels a bit more disjointed compared to the first two, and that's mostly because... there's a feel of fights just being thrown to us. Yoshino's death allowed the other Bounts to create these strange mosquito or hornet-like 'Bitto' that go around absorbing the souls of random civilians, again, not too dissimilar to what Yammy did during his first appearance in the world of the living. Some of our heroes like Renji and Ichigo encounter civilians (including poor Keigo!) that got attacked by these creatures. I've always found it an interesting novelty to see these supernatural threats in Bleach attack human bystanders, for the simple reason that all of Bleach's major arcs happen in realms without any humans around. There's a sense of urgency in this whole sequence. 

And over the course of around seven or eight episodes, we get our typical shonen anime cast match-ups, as the Bitto sucking human souls ends up empowering all the existing Bounts. At the same time, Soul Society dispatches four vice-captains -- Rangiku, Shuhei, Kira and Yumichika -- to help investigate. 

The first of this fights to happen is Ichigo and Lirin protecting Keigo from Koga and the always-creepy Dalk, and Koga overpowers Ichigo handily. We get a surprisingly fun flashback from Koga -- involving him mentoring and losing a young mentee called Cain. This flashback takes up almost an entire episode and really does frame Koga to be this long-suffering, older mentor figure who's seen other Bounts die and how he's seeing Kariya as the ultimate saviour that is going to allow these younger men to survive. The Cain story, for something that's really not going to matter down the line (even within this arc), is rather sad and pretty well-told. 

Dalk is a fun visual spectacle, and during the fight we get to see Ichigo's Hollow take over again. The Hollow doesn't actually contradict any of the huge revelations in the final Vandenreich arc, interestingly, which would've been so easy for the anime team to slip up on. I think they just transplant the 'berserk, psycho but secretly protective' dialogue from the manga up to this point here? Ichigo is also ultimately helped by Kira, and I didn't remember that Wabisuke's power was already revealed by the time of the Soul Society arc! This does mean that Kira and Rangiku have the most well-defined power-sets at this point, allowing Kira and Wabisuke to take disable the empowered Dalk  long enough for Koga to retreat. 

Less-interesting is the fight between Rukia, Orihime and Kurodo against the very bland 'evil female' villain, Yoshi, who has a sword-and-fan Doll Nieder. Where Kira shows off some cool power usage with Wabisuke, Rukia is limited to just using Hados like Byakurai and Sokatsui, which really isn't explained for any particularly believable reason. Yoshi herself is a pretty simple melee fighter. This fight ends up being taken over by Mabashi, the previously-reluctant Bount.

Mabashi is probably the last member of Kariya's batch of villains that have some semblance of personality, even if at this point it's basically a violent crack addict. Initially, he was super averse at betraying Bount tradition and has to be force-fed human souls from the Bitto by Kariya. Mabashi's doll, Ritz, is a creepy one, speaking with the voice of a child and is this bizarre plant-squirrel thing that has grows from a seed and starts zipping around and attacking our heroes. Ultimately it hijacks Rukia's body -- probably the anime team is inspired by the Zommari fight, which I'm not sure would've happened in the manga at the point that this arc was being written? Meanwhile, Shuhei crashes this party and is very much willing to cut down Rukia in that typical 'soldier' mentality. Ultimately, the Mabashi fight ends with Orihime deciding not to try and deal a killing blow to Rukia, and embrace her role as a healer. Mabashi is driven off, and 
 

Again, bringing these more prominent Vice-Captains into the arc is very much welcome! I don't think the arc does anything to really revolutionize their characterizations, but having more establishing moments like this, showing Kira's gloominess, Shuhei's cold professionalism and Rangiku's happy-go-lucky personality all do a great job at really hammering home who these secondary characters are. 

The final fight in town has Rangiku join up with the, uh... the 'quiet trio' of Sado, Noba and Ururu, and the cutaway to this was very random. Where the previous couple of Bount encounters had some buildup, this is just something that Rangiku stumbles into. They face off against old man Sawatari, whose Doll, Baura, is a giant rock fish that can slip in and out of large flat surfaces. It's a power that looks rather bizarre, and... I really do feel like this fight's focus is more on Rangiku as opposed to Chad, which is kind of a shame. Chad always gets shafted in the manga, but even in a filler arc where the rest of the main characters (Orihime, Uryu, Renji, Rukia) get some kind of spotlight, Chad just kind of repeats the same 'my strength is to protect others', with how his main focus was trying to get Ururu back after she's swallowed by Baura. While the giant rock fish that teleports through surfaces, as well as Rangiku's Haineko, are all pretty fun to see, I felt like this is the most dragged-out of the fights and could've been shortened a bit. Sawatari also ends up retreating, and it was at this point that I realized the Bount arc was going to run two seasons. 

Meanwhile, Mayuri sends off Nemu to the world of the living to meet up with Uryu, who is struggling to even create a single light arrow. It's kind of interesting that Mayuri is still written with his Soul Society arc era jackassery, and over the season, the writers added the reason that Mayuri's predecessors sealed away the data about the Bount, which gives him a bit of a personal, egoistical stake in all this. Nemu hands over Uryu a fancy new artifact that'll allow him to have power for the duration of the arc, but because canon has to take precedence, this is definitely a power-up that'll be lost by the time of the next season. I get that the alternative is to have Uryu wallow in uselessness for two whole seasons, but it's really not a solution I'm a particularly huge fan of. Uryu shows up in the final episode of this one to pave way to the next arc, by helping the Bounts create their portal. 

Our heroes then raid the Bount cave, but the four Vice-Captains are waylaid by Ugaki and his doll, Gessel, who takes the form of giant creepy floating eyeballs that shine light on people in the cave, and the shadows cast by these floating eyeballs allow Gessel's main body, a giant rune-covered golem thing, to attack. The four Vice-Captains are waylaid by this basically offscreen before our heroes show up. Ugaki serves as a fun little 'miniboss' for this arc, all smug in his little tarot room as he summons different attacks from Gessel's appendages. Again, Rangiku and especially Kira get to strut their stuff a bit with their Shikai release.

Ultimately, though, this becomes the Ichigo and Renji show, with Renji in particular getting the highlight. It's a fun bit where Renji realizes that teamwork is good and all, but Renji can't allow himself to always rely on having someone to rescue him. He tells Ichigo to stand back, Yumichika comments about the whole Squad 11 mentality, and we get the spectacular activation of Hihio Zabimaru. The fight really isn't all that impressive, coming from seeing what Hihio Zabimaru has done throughout the many different canon arcs and movies, but at the point of time that this arc was broadcasted, this would've been the second time Hihio Zabimaru gets activated and Ugaki here would be Renji's first victory with his Bankai. 

However, once it's clear that Gessel was going to be defeated by Hihio Zabimaru, Kariya ends up melting the walls to Ugaki's room, causing his death by a rampaging Gessel. Ichigo brings this up as he confronts Kariya one-on-one, calling bullshit on all of Kariya's talk about how the Bount are a precious, dying species and all his friends are his precious comrades. Kariya also monologues as he brutalizes Ichigo over the course of half an episode, doing that typical 'anime shonen antagonist overpowers the protagonist so much while taunting him', zipping around with super-speed and super-strength and whatnot. Kariya reveals that he wants to go to Soul Society for vengeance, particularly since he discovered (how?) that it was Soul Society experimentation that caused the Bounts to be created in the distant past. Again, Ichigo calls bullshit on this particularly since the Bounts are hurting their fellow humans. 

We get a sequence of Ichigo allowing Zangetsu to pierce himself, talking once more to Old Man Zangetsu... which, again, knowing the revelations that we did from the final arc, is a scene that surprisingly did not contradict everything. Ichigo activates Bankai, which is his whole kinda-sorta character arc in this season, and manages to clash with Kariya a bit and wound him for the first time. Unfortunately, we've reached the final episode of the season and have to leave with a cliffhanger, which means the episode/season ends with Uryu showing up and completing the Senkaimon gate for Kariya and company to go to the Soul Society. The reason Uryu gives is wanting to defeat the Bount himself because of his Quincy pride and the best place that Uyru can fight is the Soul Society due to the abundance of Reishi. There's also something about them not being able to beat the Bounts themselves at that point with half the cast injured, and... I dunno, I know the Urahara shop guys aren't really going to involve themselves in combat, but I did feel like this excuse rang hollow.

The Bount arc continues in 'season five', or 'series five', of the anime, and... I thought it wasn't as bad as people said it was. Was it because of its placement in the anime, which would be such a gigantic plot tumour in-between the highs of the Soul Society and Arrancar/Espada arcs? Still, while I don't think the season was bad... it's not great, of course. Characters aren't really able to show off what they can really do without going into spoiler territory, with Rukia and Shuhei feeling like they were gypped the most. I also did feel that for an arc that initially prides itself on wanting to give the lesser-spotlighted characters something to do, we don't really get all that much from the likes of Orihime, Rukia and especially Chad. The Mod Soul characters are... they don't annoy me as much as I thought they would, but I would be lying if I said they added anything too substantial to the arc. The canon protagonists are already perfectly capable of doing their own comedy routines, and while I thought they were going to do something interesting with their powers, only Noba really did much in the actual fight against the Bounts.

The villains themselves are also... not the best? The powers are cool, of course, and I have said my piece about how neat Koga and Mabashi are, while Ichinose Maki at least has an interesting backstory. But the two lynchpin characters with the most focus -- Kariya and Yoshino -- really don't do much but spout ominous stuff all the time. I was entertained while watching this arc enough. It's still very heavily filler-y, but we'll see how things conclude in the next 'season'. 

Extra Random Notes:

• Depending on whenever you guys see this... I actually watched the Bount arc around the time before and after the second cour of TYBW is running, but I'm saving this for when I need actual 'filler' posts in real life.
• Out of all the dolls, my favourite design has to be Dalk, Koga Gou's doll, which takes the form of a bunch of metal orbs that merge together into this sinister female mannequin, and can split up into metal balls that she can shoot at people. Unlike most of the other Dolls, which are either silent or be yes-men, Dalk is such a sassy, sadistic creep! 
• Ganju and Hanataro show up a fair bit in this season, but they are 100% so irrelevant to what's going on in the story. Ganju does help out a bit as a random backup against the creepy water twins, but I really would've rather they be removed and the screentime given to them given to Chad/Orihime or the Mod Souls instead. 
  
• Old Getsuga Tenshou is white, huh?
• Yeah, while Kurodo not being able to surpass the powers of whoever he copies is a nice way to limit him, there's really no reason for Lirin and Noba to be utilized so minimally after their introductory episodes. 
• We also get the first appearance of Uryu's mother, whose design is uncannily similar to how Kanae Katagiri would look when she's revealed in the manga, many years after this arc would be on air. I wonder if the mangaka Kubo has already designed Katagiri's appearance and shared it with the anime team (which he does with the Zanpakuto spirits), or if Katagiri's final design was designed after the anime appearance. 
• Likewise, the idea that Jin is fighting in revenge for the fact that his Bount people were exterminated in the past is uncannily similar to one of the reasons of the Quincies' rampage in the final Vandenreich saga. 
• Yeah, what does Maki see in Kiganjo Kenpachi, we'll never know. 
• There's also a bit of a subplot about how Yoshino, as the only female Bount, is the only Bount capable of becoming a 'mother', despite all Bounts being sterile? It's a bit bizarre addition, but I guess it's something that fits with the gothic vampire themes. 
• Why are the women Bounts called 'Yoshino' and 'Yoshi'? 
• The Rukia sequence does have a bit where Rukia has to use the full chant of her Hado spells in order to inflict maximum damage, which doesn't do anything to defeat the enemy but was still pretty neat to bring up something that was brought up in the manga. 
• Man, Yumichika really didn't do jack, huh? He's at least less insufferable than Hanataro and Ganju. 
• Got to love that second opening. AS GODDAMNED D.J. CHATTERED!