Reviewing Bleach Fillers -- Shūsuke Amagai Arc

Bleach, Season 9: The New Captain Shūsuke Amagai Arc [Episodes 168-189]

And we're back with another filler 'season' discussion for Bleach! Last time, we covered Bleach's fourth and fifth 'seasons' (technically, 'series') which covered the two-parter Boutn arc. This time around, our filler lasts a season and it was aired in-between the Espada arc... but time-wise, I think it's supposed to take place around after the Bount arc and before the start of the Espada arc. There needs to, of course, be a bit of a stretch of imagination because no one in the Espada arc mentions anything about the events of this substitute captain. That is, of course, the structure of a lot of the filler arcs and movies in Bleach, where the anime staff realizes that the most popular parts of the series is the Soul Society and the captains, but everything after Ulquiorra and Yammy's arrival in the human world all the way to Aizen's defeat and Ichigo losing his powers are so tightly-paced that you can't just sneak in filler arcs the way you could do in, say, Naruto where you could put in a couple of extra one-note missions between Akatsuki members. 

Anyway, interestingly, the first episode of this 'New Captain Amagai Shusuke' arc is the introduction of the titular new captain. It is admittedly a bit of an oddity that the captaincy seats left vacant by Aizen, Tosen and Gin are just left empty until the end of the Aizen arc and the Visoreds come to take back their old jobs. I guess the idea is that none of the vice-captains (Shuhei, Kira and Momo) have Bankai yet?

Either way, Yamamoto announces without preamble that he has selected a brand-new captain for the Third Division, Amagai Shusuke, who previously has been out on some kind of a surveying mission outside of Soul Society. Amagai comes in with his former teammate Kibune Makoto, into a Third Division that's not particularly accepting of him. The focus of this first episode is, interestingly enough, Kira Izuru. Always love it when these less-prominent vice-captains get a bit more screentime in these fillers, and we focus more on Kira's lack of self-confidence and people skills. Kira tries, bless him, he tries, to make Amagai be accepted by his very grumpy division. He uses a suggestion from Matsumoto (a nice nod to the canon manga factoid that Kira and Matsumoto are actually drinking buddies) to throw a party, only succeeding in getting Amagai drunk. We learn a bit that Kibune's the hypercompetent sidekick to Amagai (kind of like Nanao to Kyoraku), but while Amagai ends up seeming like a competent -- if carefree -- captain, we learn through Kira's eyes that Kibune seemingly has something a bit more nefarious up his sleeves.

Again, this is what I really felt was one of the stronger segments of the Bount arc -- the focus on characters that didn't quite get as much shine in the source material, and Izuru Kira getting a fair amount of screentime as he struggles with what's basically a combination of impostor syndrome and an extreme lack of confidence ends up being the focus. This eventually just devolves into him investigating Kibune, but I also do like that early on there's a sense that Kira is struggling with the idea that his previous captain Ichimaru Gin might be sabotaging the Third Division's growth rate, particularly with how much more effective his subordinates end up being under Amagai's training. 

Of course, all of this suspicion on Kira's part on Kibune ends up being true, with Kibune being willing to straight-up sacrifice an unseated officer for the crime of being weak during a Hollow investigation. This leads him to fight a bit with Kira, but ultimately nothing comes out of it because Amagai's very willing to handwave things away in the interest of peace. However, Kibune constantly disappearing into the Kasumioji estate raises some suspicions from Kira, leading to... a relatively simple investigation where it turns out that Kibune, the shifty third-seat, turns out to be evil. Kibune does have a pretty cool Shikai, Reppu, which takes the form of a giant blade... thing. I am not sure if it's even based on a real weapon or not, but it really does feel very old-school Bleach as this giant, impractical funky weapon. 

We also get a couple of episodes focusing on Amagai's attempts to train the Third Division, and later promote inter-Division teamwork during a Menos invasion (which is Yamamoto testing out his troops) which I thought is kind of a nice way to show that the Gotei 13 aren't just entirely useless. It ultimately doesn't amount to anything within the arc, though, as Amagai himself gets dragged on into the main Kasumioji Clan conspiracy, so at the end of the day all the joint-Division training exercise ended up coming up to nothing.  

Also, in the early episodes, we cut away to the human world, where Ichigo and company, in their regular Hollow-fighting sequence, meets a mysterious bratty girl and her two sycophantic retainers that go head-over-heels to accommodate her wishes, treating her literally like royalty.

The little girl Rurichiyo, and the two bodyguards Kenryu and the silent Enryu, move into the house next to Ichigo's, and even show up as transfer students. A lot of this, I feel, particularly the school stuff, is just a handwave to stretch out the opening and to involve the human side-cast. We learn that Rurichiyo the last surviving member of House Kasumioji, one of the higher-ranking noble houses (just below the Four Great Houses, ensuring that they don't contradict anything in canon)... but is caught in the crossfire of assassination attempts by Kumoi Gyokaku, one of the vassals. Thus, they go to the human world to seek protection from Ichigo. 

And... they're just... kind of insufferable. I tend to have a fair amount of leeway to these anime-filler guest stars, since they're like... NPC's in a video game sidequest. They're never meant to be all that interesting, just a vessel so the plot can continue and the characters we actually care about can save the day. I kind of expect that. The trope of a movie or filler arc exclusive bratty little girl that has a crush on the main hero is also one that makes me roll my eyes but I can kind of ignore.

And... there's a somewhat cute moment where Ichigo and his sisters kind of get Rurichiyo to consider the feelings of the farmers, but between Rurichiyo's bratty and stupid decisions, as well as Kenryu being a gigantic sycophant who's also forcing Ichigo to keep the entire situation a secret from the bratty noble, it really does make watching the early couple of episodes a bit frustrating due to how much I didn't care for Rurichiyo and Kenryu. 

There are action scenes with these ninja assassins without names and funky Zanpakuto, which turn out to be forbidden weapon called Bakkoto -- they are delightfully creepy, looking like parasitic things with tentacles and eyeballs. The first couple of users of the Bakkoto are nameless assassins who die rather horribly after Ichigo takes them out, and this is the source of a rather repetitive sequence where the Kasumioji conspiracists send more and more nameless ninjas after Rurichiyo. It really is this sequence that drags on the most. I guess it's there to help Rurichiyo grow and realize what a spoiled brat she is, and I agree that this needs a bit of time... but considering that we later back-load the middle portion of the arc with fights against named goons, I wonder if those fights could've been instead folded into the earlier part of this season. 

Anyway, after a brief detour to the Soul Society where Rurichiyo needs to attend the tea party of one of her noble friends that is to be married off (I really wished this extended to the rest of the Soul Society portions of this season), we go back to the human world, where we get Ichigo and his non-Soul-Society supporting cast fight against an army of more experienced Bakkoto users. 

Ichigo gets to fight the ninja-like Hanza, who uses the mirror-based Bakkoto called Saiga used by a nameless assassin before, and we get... a rather interesting sequence where Ichigo hallucinates a guilt-tripping by his dead mother. Neat -- if obvious -- way to draw on canon information, but ultimately I did feel like dragging this sequence for almost an entire episode was a bit too much. Hanza reveals that the Bakkoto becomes much stronger depending on the user... but he ultimately gets overwhelmed as he tries to draw too much, transforming into a monstrous form before dying, being consumed by his own cursed weapon. 

Oh, the other assassins, who have even less personality and individuality than the Bounts, also get to fight Rukia, Chad and Uryu, and they all invariably end up getting their asses kicked. A hideous giggling goblin of a man called Doko Jinnai fights Rukia, and uses the Bakkoto Retsurai to sprout a bunch of swords from his body parts. Rukia gets to use Sode no Shirayuki in this filler arc, and Jinnai eventually also blows up from overusing his Bakkoto. 

Chad fights a big buff dude called Genga, who inherits the very cool Kakuyoku, allowing Genga to create giant walls of stone wherever he slashes. This one ends up being kind of a fight of strength, but Chad just uses the badass La Muerte to turn Genga into a crater in the ground. The last assassin is a generic-looking ninja called Kuzuryu, who uses the mist-generating Shiragiri to create fog, illusions and creepy tentacle hands to fight Uryu. Uryu uses... Sprenger, I think? To beat him? You can tell that these generic assassins didn't leave too much of an impact in my head. Kuzuryu actually survives to return, only to be killed off by one of the main villains for his failure. 

And while these one-note assassins and their repetitive fights aren't the most interesting, I actually do find the Bakkoto storyline to be pretty neat! The idea that there being a weapon system related to but completely different from the Shinigami's Zanpakuto is a fun one, and instead of being personalized, individual weapons that require personal understanding and mastery, the Bakkoto can just be passed on to the next soldier and the next and the next, with the qualities of being a cursed weapon causing there to be a potential for the weapon to overwhelm and kill the user. Very simple, very typical storyline in these shonen anime, but one that fits for a filler arc. 

The problem is, of course, that even compared to fellow filler arc villains like the Bounts or the movie villains... none of the bad guys are particularly compelling enough. The assassins are boring as hell, and the two primary villains that drive around 80% of the arc before the 'big twist' at the end are so... bland. The creepy old man Kumoi Gyokaku is just a bland, ugly, and utterly mean-spirited cranky old man that conspires to take over the Kasumioji Clan. And while there is some intrigue to how Makoto Kibune seems to be able to have a veneer of calm friendliness to fool the other Shinigami, he drops the fake personality very quickly. It really would've been a bit more interesting if the rivalry between Kira and Kibune was dragged out a bit to be more about Kira's insecurities, or how they present themselves to the people around them... but then Kibune turns out to be a very generic mwa-ha-ha-I-seek-STRENGTH filler villain that's secretly super-duper evil and kills weak Shinigami and assassins that fail him. 

Again, there is some intrigue when Ichigo and company go to the Soul Society, where Rurichiyo is to be married off to her arranged fiancé, Kannogi Shu, who has about as much personality as a towel. Shu is at least well-meaning, but it's clear from the first scene that he's just a puppet that Kumoi is manipulating as another way to get power in the Kasumioji Clan.

Meanwhile, Rurichiyo, finally realizing that there are assassins sent after her, realizes how hurt some of her protectors are and ends up opening a Senkaimon and returning to the Soul Society. It initially seems that she just falls into severe depression and is willing to do whatever Kumoi tells her to do, but turns out that Kumoi replaced Rurichiyo with a body double, and locked Rurichiyo up in a literal cage. And... I dunno. Maybe I'm being too hard on Rurichiyo but she just takes up so much space and the plot drags on because of her... Ichigo's protectiveness is nice, but otherwise I really couldn't bring myself to care much about her beyond her status as a character that needs to be saved. 

I really did like the scene where Ichigo, Rukia, Kenryu and Enryu interrupt the wedding to yell at Rurichiyo (who turns out to be fake), which is a watered-down of Ichigo's rescue of Rukia's execution... but the coolest thing is that Ichigo is confronted by Soi Fon and the Second Division. Again, it's a bit of a repeat of the 'we have a good reason for doing this, you bureaucrats' storyline of Rukia's rescue arc. The confrontation between Ichigo and Soi Fon is pretty neat, though sadly it doesn't go anywhere -- I would've liked to see Ichigo try and dodge Soi Fon's Suzumebachi a bit. 

(Omaeda tries his best to take down the bodyguards, but while Kenryu's Benishirade is kind of only useful to bamboozle ninjas, Enryu's Daichimaru takes the form of two giant metal fists attached to him by chains and that's actually cool). 

Ichigo ends up meeting up with Shu, and Shu turns out to be a decent guy -- just kind of an idiot. Ichigo takes Shu as a fake hostage as they go out and regroup, only to be confronted by Amagai. Amagai at this point is firmly characterized as a discount Kyoraku -- all the friendliness and willingness to accept alternate viewpoints, but without the suave charm and creepiness that Kyoraku can exude. And Amagai ends up becoming Ichigo's ally for the a chunk of this arc.

Far more interesting at this point is the clash between Kibune and Kira. Finally receiving ample information that Kibune is in fact a gigantic suspicious person, Kibune... starts playing the card-carrying villain, attacking the random generic Third-Division goons that has been following these two guys around, leading Kira to finally confront Kibune and his involvement with the Kasumioji conspiracy. Again... it's a bit of a shame that Kira's character arc about him having to continue serving without Gin's influence, or his impostor syndrome, really kind of all get dropped at this point in favour of a very generic 'I value my friends, you value only strength, therefore you suck!' conflict. 

...and that's what Kibune's characterization amounts to. He has been someone who's so obsessed with becoming powerful, but ended up being turned away by the Gotei 13 for his utterly bloodthirsty nature and his willingness to abandon his allies to their deaths if they're weak. It's surprising that he somehow couldn't find a place in the Eleventh Division, but he ends up discovering the intoxicating power of the Bakkoto. Kibune reveals that his ability to telekinetically manipulate Reppu (which negates Wabisuke's weight-increasing abilities) is actually the power of the Bakkoto, and we get a fun sequence as Kira just bounces around and just keeps trying to get a hit in on Kibune. Ultimately, Kira manages to shatter the Bakoto, causing Reppu to slam to the ground probably weighing several hundred tonnes with how many times Kira had hit it, and the power of the forbidden Bakkoto overwhelms Kibune and burns him out alive. 

And... yeah, it's a very simple fight and Kibune himself ends up being another flat character with very bland motivations. If the protagonist of this fight wasn't Kira, who has been severely out of focus before this, I would've complained more. As it is, giving good ol' Izuru Kira some spotlight in a filler arc is definitely a-okay for me, even if... even if they kind of forgot about Kira and left him on the sidelines literally for the entirety of the remainder of this arc. 

We do get a couple of shorter scenes here and there of more prominent like Renji and Ikkaku defending Ichigo and confronting characters like Iba and Shuhei. Renji ultimately manages to make his way to where Amagai, Ichigo and Rukia are gathered around the remnants of the Kira/Kibune fight, and Renji bringing the Bakkoto-infused Reppu to Yamamoto ends up kickstarting the final segment of this arc. 

But not before we get a brief fight scene between Hitsugaya against Amagai, and Matsumoto against Rukia. Sadly, we don't get too much about this. 

Upon receiving evidence, Yamamoto orders all the Gotei 13 to drop what they're doing and storm the Kasumioji Clan's grounds. We later get the explanation that everything has been dancing to Yamamoto's tune the entire time with the exception of maybe Amagai's identity. Because of pressure from Central 46, Yamamoto can't openly investigate the Kasumioji Clan, who has been mass-producing Bakkoto, but not without some irrefutable proof. And he's kind of using Ichigo as a convenient way to do so. Again, this is a neat way to make old man Yama not look like a complete moron, which various other captains like Kyoraku, Ukitake and Byakuya pointed out at different parts of the arc. 

Of course, with the raid seemingly about to be over, we get the big plot twist as Amagai slashes evil old man Kumoi to death... but turns out that Kumoi is confused because he's working for Amagai. 

And, dun dun dunnnn, plot twist, Shusuke Amagai, who has been nothing but nice and decent (and a bit dim) throughout the entire arc turns out to be evil, just like Sosuke Aizen, another captain whose names start with "S" and "A" and looks like a generic guy in the midst of more colourful designs and obfuscates normalcy before turning out to be evil! 

Amagai confronts Yamamoto on the First Division barracks, intending to kill Yamamoto and also the Kasumioji clan heiress. Amagai claims that he is taking revenge for Kisaragi Shinetsu, the name of a Shinigami that Yamamoto has killed before. Throughout all this, Amagai has been re-gathering all the eyeballs of the Bakkoto of the defeated Kasumioji goons, and attaching them to himself. We get a brief fight as Kenryu and Enryu attack with their respective Zanpakuto, but obviously they're no match for him. 

And Yamamoto finally gets to become serious, flexing to destroy his outfit and then releasing Ryujin Jakka... at which point, again, out of nowhere Amagai reveals that his Bakkoto is able to nullify all Zanpakuto. Just... all Zanpakuto? Again, while Ichigo using the power of his Hollow Mask to break through Hanza's illusions was certainly something that was done before, this property of the Bakkoto was never mentioned when it could've very easily been shown before (Ichigo, Uryu and Chad were all non-Shinigami, after all) in either the Rukia or Kira fights. It's a very randomly broken ability that only really serves as an excuse to nullify the supremely powerful Yamamoto and make him somewhat vulnerable for the next fight. 

That said, Amagai unleashing his own Bankai: Raiga Goen Kaku is pretty cool. Raiga Goen Kaku takes the weird hook-shaped blade with a giant fire 'exhaust' of Amagai's shikai and turns it into a gigantic bazooka-sized weapon that really does look like something from a Resurreccion. Meanwhile, Amagai's Bakkoto takes the form of black, scalloped spiky armour on his other arm, terminating in a green lightsaber.

And the fight, lasting over two episodes is... it's okay! I think I like this a bit more than the fight against Kariya Jin and his wind/electric abilities, mostly because Amagai does feel a bit more interesting in how Raiga Goen Kaku and its weird hook-blade and exhaust vent/cannon thing works. But ultimately, turns out that Ichigo's Hollow Mask allows him to circumvent the whole 'nullifies Zanpakuto ability' thing. Ichigo just keeps using Getsuga Tenshou until one finally lands, and the fight, again... it's okay. 

Ultimately, as Ichigo and Amagai both burn themselves out, Amagai falls as the Bakkoto prepares to consume him. Yamamoto reveals the truth to Amagai, however... that Yamamoto killed Amagai's father Kisaragi because he was actually an undercover agent sent to investigate Kumoi Gyokaku, only to be infected with a Bakkoto and driven mad. Amagai, only listening to the final words of his dying father, mistakenly thought that Yamamoto was instead colluding with Kumoi. 

And... and it is admittedly a tragic reason as Amagai realized that he's been working with the killers of his father and trying to kill his father's benefactor all this time. He ends up covering himself with a ring of fire and immolating himself to death while everyone else watches... but it really does rankle that the whole thing could've been avoided if Amagai did a better investigation or if he had communicated a bit better. From a writing standpoint, I really wished that either Kibune or Kumoi explicitly tried to fool Amagai, making his ignorance feel more like the malicious act of another character instead of him just being kind of a buffoon... but eh. 

Anyway, the arc ends with the status quo returned to normalcy with no captain in the Third Division. We get a hilariously somewhat meta scene of Ichigo and company saying goodbye to Rurichiyo, Shu, Kenryu and Enryu and them saying with no uncertain means that they will never ask Ichigo for help in the future because their clan needs to handle their own problems, thereby having an in-universe reason why they won't reappear in the anime. 

And... ultimately, I really do think that this one felt like there's a bit less content and more content at the same time. The Shusuke Amagai arc runs for 20 episodes -- a single season and a whole lot shorter than the two-season affair that was the Bount arc. But it really did suffer a lot from villains that weren't engaging, and heroic guest stars that were borderline annoying. The Bakkoto stuff and seeing Amagai's Bankai are all pretty fun, admittedly, and I continue to praise Kira's spotlight in this arc. Trying to develop a different aspect of Seireitei's society -- namely the nobility and the corruption in the higher parts -- is pretty interesting. This arc still kind of self-destructs around slightly after the halfway point, but being only a single season long does make this a much easier filler arc to get through. 

Random Notes:

• 
  A part where we have to kind of squint and handwave this as being filler is that Rukia is out and about, when the Bount arc puts her back in her injured state before the start of the Espada arc. At least she's using Sode no Shirayuki liberally now, which is always questionable that she's unable to do it during the Bount arc beyond 'the ability hasn't been revealed in canon'. 
• Interestingly, other than Hitsugaya, most of the other prominent captains don't do much in this arc, which does help to let the arc breathe a bit. Kenpachi gets a brief cameo stopping an assassin, Mayuri gets a brief gag yelling at the other captains for disturbing his Hollow specimens, and Byakuya shows up here and there, but it's interestingly averting the trope so common in Bleach movies where all the popular captains get to take out an enemy or two. 
• There's a brief subplot that's basically dropped halfway through the arc where two other captains agreed to let Amagai hold the captaincy seat, but since it's all Yamamoto's plan all along it turns out to just be Kenpachi, who's so dreadfully bored about all this. 
• I didn't mention it in the main body of the review since I think the season work just as well ignoring these details, but there are a lot of mentions about the 'royal family' and how the Kasumionji Clan has responsibilities in creating weapons for it. This was back in the earlier days of Bleach where the Soul King is implied to be similar to the Emperor of Japan from the time period that the Soul Society is based on... and we can really just chalk that up to filler arc weirdness. I mean, they tried to incorporate lore stuff! 
• There is a handful of recurring Third Division goons that constantly talk to Kira, Kibune and Amagai, though these guys are all anime-exclusive characters. I actually thought they were the three Third-Division guys killed by Bazz-B in the beginning of the Wandenreich arc!
• My favourite joke in this arc is early on, when Ichigo compares Rurichiyo to 'Byakuya', and in the background we get to see Rukia getting absolutely livid that her honourable brother is being compared to the bratty noble. 
• It's mostly played for laughs as Kira drowns his sorrows in alcohol, but I really do like that this gives a chance for characters like Renji, Iba and Matsumoto to show what they're like off the clock as they try their best to cheer Kira up.
• There is a bit of an interesting sequence where Amagai actually brings up the fact that three whole squadron captains ended up betraying the Gotei 13 is because each division is so cloistered and separated from the others, which is technically true. Other than the squadrons working with each other in some exercises in this arc, this really doesn't end up being something that ends up being a point in the manga, unless you count the captains teaming up against enemies.