Bleach TYBW E33 Review: twin kings vs. vollstAndig

Bleach, Thousand-Year Blood War, Episode 33: Gate of the Sun

So this is an episode that I did not expect to happen at all. I expected a bunch of extended scenes for the climactic fights that we were robbed off -- Ichigo versus Uryu, Ichigo versus Juhabach. I also expected for extensions of fights that were interrupted or very short in the manga, like the extended Squad Zero fight we got.

But "Gate of the Sun" was such a surprising addition in that everything here is brand-new. The matchup was never even really alluded to in the manga, and there wasn't a lot of pre-release hype and foreshadowing like the Ichigo/Uryu confrontation that the story and the various openings had built up a lot. Half of the episode is a hodgepodge of various scenes from the manga as the Silbern invasion starts, but the second half is all-new and I am genuinely surprised -- but pleasantly so -- by it. 

Anyway, the episode starts off still with the epic introduction of Silbern from the previous episode, with the six members of the elite guard being sent off by Juhabach to greet the guests to his new world. They then summon the Gates of the Sun, which we actually see in the anime version. The Gates are giant glowing portal-gates that appear below everyone's feet and allow them to teleport around the Wahrwelt! The five Schutzstaffel are deployed, and disappear into the gates.

We check in a bit with Kyoraku's group, and in a bit of an extended scene, we get to see the three rogue Sternritters depart from the Shinigami. And we get the running scenes as both Kyoraku and Ichigo's group on different parts of Wahrwelt are running towards Silbern. There's a really cool group shot showing everyone that they brought up to the Soul Palace! And... it is of course more of the author splitting the characters up, but I absolutely love it that it took them a while to realize that two of their strongest fighting forces, Mayuri and Kenpachi, are missing. Not even the likes of Urahara or Kyoraku realize this, and it's gloriously and monumentally stupid of them.

Mayuri, meanwhile, has recalibrated their portal-gate thing in order to get away from everyone else. Mayuri just wants to test out the results of his research without being bothered by the rest of the Gotei 13, but of course he's not the only person to pop up -- Zaraki Kenpachi show up behind him. Mayuri is utterly flabbergasted at the random appearance of Kenpachi, but apparently Kenpachi was just using the toilet and was left behind. Somehow. Somehow, the strongest physical warrior on their employ was left in the bathroom. See, decisions like this was why you Shinigami lost the first invasion!

Also, confirmation that Zaraki Kenpachi washes his hands after doing his business. I found it funny that they took the time to confirm this. 

Kenpachi is followed by his two lieutenants Ikkaku and Yumichika, and, of all people, Yamada Hanataro. Which is so random. Hanataro kind of disappears after this scene, and the volume releases would have little omakes that show Hanataro being knocked unsconscious off-screen during the initial salvoes of attacks between Mayuri and Pernida... I highly doubt that he'll actually get to do anything in the anime adaptation, though. 

Kenpachi and Mayuri then do the most weird catfighting. Both of them are psychothic in their own way, and both of them acknowledge that they're on the same side while also acknowledging that the other party is resistant enough to withstand a couple of collateral damage. I like it. The sheer differences in their attitude towards battle is really fun to behold. Both Kenpachi and Mayuri had been my favourite captains back when I was reading this manga, and I remembered seeing this banter between them was amazing. 

We then cut to Team Ichigo, where Grimmjow almost prophetically notes that trying to regroup and move as a large group will just hamper their survivability. All the while, he's just refusing to run alongside his allies and he's just parkouring on the Wahrwelt rooftops. Their group encounters Sternritter "D", Askin Nakk Le Vaar, and I absolutely love the very self-aware reaction that Askin has to seeing Ichigo and team charging towards him. It's almost as if Askin knows Ichigo is the main character or something, because he bemoans his bad luck... just as Grimmjow is already mid-leap towards him and unleashes a gigantic crash that blows up half the building. 

We then get an adaptation of a scene that takes place a bit later in the manga (this would take place in the middle of the three main Schutzstaffel fight -- essentially explaining where Gerard is while the Haschwalth/Bazz-B, Pernida/Mayuri and Kyoraku/Lille fights were happening). Gerard skids to a halt and roars in frustration at his bad luck and tries to goad the Shinigami into all attacking him at once. Overlooking Silbern, we get an additional scene of Bazz-B, Liltotto and Giselle discuss their situation a bit, which foreshadows the eventual confrontation. I do wonder whether Liltotto and Giselle are going to get more to do, since in the manga them tagging along so much amounted to a fat load of nothing. 

Cutting back to Team Ichigo, we get a brief argument between Ichigo and Grimmjow, with Grimmjow being cocky at the thought of having actually beaten one of the super-scary enemies. Askin is still alive, though, and both the animation team and his voice actor clearly love Askin as much as I do, giving him a lot of highlight as he runs away comically. He's pulling a Joseph Joestar! We get a very faithful recreation of the comedic chase scene through the alleyways of Wahrwelt as Askin refusing to stop and gives one-liners like "I'll only stop if you promise not to kill me", and later on trying to get Grimmjow to work with him to fight Ichigo. Again, a combination of the voice-acting, the expressions and the animation all really help to make Askin's super-trolly behaviour work well here.

The animation adds a couple of fun moments not originally in the manga, like having Askin run-backwards while pointing finger-guns at Grimmjow at one point; and making it a bit more clear that Grimmjow has some kind of partial-Resurrección form where he just morphs the tips of his hands to boost his speed.

The most important scene in this whole sequence is kept, of course, which is Askin seemingly getting Grimmjow off of his trail as he looks at Ichigo from the edge of a building, pulls a thermos out of nowhere and just mutters about his "cafe au lait". We lost the picnic basket during the Gremmy/Kenpachi fight, so I am very happy that in this very Askin-centric half-episode, we get to see Askin's antics with the cafe au lait. 

With almost-perfect comedic timing, Grimmjow catches up to Askin and forces him to run again. Askin then yells that he's going to give Grimmjow a gift, and launches a Gift Ball. Grimmjow slashes through the ball while yelling at Askin... which is pretty stupid especially since Grimmjow's dialogue indicates that he knows that Askin is playing him. But then, Grimmjow is never the brightest bulb. The pieces of the Gift Ball splatter over Grimmjow, and he collapses to the ground. Askin stops his pathetic running and goes straight into smarmy asshole mode, crowing at Grimmjow and asking if he's ever taught to avoid gifts as a child. As a Adjuchas-turned-Vasto-Lorde Hollow made by the amalgamation of hundreds of souls, no, Askin, I don't think Grimmjow ever had a parent to teach him that. Or a childhood, for that matter. Later on, during the second-half episode fight, we get a brief continuation of this scene as Ichigo shows up with his blades drawn to confront Askin. 

We then cut away to Lille Barro, who is looking through the scope as the Shinigami runs through the street. Lille gives a badass monologue about how the group is breaking up due to each individual's stamina, skill and pre-existing injuries, and identifies the weakest link in the group... Hisagi Shuhei. Just like in the manga, Lille takes aim... and opens fire, blowing a very inglorious hole through Shuhei's arms and torso. Sorry, better luck next time, Shuhei. 

What's not in the manga, however, is the brutal next series of shots. 2nd Division Vice-Captain Omaeda runs back to help Shuhei, and Lille continues his monologue as we follow his crosshairs, and bang, Omaeda goes down. We don't even get a close-up for Omaeda, which unfortunately is pretty consistent with Omaeda having his otherwise quite significant amount of screentime in the manga absolutely cut down in the anime. 

Next one to go down? Sweet, sweet Kotetsu Kiyone, third-seat of the 13th Division. Her death is insanely brutal-looking. We know she survives, yes, but it sure as hell looks like she just died, with a giant bloody hole punched through the center of her chest as she looks down in horror. Running towards her are her sister, 4th Division Vice-Captain Kotetsu Isane and her co-third-seat Kotsubaki Sentaro... who both immediately get sniped by Lille as well. 

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Five down, just like that. 

In the manga's version of events, it was just Shuhei, and when we check in with the group later on, Shinji and Kyoraku would just discuss that the sniper 'took out some of them', with the manga not making it immediately clear who got taken out, making it super confusing when the Visored show up briefly for an action scene later on, or the implication that super-speedy assassin Captain Soi Fon (who disappears from the manga from this point) was apparently taken out as well. Soi Fon is not, and hopefully she'll be able to participate in one of the battles and be taken out in a way that befits a Captain. I love this scene. It's a bit more shocking, a bit more brutal, and honestly none of these characters are going to really do anything and seeing anyone that's not a Captain or a Visored picked off like flies is a pretty grim reminder that not everyone here is on the same level. 

But as the Shinigami split up, Abarai Renji gets a bunch of regular Quincy arrows fired at him. He slashes through them to see Ishida Uryu as the perpetrator. We get a very nice sequence as Renji just leaps across buildings to reach Uryu, and says the iconic "Roar, Zabimaru" in perhaps the most subdued that the Vice-Captain has ever been. This is a very nice matchup -- Renji is one of the two initial hostile Shinigami that Uryu would've ever met, and the two worked together to fight Szayelaporro during the Espada arc. With Ichigo being the main character, it's easy to focus on his rivalry and relationsihp with Uryu... but I love that when the anime staff decided to give Uryu yet another fight with his allies, they picked Renji. Who, moreso than any of the 'core' friends gang, is one of the two Shinigami -- and the more hostile one to Uryu at that. I also like that Renji is also someone who has rebelled against his own people at one point for a certain cause... just as he was someone who has once forced himself to toe the line of duty and fight Rukia because it was decreed by the Gotei 13. Renji is a deceptively simple character, and I appreciate that he was chosen here to be Uryu's opponent.

Uryu fires another shot at Renji, who dodges it and we get a cool shot of the Heilig Pfeil blowing up a building behind Renji. The two dudes are never about the touchy-feely stuff, and Renji addresses Uryu almost exclusively as 'Quincy' throughout the entire fight. Uryu is also hostile, calling Renji as 'Shinigami' and telling Renji that he's not here to be a guide. Uryu gives Renji some ambiguously double-meaning words, noting that the Shinigami can't defeat Juhabach after he has absorbed the Soul King's power (which also counts as information-dripfeeding as much as it's an antagonistic monologue) and identifies Wahrwelt as a new world made for the Quincies. Upon being asked about Ichigo, Uryu also reveals his previous altercation and vows to kill Ichigo next time they meet. 

The two then fight for real, and we get some nice whipping around of Zabimaru's Shikai form against Uryu's arrows, which is animated really smoothly. As much as I love Uryu and Ichigo's power-sets, Renji's ridiculous-but-badass spiky whip-sword is a really dynamic weapon for these kinds of action scenes. They clash physically for a bit, until Renji unleashes his brand-new Bankai, So'o Zabimaru. Again, just in principle, I love that So'o Zabimaru gets to do a bit more instead of just killing Mask De Masculine -- and as this episode shows off, whatever So'o Zabimaru did in that battle is a mere fraction of the Bankai's full potential. 

Renji then shows off a bunch of new attacks, beginning with Zazekka (Snake Tongue Echo) which essentially turns the thin cutter-blade on his arm into a whip-sword similar to Renji's Shikai... which I thought was a clever way to keep the dynamic whip-blade of the Zabimaru Shikai in this fight. There's a cool animation around this point of Renji using his sandals to deflect one of Uryu's arrows. Renji is also able to swap around parts of his Bankai, attaching the blade to the end of his bone-tail at one point and having it melt through a building in a beautifully-animated sequence. Also, apparently So'o Zabimaru causes fiery explosions now! We see a bit of it in attacks like Hihio Zabimaru's original Hikotsu Taiho beams, or So'o Zabimaru's Zaga Teppo, but this episode's animation makes it clear that Zabimaru is at least partially a heat or flame-based Zanpakuto. That's cool, Renji!

Uryu eventually counters with a rain of Licht Regen, but Renji blocks it with the Hihio arm. He then counterattacks in a cool moment by slamming Hihio against the ground to create a shockwave, then unleashing Orochio to grab a brick and then ram it hard to Uryu. Right through a building! That's a nice sequence, and the force that So'o Zabimaru was slamming Uryu to the buildings is enough to crush walls and create craters. Renji continues with a Hihio punch, driving Uryu to the ground, and follows up with a stab through the stomach, something that is a lot more sudden and brutal compared to the much more reluctant Ichigo. And then Renji unleashes his strongest source material attack, Zaga Teppo, the technique he used to atomize Mask De Masculine. The giant snake head appears and then explodes around Uryu.

The smoke clears... and Uryu is unharmed. Blut Vene is activated, and tells Renji that he, too, has received his upgrade. Uryu transforms into his Vollstandig, though not the full version that we saw when fighting Ichigo -- he's only got the wings and the dagger-feathers. Haschwalth, as always, is watching as this is happening. Uryu combines his feathers into a bow and unleashes a gigantic explosion that Renji does, before continuing to bombard Renji with his minions. Again, it's a bit of a shame, I think, that Uryu's Vollstandig powers is basically a variety on Byakuya's powers. 

As Renji is forced on the back foot this time, he blocks the arrows with Hihio's baboon arm. The flesh and fur seem to get shredded to expose the bone beneath. I was going to make a gag about how Renji unlocked his true Bankai only to have it permanently broken by Uryu after two uses... but turns out that this is a trick. As Uryu walks towards the seemingly fallen Renji, he calls out his technique Hihi Tensho (Baboon Pelt Reincarnation) and the shed fur of Hihio transform into a swarm of giant monkey-skeleton hands that dogpile Uryu.

Renji tells Uryu that he needs 20 seconds -- which itself is a nice nod to a similar sequence where the two of them teamed up to fight Szayelaporro, and Renji had to buy Uryu 20 seconds. This little reference, just like the Shiba Kaien monologue a couple episode back, isn't actually explicitly told to the audience, which I appreciate. Instead, we get a flashback to Renji's training with Ichibei, telling him that thanks to the way that he achieved his true Bankai, he's not experienced in pouring reiatsu into the true form of his Bankai. 

And as this happens, Renji uses the baboon skeleton-arm to grab the snake part of his Bankai, detaching it and spinning it around like how Hihio Zabimaru used to look. Renji then unleashes a brand new tehcnique: Zagai Zekko, Snake Bone's Absolute Roar. Just like a Dragon Ball Z move, Renji charges up a giant fiery ball of reiatsu above him, and unleashes it down upon Uryu in a massive explosion that creates a mini-nuke that is felt by even other characters running around Wahrwelt.

Renji looms over Uryu in the resulting crater, noting that this is nothing personal... which I honestly believe, particularly with how Renji behaved during the whole Rukia affair. Of course, this isn't quite over. Uryu activates Skalverei, transforming into the full Vollstandig form that he used against Ichigo. Apparently, Renji is still pulling his punches a bit according to Uryu, and begins to attack Renji again with even more feathers, and activates the ability Federzwinger.

Federzwinger seems to be a more advanced version of Uryu's Sprenger attack, only instead of Reishi Rods, the floating feathers combine into five glowing rods that trap Renji in a cage-like formation before stabbing him with energy spikes. Uryu explains that Federzwinger will drain everything within its walls, even citing Shikai and Bankai as losing their power. I'm... not entirely sure if I'm supposed to take this literally and Uryu is attempting a Bankai-steal, or if it's just Uryu being dramatic about Renji losing power.

Federzwinger concludes and explodes, dropping Renji with his zanpakuto reverted to its sealed state. But Renji gets pissed at Uryu, asking him what he really knows about Bankai. As Uryu calmly pulls a regular bow and arrow and targets Renji's chest, Renji gives one last defiant speech, noting that his Bankai is not called 'twin kings' for nothing. A spectral version of the baboon arm squelches out of Renji's own hand, and I'm not sure what this implies -- I guess it's a version of 'the sword is me' lesson that Ichigo also learned in the Soul Palace? Renji fires off a version of his Hihio Zabimaru's finisher attack, Hikotsu Taiho...

...But Uryu's arrow cuts through the Hikotsu Taiho and punches a hole through Renji's chest, causing the vice-captain to collapse. 

Uryu then walks up to Renji and lists three reasons why he lost -- he was unconsciously holding back; he didn't know about Uryu's new powers... and he's a Shinigami that Uryu hates. 

Again, that is really cool. In the manga, as I keep complaining Uryu does nothing but lurk around in the background and has ominous expressions and one or two lines here and there, and shot the floor under Ichigo once. Renji, after defeating Mask, also does nothing but run with the rest of the group, maybe clashing against Gerard for a couple of panels. We never really saw what else his Bankai could do! But giving the two a confrontation is a very unexpected move by the anime. It really is a good moment for Uryu in particular, and it really does highlight how he might be going too far with his infiltration, especially with how much he's literally hurting his friends. Again, a great addition and the fight itself is really spectacular. Really love how dynamic So'o Zabimaru is, and being able to see what both Uryu's Vollstandig and Renji's Bankai could do is just great. 

Random Notes:

• At some point in this episode, there is a brief, non-voiced shot of Haschwalth standing in front of a giant circular energy sphere. This shot was shown in many of the trailers, and most hardcore Bleach fans just assumed that this was the anime's take on the Gate of the Sun. This episode is called the Gate of the Sun, but that most certainly is not the same Gate of the Sun that the other Schutzstaffle were using! So what is that? That thing doesn't seem to tie into anything that we know of in the source material, so I wonder if we're getting a bit more to either the Haschwalth/Bazz-B or Haschwalth/Uryu fights.
• Yes, the Gates of the Sun were never, ever shown in the manga. People mention them a bit but we never saw any of them.
• Rather interestingly, after being mostly ignored after the first invasion, Bazz-B, Liltotto and Giselle make use of Shadows to move around. I'm actually not sure if this would still work since the original concept was that the Shadows of the Seireitei was what allowed them to appear in the Soul Society from the shadowy parallel dimension. Looks cool, though!
• I am slightly disappointed that the scene of the Schutzstaffel hanging out in lounge chairs was removed. It admittedly felt a bit out of place, but it was really funny. 
• The anime adds a little line saying how Ichigo's team can't contact their other allies with Soul Pagers due to the disruption of the Reishi. A very nice little inclusion to handwave their behaviour.
• Gerard is slightly nicer in this anime adaptation. In the source material, he actually accuses the other Qiuncies of tricking him into taking a direction without enemies to screw with him. 
• I love that Kubo decides to make the pun of the "Gift Balls" because the German word for poison is actually 'gift'. (The German word for 'gift' is 'geschenk'). 
• The anime -- and notably, the earlier cour 2 which cut a fair amount of unnecessary scenes -- did keep Shuhei's Bankai training with Kensei and Mashiro. So while they also kept Shuhei being shot by Lille, is it a possibility that we're going to see Fushi no Kojyo being activated to keep him alive and kicking at some point down the line? 
• Interestingly, Uryu doesn't ever show a halo when he's in his Vollstandig, with or without Sklaverai. 
• The idea of shed monkey fur being used as a conduit for combat magic is, of course, a nod to Sun Wukong being able to rip off his hair and blow on it, turning the hair into facsimiles of himself. 
• The next couple of episodes will be faithful adaptations of source material fights, so hopefully they will take less time for me to produce!

Agatha All Along S01E07 Review: Death Thirteen

Agatha All Along, Season 1, Episode 7: Death's Hand in Mine

So yeah, this is a pretty interesting episode. I've talked about how the first half of the series has been quite happy to pretend that it's a typical "focus on one character per episode" type of ensemble show, and we've got focus episodes for some of the newly-introduced characters. Alice had a fair bit of intrigue intrinsically thanks to her background, but she was also dealt with very quickly once the narrative gave her focus. Jennifer... she sticks around and she gets comedic moments, but ultimately I don't think we got quite enough out of her for me to really care about her that much. With Agatha, Billy and Rio being obviously set up for something larger for the two-part climax, this leaves the divination witch Lilia Calderu as the one that hasn't got a trial before Billy "kills" her two episodes ago. 

Of course, that's not the end for either Lilia or Jennifer, who was swamped alongside her. The main plot is still about the coven going through the Witches' Road, of course, and the next trial finds Billy and Agatha transported to a tarot reading table while swords fall down from the ceiling all around them if they make the wrong reading. And since Agatha shares my worldview that you can fortune-tell anything by drawing vague connections from what a card is supposed to mean and experiences in your life, the Road... doesn't appreciate that too much. 

(Oh yeah, this episode's costuming theme is all about fictional witches, which is probably the costume changes in this show that actually made me giggle the most)

I would also like to note that this episode is told in a rather non-chronological order. It's not hard to follow, but it is a nice showcase of just how Lilia's world works. She isn't just a divination witch, but she's also constantly traveling through time due to... some reasons? It doesn't really matter, but we have seen Lilia actually zone out and say cryptic shit all throughout the series. Both the cast and the audience probably handwaved it as her just being a weird fortune-teller, but it's actually Lilia traveling back through time briefly. We see Lilia as she jumps back even all the way to her youth, meeting her teacher and discussing about the nature of her power. We get to see a confused Lilia in the present day walking through an underground corridor with Jen, who nonchalantly notes that when Lilia zoned out a couple minutes ago, she had explained a bunch of stuff... and we actually get to see this exchange happen later on. 

The episode was also very thick at hanging a figurative narrative knife over Lilia's head, with her noting that the 'end is near'... of course, Jen thinks she means the Road, but it's pretty clear that Lilia's not making out of the episode alive. We get some nice flashbacks that helps to ground things, removed from all the chaos and bluster of the Witches' Road, every time Lilia is transported to centuries past when she's supposed to be learning divination of tea leaves from her Maestra, which I thought was a nice decision to give us something removed from the Witches' Road saga.

I don't want to tear down every single scene since that would also involve me going back to the past 6 episodes to point out all the moments that Lilia's spoken to the cast from the future, but it definitely is pretty smartly done and foreshadowed quite well. (The coolest -- and most tragic -- is having Lilia's "Alice, don't try to save Agatha" advice be cut up in two halves that the words that Lilia says right before Alice's death ends up just being the last four).

The actual narration and progression of the story is essentially "Agatha and Billy get into trouble, Lilia and Jen shows up, Lilia does a reading and realizes some things about herself, Lilia then sacrifices herself to take down the bad guys". A nice bit of plot progression, but it would've been bland without the character work they did for ol' Lilia.

In addition to all the continuity nods, and the explanation for all the times Lilia randomly blurts out Tarot readings throughout the past six episodes, we also get a lot of themes about Lilia falling through the void, and she also describes her experiences unbound in time as something similar. It's a nice metaphorical, thematic visualization of how she views her power and her life, but also a nice foreshadowing of what happens in the future... and the past.

As the episode reaches its climax and Lilia travels through time and does her readings of her journey over and over again, Lilia pulls out the 'Death' card. No ominous tarot reading is ever complete without Death showing his face! Or rather, her face. Lilia travels back through time to the moment when she and Jen wakes up after being swamped, to see Rio hovering ominously in the distance... with her face transformed into a skull. Which... yes, Rio is Death. The literal, cosmical, magical manifestation of Death, a character that is quite prominent in the Marvel comics and was adapted out of that whole Thanos duology. I guess I kind of wanted more gravitas to this revelation since Rio with skull makeup doesn't quite hit as hard as I felt it should? It is admittedly nice to give some context to Rio beyond "Agatha's psycho ex". 

Which also kind of sets up Rio as the final antagonist of the show. Well, what about the previous antagonists that have been chasing our heroes all through this? Lilia pushes her three friends out as she locks the door behind them, and then with a declaration of "I loved being a witch", she spins the Tower card upside-down. Disaster, destruction, sudden upheaval. As the Salem Seven enters the tower, it gets spun around alongside the card. Which I actually thought was a cute way to acknowledge how the orientation of cards in a Tarot reading is important. The room flips upside down, impaling the Salem Seven on the swords. Lilia falls -- which gives us the falling scenes from previous parts of the episode -- and dies, a life full and content .

And... I do think this is my favourite episode of Agatha All Along, even having watched all the way to the end. I do feel like the show isn't quite as well-constructed as some of its most ardent fans claim it is -- and the Salem Seven's execution (and even inclusion?) is a huge proof of that. Another is Rio's build-up as Death, and yet another is Jennifer in general. But Lilia's story, and how it was literally interwoven into the narrative of the previous six episodes? That was really well done, and this is a very powerful episode and a great sendoff for her. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• In the Marvel comics, Death personified as a female figure is a recurring cosmic entity, most often associated with Thanos and Deadpool, both of whom are enamoured with her.
  
• It seems like in this show has basically replaced adapted parts of Thanos being in an unhealthy relationship with Death (depending on the writer it goes either way) and transplanted it to Agatha. 
• The song "Time in a Bottle" by Jim Croce was previously used in a different Marvel project, X-Men: Days of Future's Past, with Quicksilver's iconic super-speed sequence. Whether on purpose or not, Evan Peters reprises his role as Ralph Bohner/Fake Quicksilver last episode.
• Not exactly Marvel, but Marvel-adjacent since Disney owns them now, but Billy is dressed up as Sleeping Beauty's Maleficent and Jen as the Evil Queen's hag form from Snow White. Meanwhile, Agatha is dressed up as the Wicked Witch of the West from Wizard of Oz and Lilia as the good witch Glinda. 

One Piece 1133 Review: I Want To Live

One Piece, Chapter 1133: Praise Me

This is going to be a bit different than my normal One Piece reviews, where I tend to break down more or less chronologically what happens in the chapter. Not this time. On paper, 'plot-wise', not a lot happened here. People meet other people, Robin gets reunited with Saul. That's it. 

But in a post-timeskip world where a lot of the emotional punches -- particularly to the Straw Hats -- have been very muted, I really appreciate that Oda is giving Nico Robin one full chapter just revolving around her. It really is a moment I saw coming, but the way it's executed -- with Oda very cleverly bringing in some aspects of Robin's history and backstory in the manga we've read years and years ago. History is, indeed, as the archaeologist would say, very important here in contextualizing what would otherwise just be two people meeting each other. Knowing what we know of Robin's character, of her regular unwillingness to be vulnerable, of her struggles, of everything that has happened in Enies' Lobby... those are what builds up and makes chapter 1133 actually a powerful chapter. 

And this also makes me excited to ese other payoffs, since Oda proves that he can deliver these emotional moments post-timeskip for the main characters. One of the worries I've had was always that while the chapters post-timeskip have been emotional, they've mostly been revolving around other non-Straw-Hats. Shirahoshi, Law, Momonosuke, Bonney and Kuma... all great stories, but ultimately in many of these arcs, a lot of the titular Straw Hats don't actually get much development (with the exception of Sanji in Whole Cake Island). This makes me super excited for the inevitable Usopp moment in the future!

Anyway, we start this off with some flashbacks of Robin's terrible childhood, but seen from the perspectives of other people. That asshole Spandine spreading misinformation, and the old 'kindly' couple who took Robin in and all that. Again, while the original version of this flashback focused a bit more on Robin's panic as she runs around, this one really hammers home how oppressively world-changing the misinformation was. How literally everyone hated Robin, the falsehoods that are spread around to justify hunting and murdering an 8-year-old "Devil Child"...

Leading to a surprisingly dark moment with Robin on the edge of a cliff, contemplating suicide. It's not surprising that this was something that would unfortunately befall her, especially with what she's been through, but it's also really sad to see drawn on page as well. Only the memories of Olvia and Saul get Robin to stop actually making the fatal plunge. "LIVE! ROBIN!"

Another very sad scene was Robin looking around in some books, and seeing a geography book, she discovers that Ohara has been expunged from all books. She doodles in Ohara with a pen, right before someone recognizes her and forces her to run. Everyone around her tells her to die, that she shouldn't live, and the only recourse in her life is to run. It's so hard for her to even live. 

Again, it's pretty heartwrenching and while we do know Robin is in a much better spot (after going through hell and back in Water Seven and Enies' Lobby... which, by the way, is the biggest 'fuck no' reason to the idea of Rob Lucci joining the Straw Hat Grand Fleet or whatever) but the flashbacks really does help to hammer home just how much Saul -- no, not even Saul, but the memory of Saul -- is important to Robin. 

Anyway, some other stuff I'll cover below happens in the present day. The Straw Hats meet the New Giant Pirates, and we get a lot of introductions and whatnot. But Robin tries to excuse herself to go and meet Saul. And... it's perhaps a bit of an understated scene, but the entire Straw Hat crew goes with her. I love that she's still in this "I won't trouble anyone" mentality but the Straw Hats are her goddamn family and Luffy in particular has a very nice line about how he has to greet someone who took care of one of his nakama properly.

He turned down a feast for that. Luffy's an airhead, but sometimes he remembers his priorities. 

They arrive at the Warrior Springs, and we get a fun moment where Luffy wants to just charge in and drag Saul to the party... but Nami literally wrestles him down to the ground. God bless these idiots. 

And, of course, we get the cliffhanger from a couple chapters back. Oh no! Mr. Saul has fallen down and he can't get up! The Straw Hats all yell at this as much as the fandom did, but of course it's nothing serious. Of course Oda isn't the type of guy who'd torpedo a moment like this just out of the sake of 'subverting expectations'.

But Robin knows what's up. She sees Saul collapsed on the beach, and she just walks up while laughing. In some perfectly paralleled panels with her original meeting with Saul, Robin walks up to the "fallen" giant on the beach. Saul screams at Robin in a mimicry of their first appearance, and turns out that Saul 'fell' because he's such a dork that he's trying to recreate their first meeting. 

And it's so dorky. We get a little comparison of little Robin's deadpan reaction back then and the grown woman that she is now.

And we get the reunion. It starts off pretty light-hearted as Saul apologizes for her little gag, before lifting Robin up and saying that she looks so much like Olvia. Did anyone ever tell Robin that? Everyone who knew Olvia would've been dead (or, in Saul's case, presumed dead) by the time Robin grew up. It's a nice, understated moment. 

They discuss a bit about Vegapunk's message and Ohara's legacy. We get a bit of a discussion of that, and a bit of a discussion on how Saul survived (the ice attack melted from the Buster Call flames, and through some means Saul made his way to Elbaf). Saul then makes a brief rant about how the world said so much awful things about Robin... but Robin just gives a downcast smile before beaming at him with an open grin, telling Saul not to focus on 'dark stuff' and ask Saul if he will praise her for being alive.

Again, this starts off a bit light-hearted and happy, with Saul hugging Robin (as much as a giant can), laughing and yelling about how Robin was a god damned survivor who stayed alive for 22 years, to survive to reunite with Saul. We get a brief flashback to a crying child Robin. "Why am I the only one who has to live?" "I want to die." Contrasted, of course, against Robin's immortal line at the climax of Enies' Lobby. 

This was a child who was crushed by the world. Driven to suicide, driven to think that no one in the world wanted her. Driven to think that the best way to solve a problem is to let herself die so the few people she cared about in the world would live. Driven off by every person she met, who sold her out. Driven only by the dead phantoms of the past, pursued by those who would want her dead for sins not of her own doing. Driven by the faint hope that maybe one day she'll meet someone who would be her family. 

And she found that family. After more than two decades of running, she found that family. That family said "fuck the world, come with us". And she finally decided that yes, it's okay, this one time, to be selfish enough to say something that everyone else takes for granted -- "I want to live". 

And Robin isn't normally an emotional character. She's a lot more subtle... which she displays throughout all of her meting with Saul earlier. All the slight smiles, the ufufufu giggling, the cute haircut a couple of chapters back... and after Saul yells out all of this, Robin starts ugly crying. This is one of the few times where Robin allows the emotional dam within herself to rupture and for her to acknowledge the gigantic mountain of hurt and suffering that's building up within her... something that she couldn't acknowledge before else it would crush her. 

She's crying. Saul's crying. Most of the Straw Hats are crying. Luffy's happy for them.

These emotional moments with the main core characters have been a bit more rare since I've started reading One Piece. But this was a great chapter. 

Until then, dereshishishishi to all of you. 

Random Notes:

• Yamato Cover Story: The antagonist is revealed to be... Holdem, a.k.a. "one-shot by Red Hawk" guy. Okay? I was expecting one of the Tobi-roppo or Jack or someone. This isn't the most excitement-inducing character, but I suppose the cover story is finally going somewhere.
• Some other non-Robin related stuff that happens in this chapter, because I'm glazing over it:
• We see a 'Svalr', which is a rowboat that can fly using island clouds on the tip of their oars. Lilith identifies it as a mixture of technologies.
• All the Straw Hats and New Giant Pirates reunite, and Rodo is crucified. God bless you, Gerd and Goldberg. I actually wouldn't mind it if Rodo actually gets seriously kicked out of the New Giant Pirates, and Hajrudin seems to be already halfway there with the gag of saying that his crew is four-man strong instead of five. 
• Gerd noting that something that made the Straw Hats super famous was that they took down Big Mom. Gerd also acknowledges that in the past, she and Big Mom used to be friends.
• Some nice world-building around the Owl Library and the Warrior Springs about how they are formed and stuff. Pretty great D&D-style stuff. 
• That said, while One Piece nails the emotional side of things, I do believe that in terms of logical cohesion there are a lot of holes in Saul's situation. While I guess the whole "Saul is faking his death" thing is a legitimate enough issue why the world thinks he's dead, but I'm really not sure why he hasn't tried to contact Robin and bring her to Elbaf in the intervening 22 years. At least send some young giants out to talk to her or something! But I guess Robin is just that good at hiding. 
• Really love the little moment where Nami complements Robin's hair and goes 'ah, of course you will do this'. Little moments like this. More of these little moments of the Straw Hats interacting, please and thank you. 
• Also, that "gotta greet someone who took care of (his) crewmates properly" is totally a Shanks thing, isn't it?
• Among the Straw Hats, Zoro and Jinbe join Luffy in not crying and just watching in silence .I do really like that Oda spends time trying to think what everyone's reactions would be in this situation -- even among those that are crying, the difference between Usopp and Franky's ugly crying to Sanji and Nami trying to cover their faces because they're the type to think of not ruining the moment is a nice character touch. 
• It really makes me wonder if Franky not getting anything in Egghead is because Oda is saving moments for each Straw Hat at some point in the future? A big character moment? Some of them would be obvious (Brook meeting Laboon; Zoro and Mihawk; Usopp at some point in Elbaf) but I do wonder how it would be for some of them. Is Nami going to meet Arlong? Is Franky going to have some huge moment with Pluton? What about Chopper, or Jinbe, or Sanji? 
• Robin's backstory with Saul was published almost 20 years ago. Not quite 22, but still!

Bleach TYBW E32 Review: cAll forth the twilight, mirokumAru

Bleach, Thousand-Year Blood War, Episode 32: The Holy Newborn

This forms the second part of the two-parter connective tissue after the Death of the Soul King action-packed series of episodes (which was even more action packed with two additional Ichigo battle episodes in the anime) and the upcoming final showdown of the Shinigami against the Schutzstaffel. And while it is kind of slow to have two such episodes back-to-back, it is way better than how it was done in the manga where, as I mentioned in the previous episode, the entire sequence of trying to create the gate to access the Soul King's Palace happens and fails so many times in scenes intercut with Juhabach killing the Soul King. This rearrangement (in addition to the aforementioned new fight scenes) lets that Juhabach/Soul King scene play off in a much more focused and epic way, while the inherently less-interesting "what are the B-team doing" stories are all clumped together to flow in a way that makes it feel more natural. 

One major change is that this is where the reiatsu-absorbing orbs come in. In the manga, Urahara has been handing these out since before Ukitake's sacrifice, before the Soul King's death, and most certainly a long time before anything that happens in this episode. Here, it's something that's done after a major reassembly of the entire Gotei 13 and a speech about the turnaround fight from Kyoraku. The whole scene flows a lot better, scenes are more snappy, and it even ties to what's going to happen next.

The anime also makes a slight change to how Juhabach creates Wahrwelt. In the manga, he apparently just teleports the buildings from where the Vandenreich empire is fused to the Seireitei into the Soul Palace... which, by the way, is something I never realized. I've always thought that Juhabach created Wahrwelt in the Soul Palace! In the anime, we see the giant goopy tendrils trail down from the heavens to lift up the Vandenreich's buildings into the sky. It's another display of power from Juhabach, and one that looks just visually spectacular and intimidating. 

Up above, with team Ichigo, we get a series of faithfully-adapted scenes from the manga. Grimmjow shows up and does a pretty cool sword-slash shockwave to greet Ichigo. Any potential fight is interrupted with surprise boobs as Neliel leaps in to hug Ichigo, one-shotting Grimmjow with her bosom mid-leap. Nel gives some exposition about how during the offscreen Hueco Mundo scenes, Urahara made a bracelet to deal with Nel's child form, and now she can stay in her adult form indefinitely. We get the comedic moment from the manga delightfully retained, where Orihime is extremely flustered at Nel's arrival and Chad makes a supportive wingman comment about Urahara making unnecessary things. Orihime's reaction to this is funny. 

Again, it's nice to see these characters again after having them be out of the loop for quite a while now. Grimmjow and Nel get into a bit of a piss-fight, and I do like that Nel can jump straight into a serious voice when dealing with anything that is not Ichigo. There's a fun little argument about the Espada numbers, but again, any fight between allies is interrupted as two more former enemies show up -- the Xcution members Riruka Dokugamine and Yukio Hans Vorarlberna. 

Since this is probably the best place to talk about it, I would like to say that I really disliked Xcution when I first read through the manga -- with the best part of the Xcution arc for me being the ending when the shinigami show up to show their overwhelming strength and tactics over the Xcution assholes. I've since had a much greater appreciation for the arc, particularly the 'back to basics' urban fantasy vibe that the Xcution arc returned us to, and I appreciate Tsukishima and Ginjo as antagonists if not quite as well-developed characters. So having at least some of them show up for the end is quite nice, I feel, even if Riruka and Yukio are essentially just here as a cosmic taxi service. 

Ichigo is absolutely bamboozled by everything that's going on, and I like the deadpan replies from Chad and Orihime, who already knew that the Arrancar and Fullbringers are working with them. Ichigo's utter "EXPLAIN! EVERYTHING!" frustration and the others telling him that they've been in life-and-death situations throughout the entire TYBW storyline. 

We then have Yukio (who's just so tired of this whole shit) take out his PSP (I love his PSP) and pull up an explanation about the way that they are essentially combining the Garganta, his "Invaders Must Die" powers, Riruka's "Dollhouse" powers and the little pockets of space called the Kyogoku/Valley of Screams in order to allow them to move around. It's a lot of technical stuff that existed in the manga, and after the first cour really trimmed down Mayuri's world-building exposition about Bankai, it is actually nice to see them talk a bit more about this -- which I suppose is also necessary to show why both Riruka and Yukio needed to be there.

More interestingly, the anime kept around the mentions about the "Valley of Screams". Which I'll elaborate a bit on, since I don't really feel about typing out Yukio's whole exposition. The Valley of Screams as a concept are something introduced in the first Bleach movie, "Memories of Nobody". I'd say that it's probably the best out of the four theatrical Bleach movies and probably the only one you can slot into a place in the manga continuity considering the fact that everyone in that movie either fades away or dies. The manga had the references to not just the Valley of Screams, but also a line where Ichigo notes that he's been in a Valley of Screams. These lines are retained in the anime, and even the eyecatcher has a scarf with maple leaves falling down around it -- which are both heavily associated with the movie-original character Senna. So the anime, which hasn't been a stranger to cutting out inconsistencies in their adaptation, actually is reinforcing the Memories of Nobody tie-in. That's interesting! 

Anyway, after all of the world-building exposition, we cut to the shinigami below. The gate's not forming properly, and we get a discussion lifted from another part of the manga where they acknowledge Ukitake's immense store of reiatsu that they need but have lost access to. It a bit awkward since in the manga Ukitake was participating in this reiatsu-orb activity before the Mimihagi ritual, but it's nice that it's acknowledged regardless. We get a nice moment as Lisa calms down Nanao as she is panicking, while the rest of the Visored show up in their shinigami uniforms. It's at this point that Mayuri pulls out the Reiatsu Amplification Device (tm), which he has all along just like in the manga... but here, the placement and the speed of the orb-charging scenes means that Mayuri looks less like an idiot since in the anime's version of events, Mayuri just lets them try for a bit before pulling it out, instead of pulling it out after almost 10 chapters of trials and failures. Narratively speaking, it also flows better in general, where this ends up feeling like Mayuri's contribution to the process that doesn't really diminish Urahara, Aizen and Ukitake's moments. 

Back in the Invaders-Must-Die Garganta Elevator, Yoruichi explains their assassination plan. We get a rather unintentionally hilarious scene as Chad makes a comment that Ichigo needs to focus on Juhabach because they have a 'decent understanding' of the Elite Guard's powers. No you fucking don't, Chad. The best you could tell is Pernida contorting limbs, and as the Pernida/Mayuri fight will show, that's a mere fraction of that Pernida can do.

There's some nice moments with Riruka and Grimmjow in particular here. With her 'tough love', Riruka snaps Orihime of a bit of a depressive funk (by slapping her with her hoodie bird wings). Ichigo and Grimmjow also get a bit of a conversation, with Grimmjow making it clear that his priority is to make sure he and Ichigo have a place to fight in, although he's most likely just acting a bit tsundere.

In the Soul Palace, Juhabach assumes his full form (again, despite the ending of episode 30) and liquid darkness flows out of the Soul King's chamber. And throughout these scenes, good old Askin Nakk le Vaar is our POV guy as he is royally unnerved by Juhabach's upper head being covered by roiling eyeballs. Even when Haschwalth tells Askin to calm down, Askin gets a hilarious internal reaction of wondering what is wrong with Haschwalth. Juhabach actually responds to Askin, but it's essentially in the vein of 'oh well, you'll get used to me in time. Juhabach then starts forming Wahrwelt with the floating rubble, and poor Askin is just jumping around and scrabbling as he tries to hold on to the collapsing rubble. 

By the way, Askin, two episodes ago you were making fun of Ganju about how Sternritter have wings and can fly. Forgot about that, did you? Haha! 

As Wahrwelt is properly formed, we get a badsas scene as Juhabach lets his power flow through the transformed Soul Palace, which, thanks to the five floating mini-palaces, transforms into a giant glowing Quincy five-pointed star. The Sternritter gather around again, and, interestingly, Juhabach still addresses Haschwalth as his 'first son'. That was always a plot point that kind of went nowhere in the manga, so I wonder if we'll get something to address it. 

Team Ichigo arrives at their destination, supposedly teleporting to a marking nail that Yoruichi set down during the battle before the Soul King. We get a fun little interaction between Yukio and Ganju, the latter incensed that the former isn't helping them to fight. But realistically, it kind of makes sense that the Fullbringers are kind of out of their depth in terms of power level, and with their power sets it does make more sense to keep them around as support. We also get the Ichigo/Riruka scene here, where Ichigo thanks Riruka for her sacrifice since using Dollhouse on something as uncute as the Valley of Screams is likely very taxing on her. Again, nice moments all around, and Ganju reaffirms that Ichigo has 'always been like this'.    

Both Team Urahara and Team Ichigo arrive on what's supposed to be the Soul Palace at the same time (though not on the same place), but we get a nice, drawn-out scene as they look surprised at the terrain around them. It's depressing, gloomy Vandenreich buildings drenched in a purplish-pink glow. Their coordinates are right, and Yoruichi even finds her stake displaced on the ground. Urahara explains what's happened to the stunned crowd, and I do like that Wahrwelt's existence ends up being given some time to breathe.

In their respective groups, Yoruichi and Yushiro detect each other's reiatsu. Yoruichi and Ichigo get into a bit of a comedic moment over this internal revelation, while Yushiro tries to fly towards his sister... only to almost fall to his death if not for Renji's intervention. We get the revelation that the reishi in Wahrwelt has been manipulated by the Quincies, who has taken contrl of the normally-dense reishi i the Soul Palace. In theory, this means that no one but the Quincies can fly, but... I'm 100% sure that this will cease to matter once the fights go underway. 

After some debriefing about what they need to do (including a mention from Kyoraku about installing a new Soul King, if necessary -- a plot point that was heavily teased in the manga but never got a payoff until the pseudo-canon novels). The episode ends with Juhabach's castle, Silbern, rising in the distance, taunting them like a video game final dungeon. Juhabach sits on his throne while his Schutzstaffel kneel before him, reporting of the shinigami intruding upon their domain. Juhabach closes down the episode with a talk about how this is the foundation of his one and true world, and how the Sternritter now have to go and kill the things in the way of their final goal. 

Overall, it's... it's, again, mostly connective tissue. Even in my recap/review here, I think I spend as much time praising the comedy and noting some of the more 'meta' observations like the Valley of Screams or the restructuring more than anything. It works well, though, and 31 and 32 are a nice bit for us to breathe before the battles in Wahrwelt start happening in the next episode. I do really like them stretching the creation of Wahrwelt for what it's worth at the final couple of minutes in this episode, which gives the final battleground a sense of gravitas which I don't remember feeling when I read it in the manga. 

Random Notes:

• 
  A cut comedic scene involves Ichigo and friends trying to mentally imagine what Yoruichi's brother looks like, first imagining him as being muscular, before imagining a cat with a sword. 
• Not that I'm expecting him to show up, but one major absentee in the "all the Shinigami gather together" is Iba and doggy!Komamura. With the final episode of cour 2 giving them some additional (albeit non-speaking scenes), it's a bit of a surprise that they don't at least make a cameo appearance in the background even if they don't go up to the Soul King's Palace.
• Mashiro Kuna, a.k.a. the Visored Kubo forgot, is explicitly shown going up to Wahrwelt with the others! She's in the massive group shot of captains and vice-captains that assemble behind Kyoraku! Doubtful that she'll do much, but at least she's there!
• Kon just kind of disappears after the end of the last episode, huh? I kinda wished the anime at least kept him around in the background.
• A nice little detail with the bunch of lesser shinigami showing up is that people like Yuki and Shino (who's more junior) or Renji (who's notably poor in Kido) have to use two hands to charge the reiatsu orbs, whereas the more experienced captains, vice-captains (and Sternritter) can do it with one.
• Also a nice little added scene that I forgot to mention above is Kyoraku briefly saying some words to Ukitake before his team goes through the door. 
• I've always thought that adult Nel's 'bodysuit' was an anime censorship thing, and that the manga version 'just' has the bone bikini and the fur collar/gloves, but the bodysuit's still retained for the TYBW anime. Huh! 
• I love Yukio and his PSP. It just really speaks of the time that Bleach was originally written, huh? People have all this new-fangled mobile phone gaming now! We used to have PSP's and GBA's and we liked those!
• I also really like Yukio's slightly-irritated but ultimately-indifferent reaction to Yoruichi describing "Invaders Must Die" as being an electricity-manipulating power. He knows that's an oversimplification of his powers, but fuck it, he's too tired to complain. Same, Yukio. Same.
• The way Pernida grabs on to the rubble by undulating his head is... interesting, although if you don't know what's under that hood it'll look even more bizarre than Pernida already is. 
• The animation gets an inexplicable bump during the Ichigo and Riruka scene, which is a bit jarring considering some of the complaints about Aizen's expression in the past couple of episodes being off-model in some shots. 
• Soi Fon's bandages just utterly disappear the moment she walks through the gate of the sun. Hopefully those are the only things that disappear, and Soi Fon herself doesn't pull off the same disappearing act that her manga counterpart did. 

One Piece 1132 Review: Bifrost

One Piece, Chapter 1132: Adventure in Elbaf

So a lot of this chapter is mostly just connective tissue, as we re-assemble the Straw Hats and their allies. Not too much in terms of mystery other than the ominousness of the last couple of panels, which is perfect for me since I'm still kind of swamped with RL stuff for the next couple of weeks. It really is nice to have One Piece back after like, three weeks or something. 

We get to see the Great Eirik crew arrive first, and the little giant kid that was seen with Shanks before is all excited to see the Giant Pirates return. He also knows who Monkey D. Luffy is, which is very nice on Shanks's part! We get a name for him, which is Collun. Also arriving at the same time with them is the Naglfar, carrying Hajrudin and Stansen. We get some world-building that was alluded to last chapter, and One Piece's take on the legendary Bifrost Bridge that connects the realms are... literal rainbow bridges that the ships can just sail on. 

Brogy explains that they can literally draw rainbow with cubes called Painters, which is a very hilarious fantasy take on the Sun Stones utilized by Vikings to navigate and locate the Sun in an overcast sky. That's something that was popularized a bit among the anime-manga community thanks to Dr. Stone! The ships ride up on the rainbows, and I love that Brogy and Dorry's reactions to being questioned about this is "wtf, rainbows are meant to be ridden on, silly little people, gababababa!" We get the quick reunion as the two ships pass each other, and Franky recognizes Hajrudin, which is nice. 

Meanwhile, on the rope bridge, Luffy... solves the brief misunderstanding between his group and the two New Giant Warrior pirates Gerd and Goldberg. Goldberg is just kind of there, but Gerd is super over-excited about meeting Luffy. She likes humans, but not in the 'creepy way' that Rodo does. Which... I think she treats humans the way one would treat a puppy or a little baby, but that's better than the perverted livedolls thing that Rodo has been doing. 

Much more interestingly, Luffy and Loki made a deal off-screen, which Luffy is keeping a secret not just from the giants, but also from his crew so far. Loki even calls Luffy by the right name, which is interesting... presumably the deal they make has something to do with Shanks-related information? Very curious. 

We then get a sequence where the Straw Hats trick Rodo by using Nami and Chopper as bait, before Zoro and Sanji bash his face with a tree trunk. Yea, fuck Rodo! And then Gerd and Goldberg show up (and of course Rodo creeps on Gerd too), leading to the two of them bashing Rodo over the back of his head with weapons. I love Zoro's deadpan "nice, all evidence of our attack is gone" when he sees the giants attack. Luffy and Gerd explain everything, and of course Sanji gets immediately enamoured by the giant woman. 

We then get a simultaneous meeting as everyone goes to the 'Sun World', the middle level of the three levels of Elbaf. It's a simplified version of traditional Yggdrasil, made a bit less cosmic, and I like it -- we've got the 'Underworld', the 'Sun World' and the 'Astral World' (or 'Heaven World' in some translations). There are island clouds that Luffy can jump around on, and everyone reunites in an epic two-page spread where we get to see the massive village of Elbaf. Most importantly, we get to see Luffy and Usopp's reactions to it -- with Usopp ugly-crying. After Zoro and Franky theoretically should've gotten huge moments in the last two arcs, I really want Usopp to get a good story here. 

But then we've got an ominous narration on scrolls, narrated by a blast from the past -- Louis Arnot, the explorer who wrote 'Brag Men' seen in Little Garden and Jaya. It's such a cool nod to the past of One Piece, as he describes Elbaf in all of its grandeur and splendor. Words fail to describe it, indeed! However, Louis's narration briefly passes over a panel where a giant bear is looming and a silhouetted person with a kasa hat walks past the foreground... the same figure that has been lurking in the backgrounds ever since the arc starts. Louis Arnot's narration ends with an ominous warning about not overstaying one's welcome in Elbaf, as we cut to black.

And... that could be anything from war to some unnatural phenomenon in Elbaf. I don't really care, to be honest. Or the mystery about the silhouetted figure. The Loki bits are a bit more intriguing to me, it's fun to get the New Giant Pirates, old Giant Pirates and the Straw Hats reunited; and I really want to see what Usopp will get in this arc! 

Random Notes:

• Yamato Cover Story: The group sure reaches the Udon Castle, which is under reconstruction. That's nice. 
• I guess I'll be using 'Rodo' over 'Road', since that's what the official spelling uses. I've been flip-flopping between the two before 
• There are many theories about the shadowy figure -- with the most notable ones being Shiki and Scopper Gaban. I really don't get what the hype is about Scopper since he hasn't done jack or had any sort of reputation in the flashbacks. Shiki, however, is a bit more interesting not just because of the movie, but because of the Rocks Pirates flashbacks as well as 'Chapter 0'. Seemingly strengthening this Shiki connection is the fact that every single animal design in 1131 except the wolf are taken verbatim from the designs of Shiki's giant mutated animal army from the Strong World movie.
• Collun was initially mistranslated as 'Colon' by the fan-translators, which is very unfortunate-sounding. 
• Bizarrely, this is actually not the first time someone in One Piece has been able to draw rainbows, but no one remembers Ms. Goldenweek anymore. Wait, didn't she debut in Little Garden? Hmm. 
• I love that Robin answers Franky's confused yelling with a very scientific explanation about how rainbows are created by light refractions and all that jazz.
• Not much attention is called to it, but I like that Brook is singing Bink's Sake while they rise up the rainbow bridge. 
• Right, Gerd just scoops up Nami's group in her bosom. That group includes Sanji, and Sanji is just utterly in his own personal Heaven's Realm at this point. 

Agatha All Along S01E06 Review: Wiccan

Agatha All Along, Season 1, Episode 6: Familiar By Thy Side

So yeah, to the surprise of absolutely no one, the previous episode revealed that 'Teen', who I've been calling 'Not-Wiccan' throughout these reviews, is actually Wiccan, a.k.a. Billy Kaplan, a.k.a. Billy Maximoff, a.k.a. the magical son of Scarlet Witch. The question is... how? 

And this episode takes us back to the end of WandaVision through Billy Kaplan (or, well, Billy Maximoff's) point-of-view as we get the huge lore dump that ties together all of the continuity questions we've been having. And for once in phase five MCU, it's actually not handwaved aside!

And this episode's review is a bit shorter than my usual MCU/Disney+ stuff, but that's because I've actually written this review a couple of times before my laptop ate it. But honestly, 'Familiar By Thy Side' is also an episode that isn't exactly the most important for a breakdown since so much of it is just us getting to know and see the tragedy and the conflict brewing within Billy's life in the last couple of years. 

The backstory of the Maximoff twins are kind of convoluted in the comics and it's something that I find it hard to even summarize, and I thought that the streamlined version we got here was pretty neat. We open up with William Kaplan, an average teenager who is celebrating his bar mitzvah. He's got loving parents, a lot of loving friends, and he's got an entire life in front of him. We get a surprise appearance of Lilia Calderu in the past, showing up as a palm reader in Billy's magic-themed bar mitzvah, and when Lilia sees the broken lifeline, we get the revelation that she's the one that seemingly places the sigil on Billy. 

And then, just as things seem to be going nice, Billy and his family get caught up in a car accident during the fateful hours that the battle between the Scarlet Witch and Agatha Harkness is happening in the final episodes of WandaVision. It's some nice continuity to see the memories of Westview coming back to the civilians, and then to see the massive magic-dome looming in the distance. 

While the mechanism is not made exactly clear, William Kaplan seems to have died in that car crash, and the spirit (???) of Billy Maximoff somehow got transported to the conveniently newly-evacuated fleshy vessel. And the episode does dwell on this part quite a bit, showing just how utterly confused this brand new 'Billy' is. The 'Maximoff' memories aren't quite back yet, but he sure as hell isn't William Kaplan. The doctors explain it away as trauma-induced amnesia, and we get to see the rather heartbreaking scenes as the Kaplan parents try their best to accommodate their seemingly-amnesiac child's confusion. It doesn't help either that Billy inherited magic powers, allowing him to read his new foster parents' minds and get even more confused.

For the sake of the Kaplan parents if nothing else, Billy kind of just pretends to be their child for the couple of years between WandaVision and Agatha All Along, which is kind of heartwarming and fucked up at the same time... but it's not like Billy's got anywhere else to go. He doesn't have memories of either Billy Maximoff or William Kaplan, and he just goes around trying to research what's going on. 

The initial scenes are probably the most effective for me, seeing how hard the Kaplan parents try to accommodate what they thought was an amnesiac child, while Billy is just... utterly confused about everything that's going on. 

But then we kind of jump through the years to a short period before Agatha's first episode, where the Kaplans have a functioning relationship, and Billy's found love in his boyfriend Eddie. Billy reveals to Eddie that he's got a secret, and he's been looking for the strange memories he's been having. This leads to them meeting Ralph "Fake Quicksilver" Bohner, who spends a good amount of time recapping the events of WandaVision to Billy. I don't mind this sequence, personally, since it's been quite some time since WandaVision aired, and we get to see just how utterly screwed some people's life had became. Billy's slow realization on what's going on, no matter how crazy it sounds, is also done well. 

(Also, the other coven witches show up at various points in Billy's life; Alice is the police officer that arrived on the car crash, while Jen... uh... Billy watches Jen's skincare videos? Uh-huh. Okay.)

But even if Wanda is kind of accounted for, what happens to Tommy Maximoff's spirit, if it's still even around? To this end, Billy decides to look for Agatha, who Ralph Bohner notes is still in Westview. We then get around a 10-minute recap of the first episode of Agatha All Along... only it's from Billy's POV. It's kind of funny, although I still wonder who was the person who taught Billy the basic magic spells that he has in his little book. Again, Kathryn Hahn hamming shit up is 90% of the reason this show was made in the first place, so yeah, why not. 

The final shots of the episode snaps back to the 'present' day, where Agatha crawls back from the mud -- of course she's not dead (and while they're not seen in this episode, Jennifer and Lilia are also of course not dead). She confronts Billy, and Agatha notes that she's managed to piece the clues together basically the whole time... or so she claims. Billy reveals to Agatha that it's his brother Tommy that he is looking for at the end of the Witches' Road. The two argue a bit, with the sullen Billy revealing that all of his fanboying has been essentially an act, but Agatha also is able to call Billy's bullshit, showing that he's not able to control his powers as much as he wants Agatha to believe, and the two walk down the road uneasily. 

It's... it's a pretty neat revelation episode. I do like some of the scenes here, particularly the early scenes that highlights the tragedy of Billy Kaplan's fate. The revelation is also suitably heavy for a 'yeah, fans, it's kind of obvious that this is Wiccan from the comics' twist. I do think that the episode does get a bit recappy while jumping through some aspects that I wished they explored a bit more, but ultimately I thought it was a fine episode. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• In the comics, thanks to magic stuff (and many, many editorial retcons), Wanda and Vision's children were actually sent back in time and reborn/reincarnated into two children born to different families, with Billy Maximoff being born to the Kaplans in the past as 'Billy Kaplan'. 
• It's a comic-book thing; different writers had different visions (heh) for the twins, and the end result is quite messy. All things considered, the MCU's take on it streamlines a lot of the events that happened.
• The events of the last two episodes of WandaVision is seen in the parts of Billy's initial flashback, and some parts of it take place in this season's premiere, but seen through Billy's POV. 
• Ralph Bohner, a.k.a. the civilian that was brainwashed by the Scarlet Witch's spell to think that he's Quicksilver, was last seen in WandaVision's first season, played by the actor that played Quicksilver in the Fox X-Men movies. 
• Billy's boyfriend is named "Eddie", which is extremely close to the alter-ego of his comic-book counterpart's boyfriend, Teddy Altman, a.k.a. Hulkling.
• The Westview incident was covered up by the government as an 'Avengers training exercise', a term that was used by Rhodey to cover up the Iron Man incidents in the first Iron Man movie.