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.