Friday, 31 January 2025

Reviewing Monsters: Elden Ring, Part 6

So yeah, I wanted to focus primarily on the Stormveil Castle bosses in the previous one, although I did go around and kill a bunch of enemies during my little grinding session before and after Godrick. 

I completed a bunch of the side-quests, too, or at least as much as I could at this point of the game. I did Blaidd the Half-Wolf's quest; I wrapped up the Castle Morne storyline with Irina and Edgar; I talked and got rewards from the other Tarnished in Stormveil Castle; I dashed through a bunch of golems to activate Godrick's Great Rune... and so far, I am kind of liking this experience. It is a bit different than the usual world-building because everyone is so cryptic and confusing, and you do actually need to pay a fair amount of attention to item descriptions and whatnot to get some context into things, but I am already the type of guy to read every single item description anyway, so it does fit rather well. I do kind of wish that at this point in the game they were a bit more clearer on some of the definitions, many of which are only cleared up for me thanks to the Wiki, but it's honestly a minor complaint. I'm having a lot of fun here!

I've been doing a lot of running around, trying to comb most of Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula for dungeons that are a bit easier for me to clear now, so this sequence is a bit of a 'catch-up' to both that and some monsters I've missed in part 4-5. 

I think I've done most of what I can do in Limgrave, I'm wrapping up the Peninsula, and afterwards I guess I'll properly explore Liurnia!
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Servant of Rot
I actually killed a lot of these to farm for runes in Caelid (and on my way to get the Meteorite Staff in the ruins they guard). I can't ever not like fungus-people, and Caelid itself is best described as... as if the land itself is a clump of meat that's overgrown with decomposers. This imagery is especially clear if you get to the bird's eye telescope and look at it from above... it really does look like a particularly gnarly piece of rotting flesh overgrown with fungi and lichen... or a bacterial petri dish. 

And some humans that have spent too long inhaling this Scarlet Rot plague have had their bodies transformed into these... fungus-people. they're hunch-backed, their flesh are pockmarked with mycelia, and their heads are overgrown with (or are replaced entirely) with multi-layered fungus. The area of Caelid I encounter them in is kind of dimly lit so it's hard to tell, but there are a couple of variations, some of whom have layers of shelf fungus while some have more amorphous-shaped specimens. 

It's not quite clear how willing these guys are to their fungal transformation, because at this point I think it's around 50/50 whether some horror in the Lands Between are caused by voluntary cultists or poor unfortunate civilians dragged into godly corruption, but these guys are appropriately wretched and creepy. They shoot poison bolts with their staves. 

Monstrous Dog
With a name like 'Monstrous Dog', you probably wouldn't expect anything super-duper threatening. Sure, we've got wolves, and dogs, and those nasty Strays with the delightfully ragged, mangled models... and then there are these guys. To call them a 'dog', I think, is just a function of their unmistakably dog-like heads. Their bodies, however, are mutated to look like some kind of a... well, a tyrannosaur is the best comparison. Huge, powerful hind-legs and tiny, wretched arms. Those arms don't even look like dog limbs at all. 

They're also quite huge, with an utterly psychotic attacking animation where they whip their long heads around before opening their mouth and body-sliding in a way that their jaws would clamp shut horizontally. It's so frenetic and hectic that it was an actual surprise when one of those attacked me... and this attacking animation, more than anything, really makes them feel way more 'corrupted' than it would if they had, like, made this guy out of skeleton or flesh-soup or something. 

The Monstrous Dog also hits very hard, but also remarkably easy to stun and stagger, which I guess shows how... malnourished they are? The huge things are often encountered lumbering near caravans and feeding on corpses. 


Monstrous Crow
Interestingly, the Monstrous Dogs aren't the only tyrannosaur-like beasts that roam Caelid. Often found next to each other are these hideous, Monstrous Crows. Both the dogs and crows are scavengers, and it's very likely that something in the dead bodies that they're eating mutated them both into similar-ish body shapes? It's a bit less noticeable on the giant crow, owing that birds and theropodal dinosaurs already have a similar body plan, but where the crow bodies just get longer, their beaks are now filled with ragged, nasty teeth that really look very threatening as this giant bird-beast charges towards you. 

And honestly, they did a great job doing the models for the Monstrous Crow, because everything about this thing is kind of disturbing. The sunken eyes, the mat of raggedy feather-hair behind the head, and of course that giant curved beak filled with nasty, very un-avian teeth. Rather gloriously, the Monstrous Crow can be extra assholish by pretending to be staggered, complete with the audio cue, when they can instantly counterattack when you charge in for a clean hit. 

Anyway, either one of the Monstrous Crows or Monstrous Dogs would've been very memorable. Both of them at the same time, hinting at something sinister mutating these scavengers? Why are most of the things in Caelid some kind of rot or fungus-themed monstrosity, but these guys instead turn into dinosaurs? Pretty creepy. I like it. 

Marionette Soldier
Skulking around the region of Caelid are also these guys, General Grievous cosplayers -- these marionettes skulk around with creepy puppet movements, quad-wielding daggers, and they're essentially avatar bodies of some sorcerers... who wisely don't want to travel into Caelid and instead send these non-decaying puppets to do their dirty work for them. Some of them have swords, some have spears, and some have bows. The bow ones are particularly fun, you see them wield two bows with their two lower hands, and the two upper ones reload the bows with arrows. It's a nice bit of levity in a world where most of its enemies play up how grotesque or how cool they are. 

I do like how... how unfinished they look. The in-universe designers just cobbled together some limbs, put a bunch of metal cage-parts around it, and called it a day. And you can see this slipshod quality when you fight them -- damage them enough and they'll start critically fritz out, attacking and spinning their arms in every direction, which is a nice contrast to how methodical they initially are when they first encounter you. There are a couple of them in some of the poison lakes in the Weeping Peninsulas as well, seemingly there to guard a prison for witches... I do like that there's an actual, proper reason for these artificial hominids to exist other than just to look cool. 

They also patrol Liurnia, which is the territory of the mages of Raya Lucaria -- the mage organization that made them into first place. These guys will probably be the main focus of my next review, as I plan to tackle the area and the legacy dungeon next! Puppet-making is... not a thing I would normally associate with mages, but I suppose I'm playing a mage and I sometimes rely on summoning ghost jellyfishes and ghost wolves to fight for me, so that tracks.

One last fun detail is that they get sent in with these funky steampunk balloons that airdrop three or four of the marionettes down as a little strike-force. It's surprisingly adorable! If you're an archer you can shoot them and blow up their balloons. Sometimes when they are being airdropped, they trip and fall and take some time to get up. Now people would argue that this is too 'wacky' for a SoulsBorne game, but I honestly do like that these guys can be a bit more whimsical while still fitting into the Berserk-esque 'dark fantasy' genre. 

Bloodhound Knight Darriwil
So in the previous articles I mentioned 'Evergaols', these seemingly extradimensional prisons guarded by the strange stone formations acting like security cameras. One of these contain the Bloodhound Knight Darriwil, who is the target of one of our friendly NPC's, Blaidd, who thinks that imprisonment is too good for Darriwil and wants to kill him for whatever betrayal Darriwil committed in the past. 

And I wouldn't really pay too much attention to a humanoid enemy, except... Darriwil is really lanky and huge. Even accounting for the fact that video game bosses tend to have their sizes exaggerated, Darriwil moves more like some kind of a beast, with arms probably longer than my main character is tall. He wields a giant curved sword on one hand and giant fuck-off Wolverine claws on the other, and... is he also a 'half-wolf' like Blaidd is? 

Miranda Blossom
This one is a boss fight of the "Tombsward Cave" dungeon, which is an underground cavern in the Weeping Peninsula filled with Miranda Flowers and Servants of Rot -- which, by the way, is probably a way to meet them outside of Caelid. The final boss of this dungeon is Miranda Blossom, or in earlier patches, "Miranda the Blighted Bloom". So is this the 'Miranda' that the other Miranda Flowers are born from? It is interesting that seemingly Miranda's influence has caused a lake of poisonous fluids to sprout not just in the dungeon, but also the part of the overworld terrain that corresponds to it. That's a 
neat bit of in-universe storytelling that I really appreciate. 

Tibia Mariner
Oh, this one is a cool one. Found in a deserted, flooded village called Summonwater Village, the Tibia Mariner is just... hanging around on his spectral boat, sitting on his throne and summoning skeleton minions with his giant trumpet. Now, the idea of a 'skeleton necromancer' sorcerer isn't particularly fresh. But the fact that the Mariner is summoning them with an oversized trumpet? And if we're not disturbing him, he's content to just ride his boat around his area. What are you patrolling, Mariner? Are you a fisherman before you died, or something? Out-of-universe, yes, the Tibia Mariner is likely based on the traditional depiction of Charon, ferryman of the dead... but still, in-universe it's a bit interesting to think why this guy is on a throne, on a boat, with a trumpet. 

You'd expect them to just be super-serious necromancers summoning skeletal minions and attacking from afar. And yes, the Mariner can teleport away into another part of the battlefield while his goons fight you. But their best attack? They do these sick wheelies  with their ghost boats to slam them down onto us, which is just another level of ridiculousness. Using that boat as a gimmick really does give them an extra bit of memorability than if they were just another human-like enemy or 'just' a big skeleton.

Oh, and I also really love that name. Using 'tibia' as an adjective is fun enough, but he's not like, a necromancer or a summoner or a puppeteer or any of the badass-sounding descriptors. No, he's just a mariner, which just sounds way more whimsical than a decrepit old man ghost summoning skeletons. 

The Mariner also sets off a whole questline revolving around 'Deathroot', but to be honest I don't understand half of the things that our buddy D says so I'll reserve any discussion for later on. 


Even More Soldiers
I'm kinda obligated to have these guys here, yeah? Raya Lucaria Soldiers are in Liurnia and they sometimes use magic spells (or magic items). Radahn Soldiers are in Caelid, and they tend to have more armoured variants. These guys are often found fighting the giant Caelid beasts.

They sure are humans knights. I do like that there're slight variances between each region, and they provide a nice contrast to the regional enemies, but that's honestly all I can muster to say about them. 

Grave Warden Duelist
He sure is a big guy dual-wielding two hammers? And he's got a bunch of chains and a cool helmet. He's also shirtless. So he is a warden, but also a duelist? Item descriptions from the wiki give the minimal backstory for them. They're apparently former gladiators who now protect gravesites, since this one was the boss of a Limgrave catacomb... which, sure? I think it's just an excuse for the game developers to have a 'Pyramid-Head' style boss at the end of an undead-themed one. I must confess I forgot I beat this guy until I looked through my scribbled notes. He's cool, I just wish I had a bit more to talk about him. 


Wraith Caller
Ohhh, look at these fuckers! These are the type of low-level body horror monsters I'd expect to find in Godrick's castle, and why I expressed some frustration with it almost exclusively being populated with normal-looking knights. I first encountered them rising from the waters of the Liurnia Lakes, and they aren't much of a threat. They move like ghouls or Witcher's Nekkers, and I initially just brushed them off at that. Yes, I could tell they had a couple extra limbs, but I thought they were just like, four-armed ghouls or something. 

But looking at proper screenshots really does highlight how wretched they look. With longer necks bent at an angle that human necks probably aren't supposed to, a massive hunchback, and really gnarly-looking limbs, these guys are completely hostile and are apparently a part of a cult. I'm not sure why they patrol and lurk in the lakes and graveyards of the Liurnia lake. Some variants just jump you and attack you with their limbs, like the ghouls they are, but some carry bells with which they just ring all the time and these create warbling black-brown globs of energy that follow you around. 

Some wikis call them the 'Revenant Follower', since they worship things called 'Revenants'. Some also ride horses, who are delightfully skeletal, appear to be tumour-ridden, and their eyes glow and trail this eldritch evil black aura behind them as the Mounted Wraith Caller gallop around the swamp. It's such a nice image, and a very nice contrast to the more regal and heroic mounted knights we've been seeing so far -- so see this hunchbacked, multi-limbed ghoul man with robes ride this seemingly undead horse. 

Their name, 'Wraith Caller' does imply that they are undead of some kind, but until I saw a closer look at a screenshot of that horse, I wasn't super convinced that they're not just particularly cursed humans or a humanoid race similar to the Demihumans. Okay! 

Flying Dragon Agheel
I saved this guy for the end of the review! Agheel here is one of the couple of bosses that should make new players go "oh fuck no", because you can really encounter him quite early on in your journey, flying in and crushing a bunch of random Wandering Nobles in some ruins in a lake. That whole lake seems to be Agheel's territory, with multiple locations called 'dragon-burnt ruins' and this giant lizard is just stalking that swamp, crawling around like many modern-day popular depictions of dragons thanks to Skyrim and Game of Thrones -- the wyvern-like, pterodactyl-inspired two wings, two legs body layout. I am told, however, and rather pleasantly, that differently shaped dragons will show up in the game!

Agheel is... he sure is a dragon. He flies, he breathes fire -- a lot of fire -- and he's got a couple of attack patterns with his tail swings and the way he shoots out fire. The area is large enough -- a whole swamp -- that you can really take advantage and ride around on your horse while Agheel goes through the motions, and zip in and launch some attacks onto his wings and run off again. Agheel never really flies up and chases me -- I think in the half-dozen times I tried this boss fight over the course of my playthrough, he does that maybe twice? There is a pretty damaging sequence where he flies up and does what's essentially a bombing run with his fire breath, but he mostly sticks to the ground despite his moniker. I guess he is meant to be the first dragon boss we encounter in the game, so I can forgive him being slightly formulaic. 

Wednesday, 29 January 2025

Bleach TYBW E40 Review: the visored strike bAck

Bleach, Thousand-Year Blood War, Episode 40: My Last Words


So yeah, with this, cour three of Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War has ended, and... I think it has more than surpassed the expectation of almost all of the fans out there. The last batch of chapters in the Bleach manga will always be met with more scrutiny due to the sheer amount of rushed battles, or buildups that were aborted, or characters that did nothing before the ultimately rushed finale. And while the previous two cours did a mighty great job at bringing a lot of scenes to life in gorgoeus animation, this cour gave us so much. Fixing the fact that Uryu does nothing in essentially the entire arc (and allowing him to kill a Squad Zero member; fight Ichigo and fight Uryu); allowing Ichigo to actually have proper fights instead of being one-shot; solidifying Juhabach's motivations; and tidying up two of the messier parts of the manga (the Gotei getting to the Soul Society; and the Gerard fight), we've had an amazing run. And this episode... well, this episode is a bit more of a setup chapter as we adapt a lot of the scenes in the manga that doesn't relate to the conclusion of the final four villains, but with some very welcome extensions. 

The episode opens up with the confrontation between Ichigo's group and Uryu in front of the giant black swirling orb (which I assume is like, the main Gate of the Sun? The anime doesn't make it super clear) and Haschwalth gloats that Uryu will need to kill his friends if he truly isn't a traitor... and as Haschwlath pontificates about his ability to see the future, we get some interesting shots of his eyes flickering between red and blue. It is also interesting to note that Haschwalth feels a lot cockier and more abrasive in this fight compared to how phlegmatic he was in 'Friend' and episodes prior. I wonder if hosting The Almighty is causing some personality changes in him, or is it just the mental instability after killing Bazz-B?

This is a scene that actually existed in the manga, but Ichigo and Uryu fight again. Of course, the anime severely extends on this confrontation -- in the anime it was just a couple of arrows and deflections. Here, Uryu activates the simplified version of his Vollstandig and clashes with Ichigo. It's nowhere as elaborate or as well-animated as "The Betrayer" earlier in the season, but it didn't need to. 

We then cut to... Ishida Soken! Uryu's grandfather! Who was entirely unmentioned in the manga version of the TYBW. Soken was super significant to Uryu's original characterization and motivation, particularly in regards to his rocky relationship with his father Ryuken. Turns out that the mysterious notebook that Uryu found in the short scenes in the first cour was written by Soken... and within that book is the notes that Soken made about Juhabach's evil, how he steals the powers of Quincies for his own vendetta... and also the Auswahlen that happened in 1994! 

And we actually see this Auswahlen happen, the one that claimed Kurosaki Masaki's powers as she's fighting against Grand Fischer... but more interestingly, we get to see Uryu's mother Katagiri Kanae... not fall to the Auswahlen. Instead, a young Uryu and the unnamed maid with them were the ones to fall to the Auswahlen!

Which is very interesting! The manga's version of events (which was second-hand and very glossed over) notes that Kanae didn't immediately die, but fell into a coma and died much later. And we never got an explanation to why Uryu didn't die beyond the main-character syndrome. "Everything But The Rain" made a whole big deal about how Masaki and Ryuken are echt (pure-blooded) while Kanae is gemischt (mixed-blood), and I wonder if that's going to play into this? While we don't see what happened, my theory is that Kanae did something to save Uryu, which probably leads to a whole lot of survivor's guilt on Uryu's end. We'll see!

As this flashback ends and we get to see a replay of Uryu joining the Vandenreich, Soken's monologue notes that it's the duty of the surviving Quincies of the human world to stop Juhabach... and we all know just how much Uryu takes pride in qualities like duty and pride. 

In the present day, Uryu chases Ichigo around with his little drone feather-arrows, and we get a fun little sequence as Ichigo keeps leaping up and trying to attack Uryu's main body. At one point as they jump around, we get a really badass sequence as Ichigo unleashes a gigantic Getsuga Tensho that cuts a line across the castle they are next to... and then as the Getsuga dissipates, it has atomized everything in its path and the castle just slams down like someone cleared a row in Tetris or something. That's very cool!

As the dust covers the air, Uryu sees a glowing light and unleashes the same five-pronged attack that he used against Ichigo in "Betrayer"... but turns out that the light is just one of the Zangetsu blades, hovering in the air. Ichigo uses the bigger blade and knocks down Uryu from behind and unleashes a close-range Getsuga Tensho that Uryu intercepts with an arrow. The explosion collapses the floor beneath them, but in a scene lifted from the manga, Chad jumps in! Chad grabs Ichigo by one of his swords and chucks him at Uryu even as he himself falls down.

We cut away to other parts, however. Giselle and Liltotto make their way to Juhabach's throne room with the three zombies. Juhabach is entirely silent throughout this, and we also don't get any real explanation about the strange eyeball-Soldats. Giselle does toss away the severed head of one of the Soldats, before the five ex-Sternritter charge in with their powers... and that's all we see of them. It's still better than the manga, but I really would've liked to see Juhabach beat them or something. 

Then we cut away to the Askin-vs-Yoruichi fight. Yoruichi briefly puts the wounded Yushiro behind some rubble, but turns out Askin is quite fast himself and catches up to her. We get a pretty cool scene as Yoruichi unleashes Shunko again, while Askin admonishes her for doing the same mistake Yushiro did. After all, with The Deathdealing active, Askin is immune to Yoruichi's Shunko... but Yoruichi knows this. Instead, she kicks the lightning orbs, creating what's essentially a massive flashbang grenade to blind Askin. Not using the reiatsu but rather her physical strength, Yoruichi proceeds to wrap her legs around Askin's neck and slam him into a building. 

And then we cut away to poor Momo, hiding in a building. It feels like a goddamn horror movie as the gigantic Gerard Valkyrie just looms around in the distance with his glowing eyes, before appearing in the window outside. It's actually pretty creepy! Gerard then slams the arm down and seemingly utterly crushes the building that Momo is hiding in. It would fit in with how brutal the Vice-Captains have been taken out in these expanded stories, and it wouldn't even be bad writing to have Momo be taken out here particularly since she's already done so much more than her manga counterpart. 

But then a snaking Zanpakuto slams and explodes in Gerard's face, while a mocking voice tells Gerard that the real 'miracle' is him failing to kill a wounded girl. Is it Zabimaru? No, it's actually Kinshara, belonging to Rose! Yes, Rose is back! He and Kensei are clearly in the other two pods that Mayuri brought with him -- the extra pods were always there but never amounted to anything in the manga, but here they clearly brought back the de-zombified Rose and Kensei. 

And it's not just Rose and Kensei either, because everyone is assembled. As Shinji puts Hinamori down safe, Shinji delivers a badass line about how if Captains are not enough, the Visored stand ready to fight back. Kensei, Hiyori, Hachigen, Love and Lisa all stand ready, and we get a nice parallel to their entrance to the Karakura Town fight as they pose with their Hollow masks on and their swords drawn. Oh, and Shinji also tosses away his captain's cloak, which is a badass scene. 

In the manga... the Visored do nothing. Shinji and Momo get taken out in the 'arm slam' scene that was adapted and expanded last episode; while Hachi, Rose, Lisa and Hiyori get one-shotted instantly by Gerard. I don't doubt that the Visored will still lose to Gerard, but this promises for a much more dignified battle -- and defeat -- for them. It's not about them being defeated, because that's never been the problem! It's the callousness and choreography!

Speaking of forgotten characters, we see XCution! Riruka and Yukio are in Invaders Must Die as it descends down. Riruka's clearly still fuming about not being able to help Ichigo, Orihime and the others, but Yukio verbally intercepts her before she could even complain. But Yukio notes that there are other things they can do... as Invaders Must Die stops and deposits them outside of the Shiba residence. Clearly, they are there to pick up Ginjo and Tsukishima! They barely show up in a 'too little, too late' sequence in the final battle in the manga, and here's hoping for them to, again, get a bit more to do this time around. 

Before they can meet the dead Fullbringers, Riruka and Yukio turn around to witness a rain of gold falling down from the sky down unto the Seireitei. From his chair, Aizen also observes this. These golden rain are the remnants of Sternritter "X", Lille Barro, which begin to transform into long-limbed, long-necked flamingo-owl light beings that begin to shoot laser beams on the poor Shinigami left on ground level. The Barro-birds rant a little until one of them gets slashed in the middle as we zoom in to the moon, then out of it to see a hole in the chest with random metal rods stuck through it... as Third Vice-Captain Kira Izuru show up and identifies himself.

Yep, Zombie Kira! This was always something that was clearly meant to set up something more before the rapid and abrupt conclusion, and I really do wonder what the original intention of Zombie Kira was supposed to be! After having this plot point brought up and randomly never mentioned again, I wonder what we'll get out of this!

We then cut to a flashback -- which in the manga I think happens a bit later on. This is Ichigo and Uryu on top of their high school, where they discuss about their parents and their enrolment in the school. Ichigo notes how weird it is that someone as smart as Uryu is enrolled in a normal school since he's probably going to be a doctor... but Uryu then notes that he doesn't want to become a doctor anymore. Not since he, as a child, witnessed his dad performing an autopsy very callously on the corpse of his mother. Traumatic for sure, and I do look forward to seeing Uryu's relationship with Ryuken expanded a bit more. 

Cut to the present, and we see Ichigo, Uryu, Orihime and Chad gathering themselves in this underground level. Ichigo demands Uryu explain himself, and Uryu lampshades the silliness in Ichigo's words since he'll get beaten up either way. It's not exactly a one-to-one parallel, but having this episode released so closely to 'Friend' does make the rowdy-but-healthier communication between Ichigo and Uryu in contrast against the toxic, clingy and selfishness of Bazz-B and Haschwalth's relationship.

Of course, Uryu is actually still on the good guys' side. He pulls out a Sun Key and explains that there is a Gate of the Sun that's set up to invade the human world. He tells Ichigo to take that Gate and return to the world of the living, while he has a way to destroy Juhabach due to his bloodline. (Which isn't the manga's explosive tags plan, and I wonder what Uryu's master plan is in this revised story... and if Ichigo's Quincy heritage will also come to play) Ichigo gets pissed off because Uryu really should've told them. 

But as Uryu explains how he's thought things thoroughly, Haschwalth looms out of the shadows, and does another "ah-ha, I have foreseen what you are going to do" moment. Haschwalth has apparently destroyed the Gate of the Sun offscreen, and a black aura explodes out of him as he promises to finish them off before Juhabach awakens. This phrasing causes Uryu to realize that Haschwalth and Juhabach have swapped powers, and Uryu tells Ichigo to go off and finish off Juhabach who doesn't possess The Almighty. 

Ichigo rightfully asks Uryu if he's can handle this battle since Haschwalth before them possess The Almighty, but Uryu insists that Ichigo get going, and that these would not be his (titular) last words. Ichigo smirks at Uryu before running off with Orihime and Chad. This sets up the Uryu and Haschwalth one-on-one confrontation as they draw their respective weapons. Haschwalth mocks Uryu as being a bit different since he's now 'surprisingly full of hope', but Uryu mocks Haschwalth right back, noting that the fact that Haschwalth is 'surprised' means that The Almighty... is not so Almighty! Haschwalth isn't pleased, and the two begin their face-off. I do hope that Antithesis vs. Balance will get a more proper fight instead of the absolute bare minimum that we got in the manga. Seeing how much they improved all the other marquee fights, I have faith. 

In another scene, another Sun Key clinks on a Gate of the Sun as Ryuken and Isshin arrive on Wahrwelt. Ryuken notes that it's fortuitous that such an old key owned by the banished Soken would still work. Isshin gives a rather fun response, noting that Ryuken's terrible attitude about Soken is why he and Uryu don't get along.

We cut away to a bunch of other characters. Hitsugaya and Rangiku are on some buildings. Kurotsuchi slumbers in his preservation pod. And Ukitake's twiching body-corpse... seems to be forming the Mimihagi halo again. Very curious where we're going with this Ukitake subplot! And then we cut away to... Liltotto and the other Sternritters taken out offscreen by Juhabach. Unlike his manga counterpart, Juhabach says nothing, and Liltotto enigmatically curses her luck because Juhabach "is not actually asleep" before she collapses. And Juhabach's dark reiatsu floods the throne room... 

I do hope this leads somewhere, by the way. Liltotto isn't the most well-developed character but I've always been fascinated by the fact that they were deemed important enough to survive and go up to Wahrwelt, indicating that Kubo originally had plans for her. Even if it's as a vessel to develop other characters like Bazz-B was. But even if that was it, I still hope Juhabach's dark reiatsu does something. Corrupting them to turn them into thralls to fight Orihime and Chad and maybe some other characters would be great!

And... that's it. The episode still has a fair bit of runtime, but we'll put Askin's four-wall-breaking comedy routine below. It's admittedly a whole lot of scenes jumping around, but setting up a bunch of fights is super interesting. Having Juhabach's menace be the focus of the final shot is neat enough, but the highlight has to be the Haschwalth/Uryu and Gerard/Visored setup. And... with only so few chapters in the official material before the trunacted ending, I am really looking forward to see what the Thousand-Year Blood War arc's true, proper conclusion would be! But that's it for the third cour, see you guys hopefully soon for the conclusion of Bleach!

Random Notes:
  • We lost an episode in cour two (which was reworked to become the first episode in this cour, itself not technically being a full episode) so this cour had an extra episode to compensate. 
  • Quincy Daten:
    • Just like the finale to the previous cour, the ending is a tongue-in-cheek, minimal animation sequence hosted by a comedic character. In this case, Askin Nakk Le Vaar. All the animations that Askin makes are repurposed from his many other scenes in the episode, except for his main pointing position that's taken from the cover of volume 68. 
    • We get a rather fun monologue about how a cafe au lait is important due to the balance between substances, and screwing up that balance can be fatal
    • The primary significance here is Askin telling us the spelling of the four ancient members of the Schutzstaffel -- Huburt, Algora, Seydlitz and Nikita -- as well as a relationship map. 
    • The rest of the Daten has Askin kind of doing a skit about him recapping parts of his battle with Yoruichi, then mocking/impersonating the Bambis, which went on for a bit too long to be funny. The end is a tongue-in-cheek moment where he actually has a timer showing the time left given to him by the producers.
    • Though, really... this could have been a proper 'end of episode' moment in the traditional Bleach sense where Askin could've been explaining stuff like the Vollstandig and Sklaverai, or Uryu's powers, or his own powers, or -- probably what most people would want -- the revelatoin of what BG9's "K" and Robert's "N" stand for. (And frankly, I'm sure a bunch of minor Sternritters also didn't have what their letters stand for revealed properly in the anime).
  • I guess the 'Chad and Ganyu pointlessly fight golems' scene is cut entirely. Ganyu himself is just kind of missing ever since the group got split up hunting after Askin, isn't he? 
  • A fair amount of Lille's lines and confusion after being reformed into the wacky flamingos are cut, particularly of note is him realizing that his halo is gone, and how he's going to reduce the Seireitei to rubble out of vengeance against Kyoraku.
  • Also cut from the episode is all of Juhabach's dialogue. In the manga, after beating Liltotto and Giselle, Juhabach makes some comment about 'going back to sleep' since the noise has quieted down. Here Juhabach is menacingly silent throughout the scene, seemingly implying that he didn't even properly 'wake up' to address Liltotto's squad.
  • I'm happy to see the Seele Schneider make a return in Uryu's arsenal! Amazingly, Uryu using the Seele Schneider against Ichigo was in the manga, but this confrontation happens so quickly that I didn't even remember it. 
  • In what's likely an error, Gerard's fist is inconsistently drawn with the knuckle-armour that he would only have after he regenerates his arm, 'stronger than before', later on down the fight after Kenpachi severs it. 
  • It is interesting that Shinji tosses away his captain's coat. Out of the three Visored captains that were officially reinstated into the Gotei 13, none of them donned their Hollow masks -- not even when Kensei and Rose were in near-death situations. Which does make sense considering the Gotei 13's immense hatred towards Hollows. I wonder if it's just honour, or if there's some kind of magical seal that physically prevents them from using the masks?
  • Really love that when all of the other Sternritter ladies are charging in with their powers active, Giselle is just punching the air, cheering them on.
  • Realistically, while it's probably just going to be Kira fighting against the Barro-birds, I wouldn't mind Aizen or the Fullbringers joining in. Is it also perhaps too much to hope that we get some confirmation of Robert Accutrone's death, since we're on ground level? 
  • I like how Uryu's initial response to Ichigo's questioning is that "isn't your dad also a doctor?" and Ichigo just handwaves his dad as being more of a rowdy person than a proper doctor. 
  • Ryuken having a Sun Key implies that either Soken or a more distant ancestor was a Sternritter. I do want to see this -- if nothing else to see how the Ishida clan ended up in Japan, alive but seemingly ostracized from the other Vandenreich Quincies. 
  • So, presuming that the final cour has 13 episodes, and we're going to need 1 episode for the Askin-vs-Yoruichi/Urahara fight, 1 episode for the Gerard-vs-everyone fight, 1 episode for the Uryu/Haschwalth fight, 1 episode for Juhabach-vs-Ichigo and 1 episode for the epilogue... that leaves 8 whole episodes to work with! Even with the fights being a bit more extended and giving some room for them, we're still looking at anywhere between 5-8 episodes to fit in a proper flashback episode for Juhabach and the Soul King, a proper flashback for Ryuken, a proper emotional resolution to Uryu's betrayal, a proper emotional resolution to Isshin's story, Fullbringer content, Kira-vs-Barrobirds... might we get another Rukia Bankai? Might we get another Shinji Bankai? Might Nel or Soi Fon do something? Hell, we might even get Shuhei's Bankai for real! Even if we only get some and not all of this, I'd be happy!

Sunday, 26 January 2025

One Piece 1137 Review: Horns and Scars

One Piece, Chapter 1137: Shamrock Takes the Stage


So, we get a fun world-building chapter! At least until the last couple of pages, at which point it becomes a 'villain-hyping' chapter. I realize I'm a bit late to the party, but it's not because I don't like the chapter -- it's a pretty great one! That said, not much happens for the first half other than the Straw Hats and Rodo walking around the castle... which is all just a vessel for Rodo to give us a lot of exposition. Again, a lot of it builds up a lot into many of the themes that the Elbaph arc seems to be pretty happy to explore, like reputation among the public, pacifism, prophecy and the direction a country should take. 

Rodo is a nice vessel of exposition as he explains about King Harald, and the massive battle that took place in the castle during the battle that claimed Harald's life. Loki and Jarul were the only survivors of that battle, and Loki allegedly killed around 100 guards in addition to Harald as well. I find it rather cute that of all things, it's Luffy jumping around these corpses that gets him asking about how some of the skulls have horns, just like Oars... leading Rodo to tell us something the fandom kind of guessed from a while back -- Ancient Giants are a subset of giants, and some traits still appear among giants whose lineage go all the way back. Rodo also shows the Straw Hats a picture of King Harald, who is also one of these horned giants... except he ripped out the horns from his own head because he viewed the horns as a sign of war. 

Luffy and company also finally learn that Hajrudin is Loki's brother... or rather, half-brother. Loki was born to the queen, while Hajrudin was born to a different woman from a non-Elbaph giant tribe. This explains why Hajrudin was never referred to by the title of prince. It's also a nice tie-in to how Saul noted how he came from a different giant village that didn't think the most highly of Elbaf. I do like the discussion that happened next, with Zoro being a bit baffled at why they would hate each other before Rodo reminds him that humans kill each other over, well, essentially racist nonsense like 'tainted blood'. 

Zoro asks Rodo why he would follow Hajrudin if he had this supposed 'tainted blood', and... we get a flashback to Rodo's backstory. Which is pretty bitch-basic shonen nakama backstory, admittedly. Rodo was a geek that got bullied, Hajrudin shows up and sees Rodo for his skills and not his weirdness, and basically shanghais him into his crew the way Luffy does so with many of his friends. 

Rodo notes how Hajrudin has had a lot of hardships in his youths, but god damn it, he has a dream to be the "King of Giants". We cut to adult Hajrudin with his crew yelling the same thing in the party -- with a lot of admirers around him. Zoro sighs and notes that it's a "boring motivation" that's nothing new to him, but I think he's not exactly dismissive of Rodo's dream but just kind of pissed that he's finding something in common with such a creep. We cut away from this just as Luffy finds the knocked-out giant guards.

And we cut to the Underworld again, where Not-Shanks and Gunko have beaten up a whole lot more animals. Gunko is later revealed to have the powers of the "Arrow Arrow Fruit", so... she's a regular Devil Fruit user. There has been some discussion on whether the Gods' Knights would even utilize Devil Fruits at all (from the god/devil dichotomy, it would make sense for them to hate Devil Fruits), or if they're getting their powers from Imu directly or something stranger. But at the very least Gunko is a fruit user.

Gunko's arrow powers are... interesting. Most people thought that her ability was something along the lines of 'ribbons' or 'bandages', and she still uses the arrows she creates similarly to a substance-creating fruit. In a very ridiculous sequence, Gunko creates super-long boots out of the arrows that are longer than she is tall. I guess Oda took the 'legs' memes that people were making out of Gunko last chapter to heart! The two Gods' Knights have beaten up a whole lot of Loki's animal friends, and are beating the shit out of Loki. And... Not-Shanks claims that the result would be the same regardless of whether Loki is tied up or not, but it's also... not the most impressive thing regardless to beat up someone that's incapable of fighting back. 

Interestingly, Gunko's arrows then manifest... rather strangely? Out of the shadows under her feet some arrows pop up and seem to telegraph where she's going to kick. Loki is able to describe it based on the arrows, which seem to take time to coil into place to show Gunko's kick and uppercut. Gunko claims this shows the 'unavoidable' trajectory of her future, which... okay? Sure. The art in the action scenes is pretty cool as Gunko whirls around as the arrows have described, and it always is special when a mangaka is able to take such a ridiculous design like this form of Gunko and make some cool panels out of it. I'm just not as intimidated as this 'arrows show the direction of my punch' ability as I was when Gunko was just manipulating arrow-ribbons. 

Gunko then threatens Loki with like a swarm of a dozen arrows, to which Loki pulls a bit of a troll move where he yells "stop, enough!" followed by a raspberry. So yeah. Loki is pretty interesting as a character if nothing else. 

We then cut away to Not-Shanks, and we finally zoom in on his clean, un-scarred face and his two hands. To the surprise of no one, turns out that Not Shanks is actually not Shanks! I'm not sure if this is the most epic reveal that we could've gotten from him, or if it would've been more impactful if we had seen this before (around the same time that Gunko's identity is revealed to the audience) or later on when he eventually meets Luffy or someone. But Not-Shanks is actually 'Figarland Shamrock', which... admittedly is not the most intimidating name. Neither is 'Garling', though. I'm sure it'll eventually grow on me? We'll see. 

Shamrock is also confirmed to be the captain of the God's Knights, and the son of Garling. We also get the confirmation that Gunko is the user of the Arrow-Arrow Fruit. Shamrock wants to contact Mary-Geoise, and notes that not every piece is useful. Shamrock notes that the fierce warriors of Elbaph used to dominate the new world... and now, the World Government is about to make them heel. Very nice. The Gods' Knights as the primary antagonists of Elbaph is a pretty fun setup, and kind of a nice way to keep the momentum and focus on the World Government as the ultimate Big Bad of the story (at least of this part of the story) going after the Gorosei showed up in Egghead. Looking forward to see what Shamrock and company will do!

Random Notes:
  • Yamato Inari Pilgrimage Cover Story: Yamato and gang sneak around Who's Who's base, and see a bunch of cat-themed Gifters standing guard. Nothing much to write home about, but it's nice to see the story progressing a bit. 
  • It really is a bit weird that the corpses of every giant warrior that died during the Loki/Harald fight are just left there in the castle where they died? That feels a bit odd. There were the two guards in the castle as well, which I thought was a bit weird with how Ouest Castle was shown to be all but completely sealed up. 
  • Ouest Castle is really huge, and I like that panel where the size of the door is compared not to our human characters, but to the giant Rodo. 
  • So in addition to Oars, Harald, Loki and the background characters in Elbaf, we can assume that anyone else with horns -- like Kaido and Yamato, the Numbers, and maybe even Moria --  have Ancient Giant's blood in them. I find it rather interesting that we spent years with Kaido as the main villain, and no one ever brought up the horns or the alleged 'oni' thing!
  • I like the single panel of Zoro nodding in manly respect over King Harald's conviction -- as someone who was willing to die several times for his captain's dream, that's something he would be impressed by. 
  • The 'tainted blood' stuff extends to giants from other tribes, and I wonder if someone like Colon, who had the blood of non-giants, would've had even worse racism.
  • Some people have compared Gunko's ability to a character called 'Medusa Gorgon' from Soul Eater. I haven't read that manga yet, but I guess I have another one to add to the pile. I think there was also a minor villain who uses balls and directions in Demon Slayer?
  • I'm not sure how significant it is since the original printings of the Gorosei name reveals were missing 'Saints' for half of them, but Gunko is also not listed as a 'World Noble' where Shamrock is. Is that why Gunko is so obsessed about being 'offered divinity'?

Thursday, 23 January 2025

Reviewing Monsters: Elden Ring, Part 5

So yeah, after powering up a bit with a couple more minor dungeons under my belt and running into Caelid to grab a couple of extra power-ups (Rock Sling + Meteorite Staff), I decided to tackle Stormveil Castle again. There is a lot more to the castle, interestingly enough, on the eastern side that I never really explored. Bizarrely I got all the way to the giant golden wall that leads to the big boss room, complete with friendly NPC Nepheli Loux, without passing through the eastern side of the castle... which I suppose is realistic in a way. It's just rather odd that there's so many different levels on the west side, and the east side seems to just be rather flat grounds with lots of enemies and maybe a couple of towers?

There are, at least, a couple of extra new one-off enemies in Godrick's castle which does help to address my earlier complaint, but I really did feel like there could've been more. More Trolls, more Living Jars, more Strays, more... stuff than just having 90% of the castle be just Exile Soldiers, Warhawks and Banished Knights. 

Anyway, I did explore a fair chunk of the castle, including a bonus miniboss that I could've completely missed if I went straight to Godrick after exploring through the whole eastern side. So I have a bunch more I'm gonna talk about here! (I couldn't beat the Ulcerated Tree Spirit thing yet, so it's not here. But rest assured that I know it exists, and I'll talk about it in full detail at some point)
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Mausoleum Knight
We'll start off with some non-Stormveil enemies! Wandering around the Weeping Peninsula is a giant 'WanderingMausoleum'. But walking around the mausoleum are these guys. Ghostly apparitions of knights... without heads. They can also teleport around a bit. These guys patrol around the giant Walking Mausoleum, attacking any fools that dare come close... as if the giant Walking Mausoleum itself isn't already impressive enough. 

An interesting visual, and apparently these guys, like the tree guardians, are also willing servitors in death, performing some kind of ritual that involves them losing their heads in the process to guard the tomb for all eternity. 


Wandering Mausoleum
What are Wandering Mausoleums, you ask? Well, these guys have been showing up all over the load-screens with no real context, and it's when I met one around the Weeping Peninsula that I finally realize what I was looking at. This thing looks so much more impressive in motion, particularly with the loud ringing GONG's of the gigantic bell under it. It literally is what you'd expect from something called a 'Wandering Mausoleum' -- a whole-ass building atop a chunk of the land, which sprouts four dinosaurian or elephantine-like legs and is jsut walking around while the bell under it makes large, ominous gongs. 

It's honestly such a majestic and awesome setpiece that I really was surprised to find out that this thing isn't hostile at all. I mean, it'll still kill you if it accidentally steps on you, but that's about it. Most of the threat comes from the headless ghost-knights that seem to escort this thing around the land as it moves in a predetermined route. Most of the damage, in fact, will come from you trying to get the Wandering Mausoleum to stop so that you can go in and do some grave-robbing. 

How do you, in fact, stop one of these lumbering colossi, you ask? It was a bit hard to figure out, but turns out that around the Wandering Mausoleum's giant titan legs are these: 

They're a bunch of white, encrusted stuff that resemble barnacles in shape. Not too creepy to find on a giant pillar. But a closer inspection reveals that instead of little crustacean mouth-holes, the holes are shaped into screaming skulls. As you attack and clear these skull-barnacles from the legs of the Wandering Mausoleum, the way they dissipate turns them into ash just like many of the bosses in the game, confirming that these bizarre barnacle-souls are alive; to some definition of 'alive', at least. 

And after you destroy all of these barnacles? The Mausoleum grinds to a halt and sinks back into the earth, allowing you to jump and climb up to access the building on top of it. All Mausoleum Knights around it also disappear. Are these the 'tethers', the literal heads of the knights? Did the ritual that make the Mausoleum Knights also animate the grounds connected to the mausoleum? If so, what is the purpose? Is it a strange burial ritual, or is there something more to it? 

Regardless, I love how creepy they are and just how much of a great set-piece they are in this world. It's a bit more whimsical than most of the other things in this game, perhaps, but I do think it fits in perfectly. 

Chanting Winged Dame
Essentially the 'elite' versions of the Giant Bats that has became little more than a nuisance at this part of the game, Chanting Winged Dames are your traditional 'harpies', with very human-looking faces placed on top of the bats. They also sing rather melodiously -- which made me mistake the song as an important NPC and I was running around trying to find her before a bunch of giant bloodthirsty bats attack me. 

The Dames' song lyrics are actually in Latin and has been translated, and it's surprisingly mournful for what it is. I'm not sure if the Winged Dame are truly mournful and mean what they sing, or if they're just repeating what they heard to lure luckless Tarnished to their doom. Sentient enemies don't tend to really want to communicate with you, so it really could go either way.  

Clayman
Thanks to a random elevator I found while exploring the overworld, I ventured into the Siofra River, which is a location deep, deep underground. And it's populated by these... guys. Claymen. They look like rough fascimiles of humans, wielding glowing spears and shambling towards you in a way not too different than the zombies. They're much tougher, and they have hollow eyes and a face that tapers down into drooping clay... well, you can either consider it a beard or Cthulhu-esque tentacles. When they die, they melt down into globs of clay. 

And... sure, we've seen golem enemies before in games. They tend to be more hulking brutes instead of skinny old men, but turns out that these aren't like, magically animated clay or something, but rather the remnants of exploration teams who entered these underground lands in search of archaeology, but are mutated by whatever energies are within the undergrounds. Instead of becoming Morlocks, however, they become clay. And that is a bit more creepy and disturbing than just having them degenerate into pale sub-human gibbering creatures, or 'just' into zombies or thralls or tentacle-beasts. Clay is such an inorganic substance that to see that these guys were once humans and are turned into things that just resemble the shape of humans (remember, they melt into clay blobs when they die) is rather disturbing. 


Omen
Ah, so that's an Omen? "Margit, the Fell Omen" wasn't just talking about omens as in the regular noun meaning a portent or a prophetic vision, but that he's an actual member of the Omens, a type of creature? Interesting. There's one of this guy sitting in Stormveil Castle, and he's a big, more traditional-looking ogre compared to the stomach-less, bearded trolls of the setting. The Omen has a giant sword, a bunch of armour pieces, and what looks initially like red growths on his body that I mistook as the Caelid fungi the first time I saw him. When I looked at the pictures on the wiki when I'm not too busy trying to dodge Mr. Omen, though, they're actually sawed-off stumps of... horns or something. 

Normally I don't really try to spoil myself on lore of characters or the setting when I trawl the online wikis for pictures, but I got spoiled a bit about the Omen, and it does help add some kind of a context to them. Omens, apparently, are some kind of a mutation where they are born with horns. "Omen born to commoners often have their horns excised, generally ending in the child's death, while Omen born to nobility are allowed to retain their gnarled horns, but are hidden away underground to live in obscurity." Now clearly the Omen we fight don't quite have full-on horns, with them having been sawn off. I guess even if the horns are sawn off, they can sometimes survive?

There is a parallel to be drawn with how people in medieval times would treat birth deformities as being something 'devilish', when those would've been considered as being perfectly able to live a normal life in modern times. I'm not sure if the gigantic statue of the Omens are a result of their Omen mutation, or if it's something else entirely.

Lion Guardian
This guy is a miniboss guarding a regal-looking courtyard on the eastern side of the Stormveil Castle. I guess if you tried to waltz in like a boss and brave the gauntlet of ballistas from the front castle, this would be the miniboss you face instead of how I snuck around the side door and moved through wine cellars and chapels and dining rooms to fight the Grafted Scion?

I suppose the Lion Guardian is another showcase of a 'grafted' creature, though it's nowhere as epic as the Grafted Scion being a giant spider-monster made up of dozens of limbs. The Lion Guardian sure does look impressive, but at the end of the day it is just a feral, ragged lion with couple of armour pieces and a giant sword 'grafted' onto its legs. Honestly, I don't even think it's even grafted on, it just looks like Godrick used some chains to attach a blade to the Lion Guardian and called it a day. 

Pretty neat-looking, and pretty haggard looking. I don't dislike it as a miniboss, I suppose. Sure makes a nice breather from all those endless armies of humanoid soldiers. 

Living Jar
JAR BOIS! I actually met a Living Jar ally, the friendly Alexander the Iron Fist, basically within the first couple hours of gameplay. Alexander got his big fat jar ass stuck in the ground, and he needed us to whack him from behind to free him. And... it was just confusing what these jars are. 

And a single room in Stormveil is filled with a trove of these jars. Most are quite small, the size of small pots and jars, but there's one big one the size of Alexander that's around twice the size of a regular human. And... they're pretty adorable, aren't they? Little pot people with their lids sealed, and they've got gnarly long arms and stubby little legs seemingly made up of some rocky or dirt-y material. Pretty adorable, and while the ones in Stormveil are waddling around before they attack me, I could imagine that they could make a living acting as this setting's Mimic, hiding as regular jars. I guess there just aren't that many jars in the actual background of these environments. (They'd give Link hell, though). 

Of course, in anything whimsical from a Souls-like game, there must always be something creepy. You visibly see a giant explosion of blood and viscera whenever you defeat and shatter one of these jars. And the jars drop rather disturbing items -- the raw meat dumpling is a nasty ball of meat and viscera that explicitly tells you that you don't want to know where it comes from; while the living jar shard show how the consistency of the porcelain-like 'skin' of the jars give way to flesh. 

Alexander being a very intelligent and kind soul really does emphasize how these guys are alive and have human sentience, even though the implication is that the Living Jars contain... well, human body parts. It's quite disturbing... who's making these jars? Do the jars reproduce by killing and stuffing more human parts into jars? Did Godrick make them? Are their personalities independent of the humans that make them? Apparently there will be some other quests that explore their story, and the DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, actually feature the contents of the Jars as enemies and they look disturbing. That is currently the only thing I know from the DLC, and... yeah. I almost wished we didn't actually get to see what they are, because that quantifies them a bit and I kinda enjoyed the Living Jars just being this creepy unknown. 


Godrick the Grafted
"Forefathers, one and all... bear witness!"

There we go. I have expressed some disappointment about the content of monsters within Godrick's castle, but Godrick really does live up to his moniker of being 'the Grafted'. Our first impression of him is a hunchbacked, cloaked titan, until he shakes off his cloak and reveals his super-long gorilla arms with multiple extra arms grafted and dangling off of his upper limbs. His 'main' arms, by the way, are made by clumps and clumps of arms. He dual-wields gigantic axes, one of which is held by one of his itty-bitty arms that grows out of one of his elbows, and he's hammy as all hell

He's basically a more 'complete' version of the Grafted Scion miniboss we saw before, where the Grafted Scion scuttles around like a crab-spider thing while most of Godrick's grafting basically just makes him bigger and super-duper buff. The various information we've learned from various NPC's both inside and outside of Stormveil Castle paint a pathetic image of Godrick -- he is related to the gods and demigods of the land, but his bloodline is 'diluted' and he's met defeat to at least two other demigods, being forced to retreat, once 'disguised among the retreating womenfolk'.

Honestly, since FromSoftware clearly doesn't have a shortage of creepy monsters in subsequent areas, I now think it's intentional that Godrick's castle is filled with 90% humanoids and warhawks, with the occasional single Grafted Scion, big lion, or Omen... even as a Lord of Grafting, Godrick sucks at it. Or he's so selfish that he takes almost everything to himself. I guess that makes sense from a lore perspective, but it doesn't make Stormveil Castle any less boring to explore from an enemies standpoint. 

Either way, the fight against him is... actually a fair bit easier than Margit's. I think it's a factor of me being a bit more leveled and understanding the fight more, but the arena we fight Godrick is a rather huge courtyard with more room to maneuver. Godrick mostly just jumps around with surprising speed, swinging around his axe and creating wind-themed shockwaves, essentially the jacked-up version of the same skill that we see the Banished Knights do in the castle. That, I suppose, ties into the 'Stormveil' theme (the area does have constant storms) though I don't think Godrick's design or personality communicates the wind aspect too much. 

He is a video game boss, and as such he has a second phase. It's a very metal one, even if I personally don't think it makes the second phase all too much harder. It's hella memorable, though, and you can watch it here. Godrick just slices off one of his arms, and sticks it into the head of a dragon... and the dragon head sputters to life and starts breathing fire as Godrick yells to the heavens to BEAR WITNESS!

I do like that he only does this once, to preserve the epic impact -- one could design a Godrick-like boss to graft, like, a Runebear arm at one phase, or a knight's shield, or something, but I like that it's just the one time, and that one time is just so insanely over-the-top. I can't not like Godrick. He adds a couple of additional fire-breathing attacks now that he's got a dragon as an arm, which I thought was pretty cool. 
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Anyway, a pretty banger ending to Stormveil Castle! See you next time for more monster reviews as I wrap up Limgrave and start my journey to the next area, Liurnia of the Lakes!

Wednesday, 22 January 2025

Bleach TYBW E39 Review: tobiume vs. the mirAcle!

Bleach, Thousand-Year Blood War, Episode 39: The Visible Answer


And so we begin the two-parter finale for the third cour of the Thousand-Year Blood War anime. This episode combines a lot of the scattered scenes of the other two Schutzstaffel members that hasn't been covered in the two-parter episodes, which are Sternritter "M" Gerard Valkyrie and "D" Askin Nakk Le Vaar. We've gotten a fair chunk of Askin content here and there throughout the previous episodes, and while I'm a bit disappointed that we didn't actually get to see Askin beat Ichigo on-screen, it is nice that the anime at least gives us a reason how Askin takes Ichigo out. Meanwhile, keeping all of the Gerard scenes out of the way helps to streamline all of the previous major fights, removing the random distractions while also making the entire Gerard sequence flow a lot better here. 

But we start off with another interestingly ominous scene of the 12th Division scientists in the Soul Society, watching as the twitching maybe-corpse of Captain Ukitake begin to twitch with the Mimihagi shadows. The resulting scene is a bit ambiguous on what's exactly happening, with the shadow tendrils seemingly curling around and making a tree-shape? I'm really not sure what's going on here, or if it'll lead to a more elaborate Ukitake death scene or something, but it's nice that it seems like we're going to have something more out of Ukitake's sacrifice.

The scene then cuts to Ishida Uryu standing in front of a Gate of the Sun before Jugram Haschwalth, fresh off of his fight against Bazz-B, shows up. The action flows a lot better here since Haschwalth ins't MIA for 20 chapters in-between 'Friend' and 'Visible Answer' this time around! Haschwalth puts up a bit of a cocky look here as they recap the power-swap thing, and Haschwalth shows off his Almighty triple-pupils. I do wonder if the slight change in Haschwalth's demeanour has something to do with Juhabach's powers seeping into him? Uryu asks Haschwalth if he sees him becoming a traitor, while Haschwalth muses that he hasn't said anything about treachery and asks if Uryu is confessing his true agenda before the supreme power of the Almighty... wihch Uryu immediately denies.

I really do wish we did get maybe one or two extra scenes of Haschwalth (or other Sternritters -- Lille, Bazz, someone) confronting Uryu about his loyalties to the Sternritter. Obviously with scenes of Uryu actually participating in seeming deathmatches against his friends, this scene of Uryu's allegiance has a lot more weight in the anime as compared to the manga. Haschwalth draws his blade and continues to glare at Uryu... and his eyes briefly flash blue. I'm not entirely sure what this is supposed to represent, but the Uryu/Haschwalth fight is one of the fights that needs a big rewrite and I hope we get to see something more interesting here since that was one of the fights that got very chopped up in the manga. 

We cut away to setting up the Gerard Valkyrie fight, another sequence that was also famously chopped up a lot in the source material. Just like the 'gateway' sequence earlier this cour, the anime has wisely gathered all of the various short scenes of Shinji's group encountering Gerard Valkyrie and merged them together in this episode. 

And what a fun entrance! We get the big group charging in towards the castle, only for Gerard Valkyrie to slam down and crash in front of our heroes like a meteor. Urahara and Shinji both have some smart-aleck comments to make about this, but Gerard is a big, hammy showman and gives a whole boasting speech. Unexpectedly for the anime, we get an adaptation of a scene from the manga where Abarai Renji uses Zabimaru to restrain one of Gerard's arms. This is a scene lifted from the manga, but since Renji got a brand-new fight that left him in an incapacitated state in the anime, I was wondering if this scene was going to instead be given to one of the others.

And... we get a flashback to how Renji survived the Uryu shot to the heart, which is... a bit of a weak explanation, I feel. Hiyori and the other Visored are apparently just wandering around that area. They comment about how clean the wound is, which allows Hachigen to create a Kido box and heal Renji. It's... it's honestly a bit too simple. Hopefully a future episode would add in some of the obligatory-but-necessary 'I knew it wasn't a killshot' moment from either Uryu or Renji. Crucially, though, this does mean that the Visoreds actually do something in this adaptation, where they were very famously forgotten in the manga. 

This also nicely adds a little bit of a reason why Renji sticks to his Shikai for a majority of the sequences we see him fight Gerard -- recovering from such a brutal fight with Uryu, it makes sense if he has to recharge and recover a bit. 

Renji tells the other Shinigami that he's going to handle Gerard, and Shinji is about to lead the group away... but Gerard knocks Zabimaru away, and in one of the most ridiculous but funniest sequences in the manga, Gerard jumps in front of Shinji's group... and his cape expands and hardens and slams down on the ground like a wall. It's such a random ability that has nothing to do with Qiuncy powers or The Miracle, but there you go -- Gerard's sentient wall-transforming cape. That exists!

The other surviving Schutzstaffel, Askin, we've seen confronting Grimmjow and later Ichigo, and... well, Ichigo still gets beaten offscreen, face-planted onto the ground. It's still a bit annoying that this happens, but I really did think that the addition of Askin muttering about changing the type of dosage of his reishi poison a couple of episodes ago was a really good way to make this a lot more believable.  Askin also drops some lore about the Elite Guard, reiterating that Lille Barro was the first Sternritter to receive a Schrift... but Pernida and Gerard were not. They had their powers even before becoming Sternritter, and were assigned honorary Schrifts that matched their powers instead of the other way around. Askin then notes that there are rumours that Pernida and Gerard are respectively the Right Arm and Heart of the Soul King. 

Orihime and Chad arrive to assist Ichigo, and Chad tries his Brazo Derecha de Gigante attack... only for Askin to quickly create a field of 'Gift Bad'. Unlike how the rest of Askin's powers have been shown in the anime (which are glowing purple reishi effects) Gift Bad takes the form of an area that kind of looks like an oil spill or something. This essentially takes Chad and Orihime out of the fight as well, while Askin finally explains what "The Deathdealing" does. He can select any kind of substance he wants to turn toxic to someone else, and he needs to ingest a large amount of whatever he designates -- such as reishi (which is natural to Quincies) or blood (as in the Nimaiya fight). It's one of the relatively more complex and weirder powers in Bleach, and while we did breeze through Askin's first power exposition during the Nimaiya fight, I'm glad this longer explanation is retained. 

As Askin gloats, we get a legendary line from Yoruichi, who is hanging upside-down from a chunk of rubble behind Askin, identifying him as "one of those guys who likes to talk a lot of nonsense". Lady, that's like 90% of the Bleach cast! Yoruichi makes a morbid comment about how since Ichigo, Chad and Orihime are incapacitated, Askin could just walk up and, y'know, snap their necks. Askin notes that he had this conversation with Bambietta before, musing about what is it about beautiful women asking him to do such 'distasteful' things. 

Askin then does an amazingly-animated spin-kick while Yoruichi does a very elaborate spin-around in the air, and... the animation for this episode ratchets up a lot. Both Askin and especially Yoruichi are animated very fluidly and beautifully, and while this has been something common with the Thousand-Year Blood War anime in general, it's especially noticeable with the Yoruichi scenes in this episode... especially when you compare it with the Yoruichi-Askin scenes from the next one. 

Anyway, Askin tells us a bit of his philosophy -- his way of killing people is utilizing his lethal dosage Deathdealing gimmick to kill them, and he's not about all that brutish strangling thing. He then talks about how while people like Yoruichi and Bambietta are beautiful, the most important thing is style. Yoruichi responds with a badass Shunko transformation as we do a very highly-detailed spin-around of her while her outer clothes burn away, revealing her skintight bodysuit beneath. 

We get a very cool sequence as Askin launches several arrows at Yoruichi, who speed-blitzes forwards and does a spinning sequence as she evades one arrow, grabs the other arrow mid-air, and chucks it at Askin. The repurposed arrow slams Askin with so much force that he gets throw through a building and into another one. Askin is tough enough to be unharmed, but Yoruichi unleashes her next ability, which is probably one of the single coolest interpretation of one of the manga's attacks to make it into animation. 

They did not need to go this hard for this one attack, but it was so awesome how we just follow Yoruichi's hand as she taps and creates six floating orbs of electricity in a ring around her, with appropriate 'bang' sound effects and flashing screens. The camera pans out as Yoruichi announces the name of the attack -- Shunko: Raijin Senkei -- as the reishi and electricity explode around her. Yoruichi then brings the mother of all thunderbolts down upon Askin, vaporizing every building other than a small, vertical strip that Yoruichi herself is standing on. That is so cool. 

As this happens, we cut back to the Gerard Valkyrie fight, where he isn't faring particularly well. Gerard points out just how many adversaries he is facing, and rants about how it would take a miracle for him to defeat all of them. He gives a little speech about how miracles are only miracles if the odds are truly stacked against someone... and Byakuya recognizes this as an anime villain about to pull off some dastardly trick and just unleashes Senbonzakura down and shreds Gerard. The anime still cuts away from the actual impact, but the state of the helmet implies that Byakuya most likely blendered Gerard's head into a paste. We get an interesting moment where Momo asks if Byakuya should've taken things that far... but Shinji admonishes Momo, and, well, considering the amount of shit the Quincies has done, and how Gerard was actually talking some shit that implies he's got a trump card, Byakuya did the absolute right thing.

...except, unfortunately for Captain Kuchiki, he didn't. Against any other enemy in Bleach, this "kill them before they finish their monologue and unleash their trump card technique" would have been so useful! It would be a rare moment of genre savviness for our heroes. But alas, Team Shinji just pushes forwards, leaving Gerard's body in a pool of blood. 

We briefly cut away to see the human world in Karakura Town where an earthquake shakes the Kurosaki clinic, causing Yuzu to panic while Karin is blasé about it. The tremors continue, though, and in Digimon Adventure style we even see rifts in the sky and the Soul Society appearing in the skies above Japan. The same tremors also shake Hueco Mundo. We cut back to see the silent forms of Juhabach and Kamikake!Ukitake, and while we don't really get a full explanation, I think the implication is that Juhabach hasn't been enacting his plan due to resistance from Ukitake and Mimihagi, and the tremors are caused by Juhabach finally winning and getting ever so closer to what he wants to do with the Soul King's power. 

As the tremors subside, Yoruichi tells Orihime (who's been healing Ichigo and Chad) to keep going while she deals with Askin. As Ichigo and company goes off, Askin returns with a huge chunk of his uniform torn off, and laments about how Juhabach is going to tell him off for letting Ichigo through. Askin then gets the name of Yoruichi's technique wrong... causing a very offended little bratty voice to protest that it is called Raijin Senkei, and it's an honourable technique, and his sister is the best, and... yeah, welcome to no one's favourite Bleach character, Shihoin Yushiro. 

The anime, thankfully, dials down Yushiro's obnoxious scenes a fair amount here, keeping the funniest joke and purging the rest. Yushiro was such a random last-minute addition to the cast and such an utterly irrelevant character who adds nothing to the story other than being beaten up by Askin here. With so many other characters who are struggling for screentime, back then a lot of people are wondering why Yushiro's role in this fight wasn't taken up by Soi Fon, or Shinji, or Chad, or anyone else.

Anyway, we get the funny scene where Yushiro has absolutely no concept of sarcasm at all. Yoruichi isn't particularly pleased at her snotty little brother being here and is quite sarcastic about it but everything goes over the moronic Yushiro's head and he just misinterprets everything as praise. Askin accidentally calls Yushiro a 'young woman', prompting Yushiro to angrily declare that he's a dude, then charges in and delivers the mother of all sucker punches to Askin's face. Yushiro then follows this up with an actually very well-animated barrage of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure style punches while Askin yells and tells Yushiro to slow down while he clutches his face. Yushiro culminates his attack with Shunko: Baku'en Muso, creating a gigantic explosion of flame. 

We cut away to Team Shinji, and a giant shadow looms over them... and the gigantic form of Gerard Valkyrie arrives, slamming down and forcing Rukia and Urahara to dodge the gigantic foot. The gigantic Gerard declares his Schrift, "The Miracle", and explains its abilities -- he can convert damage done to him into 'God Size', and this is apparently the largest he has became with the power of his Schrift. Gerard rips off random spires and starts launching them at the Shinigami. 

In a sequence lifted straight from the manga, Shinji grabs Momo before she's thrown off Wahrwelt, but giant Gerard rushes in and slams down his palm on the two of them. In the manga... this was it for poor, poor Hirako Shinji. Multiple aborted fights with different Sternritter, a whole lot of dialogue, and ignomiously taken out not even with a proper named technique.

In the anime, however, Hirako Shinji, Captain of the Fifth Division, isn't going down without a fight! He and Momo burst out of the smoke, and we get a pretty fun sequence as Momo uses a combination of Tobiume's flames and a Bakudo spell to create a giant reishi trampoline. The Bakudo spell is Tsuriboshi, which Momo used in the Fake Karakura Town fight. Momo releases Tobiume and this allows the reishi trampoline to launch both her and Shinji into the sky -- because the choreographers remember that the Shinigami can't freely fly in Wahrwelt! 

Once in the sky, Shinji unleashes Hado #91: Senju Koten Taiho, without an incantation, creating a storm of machine-gun flames that pepper Gerard's face. This was the Hado spell that Ukitake used against Aizen in that battle, which is awesome. And as Gerard reels back in pain, motherfucking Momo unleashes a gigantic fireball from Tobiume into Gerard's mouth which explodes and it really looks quite painful! This is the true miracle, that Hinamori Momo got such a badass sequence given to her in this anime. What a nice addition! Again, I don't want a rewrite where Shinji randomly uses his Bankai to beat Gerard or whatever, since that isn't true to the spirit of the source material. But actually showing them do stuff and not just take up space is really cool! I don't doubt most of the secondary cast will still be taken out by Gerard, but just like the other extended fights, showing that they at least put up a fight instead of being taken out like bitches is so much better.

Gerard does swat Shinji and Momo onto the side of a building after that sequence, though they're not quite out yet. Byakuya attacks with Senbonzakura but it just pings off of Gerard, and... poor, poor Soi Fon pulls out her Bankai, Jakuho Raikoben... but doesn't even get to fire it as Gerard smashes the building that the two of them are standing on. Poor Soi Fon! She didn't even get to use her Bankai against the shadow-blob monsters either. Could've at least let her fire the damn thing! Gerard then does the giant breathing attack that he does in the manga to blow away Rukia and Renji as well, boasting that not even a miracle can save them. 

We cut back to the Askin/Yoruichi fight. Yoruichi berates Yushiro for butting into her fight, although she also praises Yushiro for being able to master Shunko so quickly. Askin, however, emerges from the dust and rubble, still alive. The dark wounds on Askin's body begins to flake off as he tells them that he can control the lethal dose of anything he intakes, and in this case, Yushiro merely nearly kills him. And now, Askin is immune to this particular flavour of Reiatsu. Yushiro is as confused as most Bleach readers at this proclamation, however, and charges in with Shunko again. 

Yushiro's Shunko, however, doesn't even move Askin, and we get a very badass sequence as Yushiro is just impaled by three arrows that fall from the sky while Askin calmly walks past him. If nothing else, at least Yushiro got an appropriately painful-looking exit! Askin drops his 'lethal mistake' one-liner as we cut away from them. 

The final scene in the episode is a continuation of the Haschwalth and Uryu scene. Haschwalth notes something about scales and balance, and tells Uryu to prove that he isn't a traitor... and attacks Uryu, blowing him through a wall... and right in front of Ichigo, Chad and Orihime. Uryu and Ichigo glare at each other as the credits roll. And the post-credits scene is Isshin and Ryuken in a massive graveyard, discussing that it's about time to go. 

So, yeah. I am really happy with the changes made here. While we get a rather all right first half of a fight with Askin Nakk Le Vaar, both the battles against Haschwalth and Gerard were always messily handled, being chopped up and inserted in-between other confrontations. The anime also has clearly a much better track record to at least keep track of the secondary characters and hopefully give them better exits in battle. But in general, this is just a really fun episode to watch!

Random Notes:
  •  I really do like that the 'excuse' for Gerard being absent throughout the past five episode is just him being lost and yelling after picking a corner where the Shinigami wasn't attacking from. In the manga, this 'being lost' only delays him for a little and a lot of the fight sequences we see here are seen piecemeal throughout the Pernida and Lille fights, but the restructuring here is really nice; keeping Askin as the only 'piecemeal' fight and collating all the Gerard sequences here. 
  • Removed from this episode and the next is everything about the Reishi-diffusing chips that Uryu has scattered all around Wahrwelt, which means that Uryu either has a different plan, or something.
  • A removed line from Askin is him noting that Gerard should use his Schift because Lille Barro has fallen, which always felt a bit weird since Gerard's Miracle isn't really tied to anything Lille does. Some of the lines are altered a bit as well, in response to them rearranging the scenes of Gerard going giant, as well as Yushiro arriving a bit later than he did in the manga. 
  • Ironically, despite the title of this episode, nothing from the chapter titled "The Visible Answer" is adapted into this episode, with content from that chapter being adapted into the next episode instead. 
  • I really do find it a bit of a shame that we don't get a bit more of an extended fight for Grimmjow and Askin in particular. While there's still time for more in the second part of the Askin fight, I've always found it to be ridiculously anticlimactic -- even among Bleach's other many underutilized characters -- that we've been building Grimmjow's return for literal years and he barely had a confrontation with Askin before disappearing into the background. 
  • Since Askin needs to ingest something to turn it toxic against someone else, theoretically if anyone else fighting him drank cafe au lait before the fight, they would be royally fucked against Askin.
    • I also find it funny that despite Askin bitching about how he is 'full' during the Ichigo fight and he needs some time for his stomach to process more substances, he's been going around having picnics and drinking cafe au laits throughout the arc. 
  • It's a bit of a throwaway line, but I really like the idea that some of the more 'human' Sternritter like Bambietta and Askin just kind of hang around and gossip, talking shit about each other's methods. 
  • I always love it that Askin has like these... gym wristbands or something that spin around and holds his bow in a compressed form. It just feels so... weird. I can't describe it, but it really does add to the charm of the character.
  • Sorry, Sternritter "T" Candice Catnipp, your thunderbolts ain't got nothing against Yoruichi's Raijin Senkei. 
  • Back in the day, people wondered if another member of the Shihoin clan appearing is going to tie in to the ancient clans that dismembered and sealed the Soul King. While nothing of the sort was ever explored in the manga, maybe these ancient Seireitei clans might get some relevance in the anime's final cour? 
  • Wait, whatever happened to Ganju?
  • But seriously, in the manga there was no reason for Juhabach to... essentially do nothing after absorbing both the Soul King and Mimihagi. There was no reason for him to sit while his Schutzstaffel run around and do battle, other than maybe he wants to take a nap. Even if it's not outright stated, having Ukitake still be alive and Mimihagi still writhing and doing stuff makes it a lot more palatable. 
  • We get a brief cameo of Nanao looking over Kyoraku from where the two of them dealt with Lille when the shaking is going on. That's whatever. When Gerard goes giant, however, we have a random shot of Hanataro and Matsumoto looking from a distance... which is interesting! In the manga, Hitsugaya joins in the Gerard fight (which presumably is happening), but Matsumoto and Hanataro just disappear. While Hanataro not being accounted for kind of peeved me during the Pernida fight, I am curious to see what they're going to do with them. Matsumoto at least should do something, right? 
    • The ominous zoom-in to Matsumoto's face is quite curious, since in the Can't Fear Your Own World manga, we get a revelation that the mysterious orbs that Aizen extracted from Matsumoto when she was young -- something never actually brought up in the manga -- are revealed to be other fragments of the Soul King. Is Matsumoto reacting to giant Gerard because we're going to tie this in finally?