Bleach TYBW E36 Review: deAth of the dreAm

Bleach, Thousand-Year Blood War, Episode 36: Baby, Hold Your Hand 2 - Never Ending My Dream

So this is the second part of the Mayuri/Pernida battle! And just as I mentioned in the previous episode review, we get a replay of the first scene of the previous episode where Mayuri realizes that Pernida is not dead after all. Except we also get a couple of extra lines from the manga before Pernida breaks out, about how Mayuri notes how he's glad he made an Ashisogi Jizo without teeth to stop it from crushing and creating a bunch of new little Pernidas. And then we have the scene of Pernida destroying the Ashisogi Jizo. It's really weird why they felt the necessity of adding part of this scene last episode, then, if we're going to have a longer one here, but oh well. 

Konjiki Ashisogi Jizo screams in agony and explodes as Pernida shoots a bunch of arrows within it. Pernida fires a bow at Mayuri from within the pile of viscera that used to be Konjiki Ashisogi Jizo, and we get the surreal and hilarious shot of Pernida Parnkjas, giant hand of a god, wielding a gigantic energy bow with their fingers. What a sight. Pernida mocks Mayuri with the same mad laughter, and proclaims proudly that Pernida is a Quincy, and Pernida kills with a bow and arrow. Mayuri retorts that he did not, but honestly? Considering the whole point of Konjiki Ashisogi Jizo is that it's designed to fit with Mayuri's extremely specific details to counter certain types of enemies? I have an inkling that, yes, Kurotsuchi Mayuri totally forgot that he was fighting a Quincy and focused too much on the whole 'strange undiscovered giant hand creature' aspect. 

Mayuri mocks the idea of the Left Arm of the Soul King declaring itself a Quincy, but Pernida questions just how this is shameless. I really do wish we would get some clarity about this, although I do have faith that in some of the upcoming anime-exclusive content that we would actually get a lot more discussion about the Soul King and its specific connection to Quincies... and why Pernida is so proud of being one. I really am a bit disappointed that we didn't get more about Pernida's tie to the Soul King, Ichibei and that nameless lady Sternritter, but, again, we have plenty of episodes to tie those loose ends up. 

It also bears noting that Pernida's voice actually fluctuates throughout this episode. In the previous episode it went from screechy high-pitched to a lower, more gravely tone, and it also flip-flops between the two voices in this episode. In particular, we got a nice reverb effect as Pernida regrows its missing fingers and declares to Mayuri that Pernida Parnkjas has always been a Quincy. Mayuri realizes that Pernida's vocabulary has been steadily improving since the start of the battle. One of Mayuri's theories is that Pernida is regaining its memory as the Soul King, or somehow evolving -- with one of Pernida's lines being very similar to Kenpachi's way of speaking seeming to confirm the latter hypothesis. 

Pernida creates a bow on the tip of each of their five fingers, and starts bombarding Mayuri with Heilig Pfeils. Mayuri is surprised to realize that each arrow has one of Pernida's Compulsory nerve endings attached to the end. One of the arrows pierces Mayuri's left arm, and he detonates his arm to prevent the nerves from infiltrating the rest of his body. However, the arrows are able to bend mid-air, catching Mayuri off-guard. He thinks to himself that he can't evade that particular Heilig Pfeil... only for Nemu to come in the rescue. 

Nemu jumps through the air, grabs the Heilig Pfeil with her arm, and slices off the arm immediately. She falls to the ground separate from the arm (which is immediately meatballed). Mayuri uses his Hirenkyaku boots to reorient himself and charge in, grabbing Nemu and rescuing her from Pernida's nerve-swarm on the ground and the two regroup in a building. I say regroup, but Mayuri kind of dumps Nemu and sends her rolling. Mayuri gets super-pissed at Nemu for intervening without being ordered to. Again, this is the closest that an utterly depraved sociopath like Kurotsuchi Mayuri can get to feeling emotions or attachment, and I've always found this character analysis interesting. 

Nemu tells Mayuri that she is exerting judgement that Mayuri needed a shield in this battle, and Mayuri retorts that he never taught her to assist ate her own discretion. Nemu confirms this, saying that it was something she learned on her own without his teaching. Mayuri remarks -- not entirely pleased -- that Nemuri Nanago (Nemu the Seventh) has been learning a lot of things since Ichigo showed up in Soul Society. 

Again, this plays out a bit like what you'd expect. The morally evil character has someone he loves (as a daughter, in this case) but would never admit. And honestly, the sheer difference in Mayuri's treatment of Nemu in this battle versus the first time we've ever seen Mayuri -- literally using Nemu as a disposable golem-shield against Uryu -- is night and day. I love that we're almost leading to a 'typical' heartwarming story for Kurotsuchi Mayuri, where he realizes that he actually does care for Nemu, as much as he hides it behind excuses like 'do you know how much effort I'll have to put in to grow you to this degree of sophistication'. And to be honest, I do actually think Mayuri was leading to that specific avenue of character growth... at least until basically the midway point of this episode. It's an interesting subversion that I think I appreciated a lot more after the series ended, a way to give the extremely self-centered Kurotsuchi Mayuri character development without neutering what made him so edgy.

Anyway, Mayuri yells about how it's going to be so difficult and troublesome to get Nemu to grow to the degree that she currently is, and she does not have the freedom to die by her own judgement, and that she'll only die when Mayuri deems it to be her time. Again, in a roundabout way, it's Mayuri telling her not to put herself at risk and die... particularly since Nemu realizes that Mayuri is calling her by her preferred name 'Nanago' again. 

Nemu hands Mayuri a Hojikuzai, the flesh-mending drug. Apparently Nemu observed that Mayuri just simply... forgot to go through his potions rack before leaving for Wahrwelt. I'm not exactly sure why Mayuri is a bit out of sorts, and I don't think there's ever been a reason for that other than maybe cockiness? Or nervousness? Mayuri did drop his super-overconfident-always-prepared ball a couple of times in this Pernida fight, after all. I do like that Nemu is basically doing Mayuri's usual MO. We get a nice scene of both Mayuri and Nemu regenerating their respective dismembered arms, while watching as the gigantic Pernida looms before them. 

In the manga, by the way, we never actually see Nemu regenerate her arm. Her missing arm just appears in-between chapters, but I appreciate the anime showing her jabbing her limb-stump with a Hojikuzai. 

Mayuri goes back into battle with his Hirenkyaku flying boots, dodging a storm of arrows fired by Pernida and a bunch of newly-created clones. While Mayuri is dodging the arrows, Nemu literally runs down the side of the building. Mayuri reveals that he is releasing a highly concentrated anesthetic to neutralize the nerves connected to the holy arrows. However, the anesthetic is powerful enough to affect even him (but, apparently, not Nemu), and instructs Nemu to execute the next part of the plan, which is injecting a nerve-freezing agent into one of these neutralized arrows. Mayuri doesn't exactly know what Pernida is made up of, but he did spurt out blood so biological agents should work on it. 

Again, I do like the fact that Nemu is finally bantering with her 'father'. Mayuri goes into an ecstatic ranting about how his nerve-freezing agent causes all biological functions to freeze in place. "Open eyelids cannot close! Contracted hearts will not expand! Closed mouths will not open!" To which Nemu -- who probably knows what the agent does -- just tells Mayuri that he's being too loud. 

Nemu runs across the ground, safe from most of the nerves, and manages to infect one of the heilig pfeils with the nerve-freezing agent. This causes two of the Pernidas to freeze and turn dark purple. Mayuri gloats that he's won... only for the last Pernida to sever his own thumb before the coagulation can spread through it.  It's at this point that Mayuri realizes that Pernida has been learning from Kenpachi (even the limb-severing trick is something Kenpachi did) and yells at Nemu to get back. 

Pernida's main double-eyeball body sheds the dark-purple 'nerve-frozen' outer layer, and Mayuri also realizes that this is an ability copied from the modified Konjiki Ashisogi Jizo. Turns out that the Left Arm of the Soul King is constantly learning from everything around it. Pernida's main body looms over Mayuri while we get a badass shot of Nemu glaring at the sight... and we get a flashback!

...a flashback to a young child Nemu talking to Third-Seat Akon and a bunch of other scientists. Little Nemu is confused why Mayuri has been calling her 'Nemu' instead of 'Nemuri Nanago', and we get a backstory to the Nemuri Artificial Soul Project. Akon shows Nemu the first three iterations of Nemu -- all of which are essentially dead pre-embryonic lumps of flesh held in tubes. Akon then notes the fourth, fifth and sixth iterations are slowly and slowly more advanced. One of them led to the fixing of that one 12th Division member with a bandaged head; another one allowed Mayuri to achieve Bankai thanks to modifying his Zanpakuto.

We get another conversation between Nemu and Akon about the name, and after some discussion about whether or not Mayuri would be able to feel embarrassment, Akon notes that to Mayuri, the ability to create an artificial Shinigami is nothing but the dream of all Shinigami. Mayuri had called it 'Project Nemuri' (sleeping) because it's ridiculous to dream while you're awake... but it seems that seeing Nemu grow is the culmination of Mayuri's personal dream more than anything. Nemu then asks if Mayuri would continue calling her 'Nanago' if she hadn't grown as expected... to which Akon dismisses as ridiculous, since there was no way a creation of Kurotsuchi Mayuri wouldn't grow as expected. 

In the present day, a resolute Nemu launches herself towards Mayuri. The velocity of her jump is so powerful that she literally bursts a hole straight through Pernida. Mayuri is confused where Nemu got this power, to which Nemu responds that this was the power she received from him. Nemu has enhanced her power to just 0.8% below the threshold where it would break down, which is such a fun, technical way to 'reach your limits' for these science-oriented characters. Nemu deposits Mayuri on the side of a building and he's a bit pissed because he did not give Nemu the order to do this. They have a bit of an argument on what Nemu's true mission is -- Mayuri says it's to grow, and Nemu claims that she will show her growth by protecting Mayuri. As Nemu leaves Mayuri behind, Mayuri snidely wonders at what point Nemu starts learning to talk back, and what a humiliating feeling to leave a battle entirely to her. 

And we get the badass sequence of Nemu charging towards the final Pernida. She gathers energy around her right palm, shaving off 6% of her soul to create a gigantic, beautifully-animated blast called the Gikon Jurinju. It looks badass, the sound design and animation and lighting is super cool. And holy shit, the anime didn't need to go so hard on this specific scene. The effect blows a hole through Pernida and a whole bunch of buildings. And Nemu falls while the pieces of Pernida rain down around her. 

And suddenly the pieces of the broken hand sprout eyes, stab nerves into Nemu, and causes her to swell up and BLOW THE FUCK UP. 

As if to add one final bit of insult, instead of merely twisting around, Nemu gets turned into a gigantic, deformed meatball before blowing up. It's sudden, it's surprising in the middle of all the haunting vocal musical playlist that cues up for the scene.

Mayuri watches in mute shock as this happens, as his daughter, his creation, is reduced to nothing more than a shower of blood, some of which splatter onto his face.This is a scene that's paced and done a lot better in the anime. In the manga, the relatively slower pacing (and the positioning of the flashback) makes it sink in a bit more that Vice-Captain Nemu isn't going to be the one to kill one of the Schutzstaffel. The death flags for either one of the Kurotsuchis were also a fair bit more blatant. But here, jumping from one scene to the next, and the sheer change and suddenness as we go from triumphant to a surprise, instant death? That was brutal, and amazingly executed. 

Mayuri watches this and processes this very numbly. And in his mind, as Pernida reforms, grows a mouth (?) in his eyeball (???) and begins greedily lapping up Nemu's remains, we get to see the inner machinations of Mayuri's mind... with the surprise reappearance of the hallucination of Octava Espada, Szayelaporro Granz!

Szayelaporro is just there to mock Mayuri, asking him if he is feeling grief or despair, because after all either one of those would be hypocrisy. After all, Mayuri was the one who gave him the whole epic speech about how a scientist cannot find perfection and should abhor perfection. Hallucination!Szayel mocks Mayuri, telling him that he should celebrate Nemu's death because, hey, turns out this one experiment wasn't perfect after all, and Mayuri can create something better. As Szayelaporro continues to mock Mayuri, he grabs the hallucination by the face and crushes it, and he tells himself that he has really fallen to a sorry state to need a dipshit scientist like Szayel to remind him of his negligience. 

And at this point, Mayuri goes back into being cocky. I guess one could say that he 'gets back into character'? Mayuri goads Pernida, telling him to feast on Nemu's remains... except for her brain. Mayuri zips in and pulls Nemu's brain out of the pile of flesh. He does a weird thing where he plugs a cord into his... ear-hole thing and zaps Pernida with electricity, before delivering a whole speech about the properties of Nemu, which is essentially an anime-ified version of an endocrinal feedback loop homeostasis. Pernida had eaten Nemu's pituitary gland (which... is in the brain, but okay) which contains an "Involuntary Cell Division Acceleration Organ", which solved the problem that killed Nemuri #6. However, our Nemu regulates that involuntary cell division with another organ in Nemu's parietal lobe in her brain. In other words, ingesting that pituitary gland alone is causing Pernida to grow out of control and self destruct. 

And Pernida does, essentially getting weaponized cancer and blowing up, splattering its flesh all over the buildings. Goodbye, Strernritter C. I really hope you get some more explanation about your nature and backstory in the future. 

Mayuri walks off into an alleyway with Nemu's brain, before his legs shatter from one of Pernida's last attacks. As Mayuri bemoans his recent string of uncharacteristic failings, Ikkaku and Yumichika show up. Mayuri insults them for being stupid enough to stick around, but also praises them for not interfering with his battle. Ikkaku and Yumichika bring Mayuri to some body preservation pods that are hanging around (the anime doesn't explain how they got up there either). Two of the pods open to release Hitsugaya and Rangiku, restored from the chalky gray skin of zombification. Histugaya and Rangiku thank Mayuri before leaving. 

Ikkaku and Yumichika place Mayuri and Kenpachi into the recently-vacated pods, and we actually get a nice scene where Ikkaku and Yumichika kneel before Mayuri and thank him for saving their captain, a rather touching scene that calls back to the antagonism between the 11th and 12th Squads back in the Soul Society arc. 

Mayuri notes how disgusting it is to be thanked all day long as the pod's fluids fill up, but then looks down at Nemu's brain and gloats -- mostly to himself, but also to an imagined vision of Nemu -- that he's finally surpassed Urahara Kisuke since he has created a Soul that evolves on its own.  

It's a nice final battle for Mayuri, who sits out the rest of the series. I think it's nice to actually note that Mayuri does definitely feel some kind of twisted version of pride and fatherhood towards Nemu, but he's also so fucked up that he can't actually admit it or acknowledge it in any reasonably healthy way. I feel like what we saw is a combination of Mayuri's self-centered ego combined with a coping mechanism. In any case, I thought this was a pretty fun fight. 

After the credits we get an anime-original scene, showing Liltotto and Giselle actually attacking Juhabach. This is nice -- I highly doubt the anime would change their fate and defeat, but actually showing us their plan of attack is pretty nice! We also get a bunch of additional lines from them, too. Liltotto and Giselle stand outside 'the arena', noting how odd it is for Juhabach to bring it up alongside the rest of the Wandenreich's city. A group of Soldat appear and confront them -- and in the manga, some random Soldat do still appear in Wahrwelt with no real explanation.

Giselle summons three other zombies -- Bambietta, Meninas and Candice, all of whom have slightly modified Vollstandigs with additional skulls. As the three zombie Sternritters fight the Soldat, Liltotto notes that Giselle had the zombies hide among the rubble as it was being transported up by Juhabach. This changes things slightly from Can't Fear Your Own World, though I highly doubt that novel series will remain canon any more after the end of the anime. Having some additional Sternritter firepower explains why the two are so confident at even confronting Juhabach, but it also feels in-character that Giselle would do the same once Meninas and Candice die. The two's deaths are never confirmed in the manga, but Meninas could be assumed to have died offscreen during the Pepe fight, or at least be weakened enough to be Auswahlen'd. Candice definitely is, having been beaten by Ichigo and Byakuya. 

As Liltotto chomps down on the Soldats and the zombies break them apart, Liltotto is surprised to see that the Soldat... aren't actually regular people, but within the uniforms are inky, eyeball-encrusted black goop similar to Juhabach's new form; or the eyeball monsters that descended down upon the Seireitei. Liltotto and Giselle are horrified by this, and the idea is, I think, for all of Juhabach's bullshit about 'making a new world for the Quincies', he's a gigantic hypocrite that has also fucked over a lot of the Quincies... something we'll see a bit more with Bazz-B and Uryu.

In a scene actually from the manga, we get to see Haschwalth ordering around a group of Soldat. The exitence of the artificial eyeball Soldats does explain their presence here, then! Haschwalth is suspicious of Uryu's movements, and orders the Soldat to investigate... but then all of the artificial Soldats are blown up by Sternritter "H" Bazz-B, grinning and setting up their future confrontation.

Again, for the most part, a very faithful adaptation of the end of the Mayuri fight. I do really like the Mayuri fight from the manga as weird as it is. I did wish we had a bit more explanation about Pernida, but I've always felt like this is one of the few really good fights from the tail end of the manga before shit hits the fan and the pacing gets ratcheted up. Add some additional scenes for the ignored Sternritter, and I felt like this was a pretty well-done episode. 

Random Notes:

• Kubo has been drawing artwork of all the characters that died on his Twitter account, most often giving them a 'modern day' outfit. It's all right for a vast majority of the cast since they're human, and it's just a cool thing to do, but... but just take a look at Pernida's 'death art' here. Just... just look at it. I had a whole paragraph typed out detailing how simultaneously glorious and ridiculous the whole thing is, but I decided the art more than speaks for itself. 
• "Here to Stay" is a pretty great song! I think Shiro Sagisu released the track a while back, but it was never used (at least in its full, voiced form) until this episode.
• In addition to explaining what happened to Hanataro, a low-hanging fruit for the anime to fix is actually showing someone bringing the regeneration pods to Wahrwelt. 
• Two of the pods contained Hitsugaya and Rangiku (and were later occupied by Mayuri and Kenpachi). There are two more pods, and back then it's assumed that these contained the other two zombified captains Rose and Kensei. Whether they will actually show up or not, we'll see. 
• A rather interesting change is that Haschwalth identifies Uryu as going to Zwei Ast in the anime, instead of Ein Ast in the manga. It's just a change of 'first branch' to 'second branch', but honestly, since everything in Wahrwelt looks similar, it feels like a rather random change. 
• Nemu cuts her arm off with a shortsword that... probably is her Zanpakuto? We've never had any confirmation on whether Nemu even has a Zanpakuto. 
• As a side-note, the animation team really likes Nemu, huh? Her close-ups, both facial and otherwise, feel extra detailed even with the TYBW anime's higher standards. 
• It is, I feel, a bit of a shame that not a single new mention of Mayuri dissecting Quincies (among them Uryu's grandfather) was added. I thought that while there was something to be said about Mayuri seeing most of his adversaries as future test subjects and experimentation fodder that this additional bit would've been a nice little thematic touch.
• I love (and hate) the fact that after injecting the flesh-regeneration serum, a gigantic tumorous mass with little fingers grows first before it shrinks back into a proper arm. 
• I don't actually remember if this is revealed in the manga or if it's revealed in one of Kubo's Q&A online sessions, but Pernida (and Gerald's) powers are innate due to their natures, and didn't come from Juhabach. He just assigned them Schrifts as a way to bind them as Quincies or something. In the anime, this is told to us via the commercial break bio for Pernida. 
• I did remember back in the day some people theorized that Nemu regrowing her arm offscreen is a foreshadowing of her rapid cell regeneration properties, which... wouldn't exactly make sense since as long as Nemu's brain is present, those hormones are being regulated. 
  
• Love that little Nemu sleeps with a horrifying Squad 12 doll. 
  
• Mayuri using the fifth Nemuri as a basis to modify his Zanpakuto and have it achieve Bankai is, rather darkly, probably the reason why Konjiki Ashisogi Jizo looks like a baby. Each successive Nemuri has a longer lifespan than the last, and Nemuri #6 lasted until two years old, so Nemuri #5 can't be any older than that. 
• The anime also cuts out a panel from the manga showing the shredded remnants of Pernida twitching, as if hinting at his return (which never happens thanks to the manga being rushed). Presumably, the anime also has no plans to return Pernida, whose story is kind of done anyway. I would still like to know Pernida's (or, well, the Soul King's) backstory, though. 
• Love the wacky 'rawr we are monsters' pose that zombie Candice and Meninas strike when they come in.