Bleach, Thousand-Year Blood War, Episode 37: Shadows Gone
But Ise Nanao? Sure, she does share the unenviable position alongside Iba, Yachiru and Nemu as one of the few Vice-Captains that have never released their Zanpakuto before the Thousand-Year Blood War arc, and with Iba at least we know his sword is a pretty simple one. And unlike Yachiru or Nemu, there really was no indication that Nanao of all people is some kind of secret badass hiding some kind of hidden secret that can match the power of the gods. Which, also, incidentally, is the perfect counter against a being like Lille Barro.
So yeah. It also kind of sucks that for all the built-up done towards it, Kyoraku's Bankai really didn't manage to do much but inconvenience Lille Barro a bit.
But with that rant out of the way, I would still like to talk about this episode and what a good adaptation of the "Theater Suicide" chapters they are. They do a bit of reconfiguration to have the flashbacks be a bit more gradual, which I suppose is the closest thing to foreshadowing that we're going to get about Shinken Hakkyoken.
We then cut to the present day, to the absolutely nothing cliffhanger from the previous episode as what Kyoraku is about to tell his sword spirit Katen gets interrupted by a gigantic pillar of light. Oh no, turns out that Lille Barro is still alive!
Anyway, Lille basically rants throughout all this episode about how he is god's immortal and invincible messenger, and... it's a Bleach thing. Whether a character starts ranting about the theme that Kubo wants to explore with the character, they go into several different iterations of 'fear' or 'death' or 'imagination' or 'experimentation' or 'strength' or 'names' or whatever theme that we're exploring. But there's absolutely nothing to explore with Lille's rantings, making him not even live up to other Bleach villains.
The action scene is, at least, quite spectacular as rendered by the anime. Lille forms his super-long arms and starts shooting giant laser beams, leading to an impressive sequence of him destroying a huge chunk of Wahrwelt's buildings that blasts out even from underneath the floating city. All the heavenly wrath of Lille's gigantic beams are rendered excellently by the anime. The animation also makes Lille's owl-head a lot more fun to look at, with creepy blinking animations (those vertical eyelids!) and showing his head and neck contorting around unnaturally.
Lille is able to track Kyoraku as he hides behind towers, alternating between praising his capabilities as Captain-Commander and also calling him sinful. We get an interesting sequence as Katen tells Kyoraku that she could take him to safety, since not even their Bankai was able to stop Lille Barro. It is a nice moment, but Katen's voice gets overlaid with Nanao, yelling at him to wake up. Kyoraku is happy that Nanao wasn't caught up in his Bankai, but then Nanao yells at Kyoraku to give her Zanpakuto to her and that this was no time for keeping the promise that Kyoraku made with her mother.
While this is going on, we get a rather well-animated sequence of Lille's owl head morphing and warbling into a gigantic radar disc. This looks so much better in the anime since it's a bit clearer what is going on, and having Lille's eyes actually visible move around the head like fishes in a pond is a nice visual effect. The subsequent visuals of the giant radar-dish head scrunching up and being compressed down back into an owl head is also quite neat.
Lille realizes that Kyoraku is using Kageoni to hide, and explodes a ball of light to erase his shadow from the ground... only for Nanao to appear from the shadow cast by his beak on his face -- which, by the way, was a piece of action that I've only 'got' while watching the episode.
At this point, we flash back to Kyoraku explaining to Nanao everything about the Ise clan. Which, again, I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but... none of these is foreshadowed or really had any tie-ins to other aspects of Soul Society's backstory. Turns out that the Ise Clan is matri-lineal, all the children have been born female, and all the men that married into the clan died from an 'Ise Curse'. Nanao's mother instead married into the Kyoraku family -- which would end the Ise name -- but turns out that Shunzan died anyway. Isuzu was taken back by the Ise clan, but before that happens, she approached Shunsui and gave him their family sword and begs him to keep it hidden... because she wants to keep her daughter away from the curse.
(Oh, and a 'family sword' exists for the Ise clan, something that flies a bit in a bit of a conflict with all the talk about Asauchi and Zanpakuto that we learned earlier this arc. It's not irreconcilable to be an actual plot hole, but it's still annoying that this wasn't explained in any detail.)
Nanao also confronts Kyoraku on his decision to hide the sword, and... it's not really brought up a lot in this fight, but Kyoraku does have a habit of getting Nanao out of the way of a fight. Kyoraku protected her from Yamamoto's aura back in Soul Society, and she wasn't present in any of the Arrancar/Aizen conflict, and even earlier in the fight against Lille, Kyoraku got her out of the way. But Nanao's grown up to be an adult and she has decided to 'accept the curse', whatever it may be... and we get a sweet line as Nanao mentions that 'the man she admires' would laugh off something like a curse to be ridiculous.
Again, I hope cour four gives us some tie-in between the Shinken Hakkyoken and the ancient times that led to the dismemberment of the Soul King or something, because this is just a random power that honestly came out of nowhere and is so convenient that Lille Barro is a god-like being that is made up of light.
Lille comments that she can't see the blade since it reflects his light so much, and mocks it. Nanao explains that it reflects the power of the gods, and Lille muses that he doesn't mind being called a god. (This, by the way, would be something interesting if Lille's character goes from being god's most loyal worshipper to having a blasphemous god complex, but nothing so interesting happens).
We then get another flashback to Isuzu giving Shunsui the Shinken Hakkyoken... but unseen by either adult is that little Nanao (who was born and raised after Isuzu was 'taken back' into the walls of the Ise household) is lurking and listening from a nearby wall. We get an explanation of Nanao's subsequent shinigami career -- she was also raised by distant relatives and not in the main household at some point. The young Nanao recognizes the Captain of the Eighth Division having a similar kimono and hairpins to what her mother used to wear. Nanao would find herself being unable to imprint upon an Asauchi. The official word was that her kido talents were exceptional enough for her to bypass this... but instead of the logical Kido Corps, Nanao was instead assigned to the Eighth Division.
Cutting back to the present day, Nanao attacks with Shinken Hakkyoken. Lille mocks her, but then blocks the strike at the last minute with his left arm. Nanao's god-cutting sword proves able to cut through Lille's arm and it erupts in energy. Lille is surprised, but then comments that it's useless now that Nanao's shown her ability. We get a bit of an extended monologue from Nanao about how scary it is to be fighting with a sword, and how unused she is to being both injured and to be swinging a blade... which I really do find hard to believe since Nanao is a Vice Captain and has been in combat even if it's fighting with Kido before.
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While all of this is going on, Kyoraku gets a flashback to a time shortly after his last meeting with Isuzu. We get to see Ukitake telling Kyoraku that Isuzu was executed by Central 46 for misplacing a sacred treasure. (This also explains Kyoraku's disdain of Central 46 in the present day, I suppose) Kyoraku plays it off as nothing major to Ukitake, but gets pissed off and morose as he walks away. With his brother and sister-in-law all entrusting him with precious possessions before their deaths, in the present day Kyoraku muses how heavy it has been carrying all this burden with him, and Nanao's taken the burden away from him somewhat.
And as Sternritter "X", Lille Barro, shatters, Nanao also slips and falls from the blood dripping from her wound. Kyoraku catches her and sets her down, and is about to go off and join the battle before also collapsing into a sitting position himself. This is it for Kyoraku and Nanao, and for two of the Schutzstaffel-vs-Shinigami fights.
Random Notes:
- "Shadows Gone" is the only episode in TYBW so far to have an anime-original title. The manga's arc title would be "The Theater Suicide", which would've worked better for the first Lille/Kyoraku fight.
- It really is unfortunate that Shinken Hakkyoken had absolutely no foreshadowing prior to this episode. Even some lines of dialogue on Nanao's part in the first Kyoraku/Lille episode would've gone a long way here! It's kind of weird since Mayuri being able to modify his Bankai actually got an anime-exclusive foreshadowing. Even giving an equivalent to the "Nemu looks at Mayuri mysteriously" scenes on the first part of their fight.
- Shunsui's brother (Kyoraku Shunzan) and sister-in-law (Ise Isuzu) are unnamed in the manga, and are only given names thanks to this episode's credits sequence.
- Between Lille's gigantic beams and bombardment (that last Trompete attack vaporized almost half of one of the outer cities!), and Gerald Valkyrie about to go full-on giant-sized in the next couple of episodes, it is kind of funny that the most property damage done to Juhabach's oh-so-sacred holy realm is done by his own Quincies.
- I do wonder what Katen taking Kyoraku away to safety entails? I don't think that Zanpakuto Spirits could actually influence the world around them. Unless Katen is able to do some kind of possession the way that White!Zangetsu took over Ichigo's body whenever he goes into Hollow form?
- Actually, how did Nanao not get caught up in Kyoraku's Bankai? Was she just out of reach of the effects of Karamatsu Shinju from reaching her, and she just ran really fast afterwards to reach Kyoraku's position?
- Back in the day, one of the chapter cliffhangers was Kyoraku about to give Nanao her sword, and Kyokotsu's spirit appearing behind her -- with the implication that the younger Kyokotsu is Nanao's Zanpakuto. Which I remembered spawned a lot of theories and ended up being kind of a huge cocktease since Kyokotsu was merely hiding Nanao's sword.
- Another common theory back at the time was that Kyoraku lost his wife and daughter (hence the appearances of Katen and Kyokotsu) and that's the reason he's wearing a woman's kimono. Not quite the family members that he lost.
- I do like that the narrative keeps it ambiguous on whether Shunzan died because of an Ise Curse (or if there is an Ise Curse) or if it's simply just the hazardous occupation of being a member of the Gotei 13 that got him.
- I also really like the detail that when Nanao's in the academy, all the students are enamoured by Aizen but they find Shinji weird.
- So if Kyoraku took off the kimono and hairpins to not cause suspicion in Nanao, why is he wearing it again in all subsequent appearances?
- No mention of Kyoraku also losing Lisa, Ukitake and Yamamoto? I thought the anime would pounce on at least showing some flashes of their deaths even if they don't add any extra dialogue.
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