Bleach, Season 15: Gotei 13 Invading Army Arc [Episodes 317-342]

Bleach, Season 15: Gotei 13 Invading Army Arc [Episodes 317-342]

So I had a much more detailed writeup for this filler arc which goes almost episode-by-episode... but it was unfortunately the casualty of a corrupted Word save file. Which is also the reason this one never got published back when I was doing Bleach filler arcs last year. And so unlike most of my Bleach filler arc reviews, this one is going to be a lot more truncated. 

That said, this season, the "Gotei 13 Invading Army" storyline, is pretty well known for one thing: its badass animation. It honestly holds up to some modern-day anime standards, owing to the fact that this was created at the tail-end of the original Bleach anime... and it honestly is a bit of a shame that a lot of the actual 'canon' fights in Bleach didn't get as pretty of an animation sequence as this. Soi Fon fighting Komamura's giant Bankai is one of my favourites from the arc, but we've got a lot of great shots and animation in general from the 25-episode season. The season is kind of an 'excuse' plot between the end of the Aizen Deicide mega-arc and the beginning of the XCution arc, and... one huge problem that I'm going to mention quickly is the fact that poor Ichigo is supposed to have lost his powers, but we're just giving him back just with some excuse plot and handwaving going on. It's a bit of a shame since a world where Ichigo has fully lost his powers would've been prime material to explore some of the secondary characters, but I guess you can't have a Bleach arc without Ichigo? I don't know. From a writing standpoint, it definitely cheapens the end of Deicide and the beginning of XCution if Ichigo just randomly gets his powers back for 20+ episodes at some point in-between the events. 

One thing that is either going to break it or make the arc for you is that Kon actually gets a lot of screentime here -- again, in canon Bleach a lot of the initial supporting cast ends up getting pushed to the wayside, particularly the more comical ones. Having them take a bit of a spotlight is a nice thing, and I don't mind Kon. So having him show up a bit and have the big emotional connection with the Doomed Filler Anime Girl(tm) Nozomi is understandable. It's just that not everyone really likes Kon, and his huge role in this arc was a point of contention. 

And lastly... well, the entire concept of the season is fighting against clones that somehow have equal (or maybe more) power than the originals. Our primary enemy is Kageroza, a scientist who's been doing these experimentations on artificial beings called 'Reigai' in secret. Which... it sounds straightforward enough (and similar enough to the plot of some of the Bleach movies, or the Bount or Zanpakuto Spirit arcs) but things honestly get a bit confusing on how powerful Kageroza is -- and how he managed to even exist in Soul Society without anyone realizing how powerful he is; and the usage of clones that act and behave identically to our heroes. As a concept, it's a bit less visually interesting than the Zanpakuto Spirits we had a while back, since those at least looked different visually and we get to see a bit of character analysis between the Zanpakuto Spirits and their owners. 

Muddying things a bit further are some Dangai-related time-jumps which I don't think is explained particularly well, and is honestly just dropped entirely after the first five or six episodes. 

As we jump around the real world and the Soul Society, the plot itself just isn't that interesting to be stretched around 25 episodes. Kon befriending Nozomi, while extremely predictable (and done in much shorter time in the first Bleach movie) is probably the stronger storyline, where Kon finds some kinship with another artificial being that is not considered alive. It gets lost a bit due to the fact that these heavy points are delivered by Kon, but I do really appreciate them highlighting how Kon's story is actually quite tragic, and highlighting the similarities with our Sad Filler Anime Girl(tm) Nozomi. 

Meanwhile, Kageroza's master plan is to... something-something, use the Reigai to conquer both worlds and replace all the Gotei 13, I guess... but because we need a mid-season plot twist, turns out that Kageroza and Nozomi are two halves of the same whole, and Kageroza is doing all this to fuse with Nozomi to resurrect their original form, Yushima. It's a way more convoluted version of the Muaramasa story from the Zanpakuto Rebellion arc, and I really don't think the explanations and the plot twists are worth the screentime that the season devotes to them.

The actual fights are very pretty, though, and I argue that they are worth the price and time of admission. Admittedly the season doesn't quite do a good enough job at making the Reigai interesting at all in any sense of the form... sometimes they infiltrate our heroes, and most of the time they just go bwa-ha-ha psycho-evil when it comes to fight. And yet, because the manga hasn't revealed them yet, Evil Reigai Unohana, Kyoraku and Ukitake doesn't use their Bankais, because... they're not that evil? Eh. 

Again, the animation is pretty cool, particularly when characters like Renji, Byakuya, Hitsugaya and Komamura start going around waving around their Bankais. It's not anything particularly new compared to what we've seen, but the character match-ups and the slick animation does make this season a rather pleasant watching experience. There's a lot of cool stuff involving Kenpachi fighting his own Reigai; Komamura vs. Soi Fon; Byakuya vs. Hitsugaya; Genryusai blowing up Byakuya's reigai; Mayuri managing to bullshit-planned-for-this Kageroza; Genryusai holding off the Reigai of the three 'senior' captains Unohana, Kyoraku and Ukitake... 

But, again, a lot of this ends up being confusing as sometimes it really is hard to keep track which character is a reigai or not. I realize that it's realistic for these doppelgangers to look identical to their original counterparts, but as an audience that's not the most invested in the story being told, it does make some of the action scenes and episodes a bit harder to follow, particularly when at one point it turns out that there are two Momo reigais. 

And then we get Nozomi regaining her power around slightly after the halfway point, and it's apparently super-uber broken since she gets to be the one one-shotting the Reigai Kenpachi and restoring Ichigo's powers for the remainder of the season... at which point the plot kind of loses me with the sheer writer's pet shown to Nozomi. The main character trait is now "oh no, Nozomi wants to use her powers but she will tire herself out and/or get captured". Kageroza also gets some nonsense abilities allowing him to copy exactly any power that's launched towards him because of something-something spatial manipulation, leading to an honestly rather awkward fight that's tailored around showing how Nozomi's essential to helping Ichigo and Genryusai fight against Kageroza. 

And... again, the Kon/Nozomi stuff that happens throughout this, particularly when Nozomi ties Kon to a rock to stop him from following her into danger, is all pretty well voice-acted. It's just that the plot itself kind of meanders all around Nozomi's story-breaker power status that I find it difficult to care. Ichigo's also distracted several times throughout the climax in trying to regain his powers through some Dangai time-loop... but due to something-something power imbalance, he rampages in a half-Hollow form. 

Anyway, Nozomi and Kageroza fuse together back into Yushima, but not before Nozomi helps Kon restore Ichigo's powers. Yushima fights against Hollowfied Ichigo, a bunch of Reigai fight our heroes, Yushima uses his own story-breaking Zanpakuto to fight everyone... but there's only two episodes left and so Ichigo fights Yushima and defeats him. The power of friendship between Ichigo, Kon and Nozomi allows the part of Yushima that was Nozomi to fight back, and this allows Nozomi's soul to expose Yushima's weak point so that Ichigo can Getsuga Tenshou it away. Also, all the Reigai sacrifice themselves to stop a generic doomsday weapon, because they still have some pride that makes them want to protect Soul Society, which... if you're first exposed to the story of this season through this review and think that that particular plot point came out of nowhere, yes, yes it did. 

And... yeah. The plotline is honestly a mess, and while I know that there's a fair amount of leeway that a filler arc can get away with, I do think that this is easily my least favourite of the Bleach filler arcs I've reviewed in terms of story. Now, in terms of entertainment it rises up a bit due to some really fun animation and action scenes, but I do find it really hard to get invested in either Kageroza or Nozomi, and especially not their fused forms. Throw in the fact that clone enemies aren't the most interesting adversaries for a filler arc, and especially not for a 25-episode one... and all the nonsense around the Dangai time loops and Ichigo constantly losing his powers, and it's just not the best story to digest. 

So yeah, it's... it's really not the best, and unlike some of the other filler arcs which can still reasonably be handwaved into tying in with the main story somewhat (like the Zanpakuto Rebellion or even the Bount arcs) this one just feels so jarring and placed at such a weird time in the main story that I find it hard finding much to say about this one beyond 'nice animation' and 'I like the Kon/Nozomi scenes'.