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!

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'?

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!

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? 

One Piece 1136 Review: Dog-Killing God's Knights

One Piece, Chapter 1136: The Country That Awaits The Sun

We have a nice setup chapter! There is a significant thematic focus of what the Sun God means to the people of Elbaf, which I thought is a nice world-building element. Between this and the split between the giants' viewpoint on war, I think these slightly more decompressed early chapters are doing a lot of great job setting up the themes of this arc.

We get a lot of fun sequences, my favourite being Usopp talking up Oars ('who's a big deal to you guys, right?') and claims that he, Captain Usopp, was the one that finished Oars off. Fun Usopp stuff! Many of the giants are revealed to have never really been out of the country, so they are surprised by Jinbe's blue skin (and Fishmen in general), and... well, ain't no one in the world is exactly like Brook, but that's a fun moment. 

We also get the return of Rodo, who I think is going to become the Caesar Clown of this arc -- a defeated vile enemy that's going to be tormented by the crew for funny gags. I'm... I'm not the biggest fan of his "I'm secretly enjoying the punishment" BDSM jokes, to be honest, but it's nice to see that the manga's not going to actually just forgive him. That was my biggest worry. We get a very badass one-liner from Zoro about "Don't sweat it, no one died... but if Usopp didn't stop me it would've been your head." Badass.

In the midst of Gerd and the other giants shit-talking him, Rodo drops a bombshell that everyone in Elbaf apparently share the same dream... to become the next Sun God and rule the world. It's at this point that the party devolves into argument. Some view the Sun God as a ruler, some call him a god of freedom, or a god of laughter, or a god of destruction... frankly, considering how fragmented some of the major religions in real life is, this is a nice -- albeit more extreme -- take on that.

More importantly, Luffy gets to talking to Jarul about the Sun God, who notes that there are different interpretations of their sacred texts. There is a lot of ambiguity in those texts, but what is surely known is that the world has apparently been destroyed twice, and the Sun God Nika is associated with two instances. And this uncertainty about the god that represents the winds of change in this world is what's constant about the depictions of Sun God Nika. Monkey D. Luffy's reaction to this, when Jarul describes Nika's appearance? As everyone that actually gets what the manga's about, Luffy just laughs and notes that 'no wonder everyone's confused, we do look similar'. I love this. Luffy is never going to be a guy who cares -- or will accept -- that he's a reincarnation or a reborn version of someone else. He is him, Monkey D. Luffy, the Man Who Will Become King of the Pirates. Nothing more, nothing less.

The discussion leads to Loki, who's noted to also trying to become Nika. I like the subtlety here -- or at least Luffy's surprisingly successful attempt at subtlety -- as he asks if Loki is actually a good guy. All the giants begin to rant about how there was a prophecy, and during the year that Loki was born a lot of stuff happened. The royal horse died, the young Big Mom killed Jorul, a year later the Queen died... and we get a montage of the crimes that young Loki did, which seems to quite intentionally mirror that of Kozuki Oden. Ultimately, after a lot of wild-animal havoc and arson, Loki killed King Harold (allegedly) and wounded Jarul. Loki's reign of havoc was ultimately stopped by Shanks, which is why Shanks is so buddy-buddy with the giants. It's something that we could assume by context clues, too, but it's nice to have it confirmed. 

We then cut away to a very interesting scene. Zoro quickly catches on to some of Luffy's choice of words, and at some point he dragged Luffy aside. Nami's with them, too. Zoro is insistent on taking the giants at face value and note that Loki is a reviled kingslayer... but Luffy notes his motivation is to get Shanks' location out of Loki. Luffy's defense is more of a "you haven't met the guy himself!" and we do know that Luffy's a good judge of character. I think this is going to tie in with the overall exaggerated-reputation-vs-the-truth that has been so much of a common running theme among One Piece characters. Like Noland, Oden, Riku Dold, the Straw Hats themselves...

They borrow a flying ship and Nami also forces Rodo to come along as her 'newest slave'. Nami also makes it absolutely clear that she has no desire at all to befriend Rodo at all, the same deadpan harsh way she's been treating child-experimenter Caesar Clown throughout the arcs that Caesar traveled with the Straw Hats. Nami -- with a glorious Beli-eyed expression, also makes it clear her motivation to go with them... burgling the castle's treasury. That's fun. 

So yeah, we've got three of the classic Straw Hats off on a little mini-adventure, which I surprisingly appreciate. I do still want this arc to be the Usopp arc, but Zoro and Nami have been quite shafted in the last decade or so in terms of characterization, so I would like to see them do a fair bit more!

We cut away to the Underworld, where Not-Shanks and his partner -- who we learn is called Gunko -- are trying to recruit Loki into the ranks of the Gods' Knights. Loki gives a surprisingly similar answer to Garp during the Reverie, asking why someone would willingly 'become scum' like the Celestial Dragons. This implies that non-Celestial-Dragons, or even non-humans, can become a member of the God's Knights.

Apparently they've sent agents to Elbaf before, presumably some variation of Cipher Pol agents, but of all things they've been attacked by Rodo's crow. Meaning at least some of the trapped people within Rodo's little Legoland castle are actually World Government agents. Inadvertently, Rodo's fucked-up hobby is actually hindering the Gods' Knights! 

We then get a more proper look at Gunko, who's rather pissed at Loki's impertinence. Her design is... neat enough? She doesn't have pants, and she's got oversized sleeves. We get to see her power in action as one of her oversized sleeves unfurls into a giant tape-like whip of sorts. Most interestingly, that tendril-whip ends in the same cartoon arrow that Imu used to pierce Cobra! We get a nice display of Gunko's power as one of Loki's animal friends, a giant wolf, comes in to help Loki, but Gunko detaches her long whip and has it wrap around the wolf's neck and it rises up like a hangman's noose.

So yeah, fuck these Gods' Knights. Dog-killing bastards that they are! We're going the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure way of showing how cruel a villain is by having them kill a dog. It's always going to be effective! 

Loki is initially shocked at this, and Not-Shanks wonders as the dog struggles if Loki would change his mind if they were to spare the dog. To which Loki refuses. He notes that he'll accept his friend's fate and wish him peace in death, but he'll bottle up all that rage and unleash it upon the world once he is unleashed and free to destroy the world into dust. That's a pretty interesting personality, and it is something that could be used to parallel Luffy's own stance at life and friendship in general. With how much the world and fate and prophecy and destiny has been a gigantic burden on Loki's life since even before he was born, I am really interested in finally learning more about him. 

Random Notes:

• Yamato Inari Pilgrimage Cover Story: Our heroes discover that Holdem is working for... Who's Who? Who? Who's Who, that's who! Who's been making a pagoda with his giant helmet in the middle of the forest. Out of the Tobi Roppo, Who's Who being an actual worshipper of Nika does make him a surprisingly relevant-to-present-plot character.
• We have a lot of random callbacks to previous arcs. Luffy compares the giant moose that Hajrudin killed to the dinosaur meat -- which he would've eaten in Little Garden. Sanji brings up Mermaid Cove.
• Apparently, most humans that make it to Elbaf end up only seeing the 'Underworld' part, and bugger off without even going to the major giant villages in the two upper realms. 
• With Brook becoming an international rock star, I guess him actually having a proper song called "What The Heck Am I" makes perfect marketing sense!
• With Usopp finally bringing up Oars, I do hope this arc gives us some answers about the backstory of Oars but also the horned 'oni'-style giants that we've been seeing throughout the recent series. Not just Kaido and Yamato, but a lot of the background giant children in Elbaf also have horns. 
• The 'Horse of Fortune' that died is totally One Piece's take on Sleipnir, right? 
• We finally confirm Jorul's death. With One Piece's current track record on dead people staying dead, that was never a given. 
• "My helmet saved me in the end." I... I find the gag with Jarul's stupid helmet and the sword funnier than I should. Also a funny gag in this chapter is Zeus floating up to Rodo and telling him to know his place in the Nami-slave heirarchy. Zeus is #1, Sanji is #2 and Rodo is #3. This implies at some point that Zeus and Sanji got into a discussion about this, and Sanji lost to a cloud.
• A lot of what seems to be set up in the past couple of arcs is how beloved the Straw Hats are amongst the giants, and how reviled Loki is. With the "Luffy lets Loki loose" seeming to be on the horizon, I do get a feel like it's going to lead to an interesting reaction from the giants of Elbaf. 
• The amount of effort Oda is putting to keep Not-Shanks's "supposedly scarred" side hidden by his cloak is amazing. At one point, he uses the fun manga trope of having a word bubble block Not-Shanks' face.
• Just like the Gorosei, we don't have any real confirmation on whether Gunko's powers are a Devil Fruit power, or something else entirely. 

Bleach TYBW E38 Review: toxic friENDship

Bleach, Thousand-Year Blood War, Episode 38: Friend

Back in the day, I didn't really care for the 'Friend' saga as it was being released. Which is a huge mistake on my part -- I didn't know how few Bleach chapters we were going to have left, so having focus on Bazz-B (who, as a hot-blooded fighty-fight punk, wasn't a character I found particularly interesting -- which ironically led me to glaze through this arc, which did make him interesting) and Haschwalth (who had nothing interesting to him beyond being ominous) instead of all the other cool characters felt a bit weird. Now? Now I realize just how underdeveloped and how hungry for screentime the Sternritter are as a villainous organization, and how much "Friend" really helped to flesh out a lot of the internal drama within the Sternritter faction. 

But more importantly? More importantly, now it's a bit more clear to me that Bazz-B and Haschwalth's relationship, where they are fighting to the death despite being friends before, with a betrayal thrown in the midst of their relationship for good measure... it's meant to be a parallel to Ichigo and Uryu's far healthier relationship. Sure, Ichigo and Uryu are both fighting each other, and there is also a fair chunk of betrayals and hidden loyalties hidden between them... but it's nowhere as dysfunctional as Bazz-B and Haschwalth's, which ended up in tragedy. Admittedly, why I didn't realize this until my reread of Bleach years after its end was because 'Friend' was separated from the Ichigo/Uryu conflict by multiple chapters; and unlike the anime, Manga!Uryu was so passive in the background and didn't get the chance to shine, making the comparisons a bit harder to draw. 

Anyway, let's go through the episode! "Friend" starts with an ambiguous part of the world several decades before the start of the first battle against the Soul Society, in an area in the middle ages populated by Quincy tribes. It's... it's just the setting, go along with it. A young Jugram Haschwalth is just a kid in the forest, who tries and fails to kill a rabbit with a wooden bow and arrow. However, the rabbit is killed by a Quincy's holy arrow, a Heilig Pfeil, shot by a young Bazz-B with his Quincy crossbow as he hops down from the trees. Bazz-B criticizes Haschwalth's poor shooting, and the two kind of get into hijinks as Bazz-B goes "the Great Bazz does not need to identify himself!"

We then cut to the present, following after the post-credits scene of episode 36. Haschwalth asks Bazz-B what he is doing in Wahrwelt, while Bazz-B is pissed because the question Haschwalth is asking should be "how is he alive"? The two begin a confrontation, which starts off with a very smooth sequence of Bazz-B about to burn Haschwalth's collar, but he spins around his cloak to trap and block Bazz-B, before ramming the handle of his sword towards the trapped Bazz-B... but Bazz-B grabs the handle to unleash a Burner Finger One through the cloak. We get a really cool effect of the finger burning away the cloth, firing and tearing a path through the dark sky.

Haschwalth expresses some surprise that Bazz-B's injuries came from Auswahlen, and Bazz-B rants that all the Sternritters left behind were wiped out by Auswahlen. Haschwalth attempts to apologize, before pointing out that this is a conversation that goes nowhere because Bazz-B is never going to believe him if he said that he didn't know about it in advance. Which... I don't think the manga ever confirms either way, but Haschwalth does have limited access to the Almighty powers, which I suppose means that he probably knew and did nothing about it.

Bazz-B then addresses Haschwalth as "Jugo", and yells at Haschwalth to call him as "Bazz" -- just like when they were kids. As Bazz-B unleashes Burner Finger Two, Haschwalth unsheathes his blade and prepares for battle. After a brief flashback of Bazz-B witnessing his childhood home burn down under Juhabach's blue flames (is that where 'the Heat' came from? Interesting!), Bazz-B attacks. We get a really cool sequence as Bazz-B slashes around with Burner Finger Two, and Haschwalth avoids Bazz-B's attacks by running up a wall, across the ceiling and then down another wall to launch a counterattack slash at Bazz-B. 

However, Bazz-B points out that it's almost nighttime, and this is Bazz-B's chance to kill Haschwalth and Juhabach's The Almighty powers once it gets transferred to his former friend. (Which... I've always found the fact that Juhabach has powers that flip-flop between him and his second-in-command to be a bit of a random revelation, but I don't think it's as huge of an asspull as the Shinken Hakkyoken or Still Silver; since at least we've had foreshadowing that Haschwalth is really weird. We'll discuss this a bit more in cour four when we have more Haschwalth content).  

We cut back to the past with young Bazz and young Haschwalth. The two kind of bond because Bazz just kind of... decided to follow Haschwalth around under the guise of 'you're too weak to catch anything yourself'. We learn later on that Bazz is the heir of House Black, a local royal family, and he just plain don't know how to properly interact with kids his age. Haschwalth admits that, yeah, he is kind of pathetic because he can't make a Heilig Bogen. Young Bazz tries his best to explain that he is actually quite gifted, since kids his age can't make Heilig Bogens, let alone a unique construct like his crossbow. 

After telling Bazz that he doesn't have friends to compare to, young Haschwalth then asks Bazz not to call him "Jugo" because that's what his uncle calls him and he doesn't like that. Haschwalth then grabs his arms, which are covered in bruises, before being evasive and saying that he really needs to bring a rabbit home. I don't think Bazz actually knows the degree of what young Haschwalth must be suffering through, but he realizes enough to chuck the rabbit at Haschwalth and gives some excuse about how he's "hunting to prove how good he is" instead of for actual food. Haschwalth then rips off a button with a B from his cape, and flicks it over to Haschwalth, 'adopting' him as his underling. 

(The anime actually adds a couple of scenes showing this button on present-day Haschwalth, which is very nice). 

As little Bazz scampers off with all the energy that only hotheads can muster, Haschwalth's very creepy uncle show up and start muttering about how much trouble Jugo is going to be for going so deep into the forest. In typical abusive dialogue, the uncle gaslights him and talks about how Jugo can't do anything without him, and while the pedophilic undertones were always there in the manga, the anime makes it much worse by having the scene cut to Haschwalth's very dead eyes while the uncle's voice trails off into a singsong "my sweet Jugo". Yyyyeah. 

We cut back to the present day where Bazz-B is pissed that the name of the Quincies' castle got changed from 'Silbern' to 'Wahrwelt' with no real reason, before being frustrated because he just knows that Haschwalth will refuse to answer his questions as always. Predictably, Haschwalth does exactly that, changing the topic of the discussion and asking Bazz-B to take the battle outside to avoid damage to His Majesty's castle. Bazz-B gets pissed and unleashes Burner Finger Three, creating tongues of flame that surge towards Haschwalth and swirling around him like a vise. Haschwalth blocks them with his sword and some kind of shield, but the flames seemingly consume him as Bazz-B draws his Quincy crossbow seemingly for the kill.

We cut back to the past, and it's six months after the kids' meeting. This is a scene added entirely for the anime, which really does highlight Juhabach's hypocrisy and depravity. We see Bazz-B and a woman we can assume to be his mother looking from the room of their castle as Juhabach's soldiers sack it. We get to see the older members of Juhabach's Lichtreich murder all of the people in Castle Black, with all their unique weaponry... and Nikita Deslock just turns around and snipes the shit out of Bazz-B's mother, blowing her head up.

As Bazz-B screams in horror, we get the ominous scene of Juhabach manifesting a gigantic Sankt Bogen in the air above the castle -- which is a move he used against Ichigo -- and unleashes it downwards towards the castle. It's such an imposing thing to see from the far shot that the anime gives to us, showing the sheer power of Juhabach as he essentially executes an entire castle. Poor little Bazz-B, surrounded by nothing but dust and blood, watches with hatred as Juhabach and his four generals ride out from the wreckage of his family. 

On the next day, Haschwalth finds Bazz-B in the ruins of his castle, and we get to see them sort through the wreckage. In a nice anime-original detail, it's revealed that Haschwalth picks up his sword from Castle Black. Bazz-B gives some exposition, noting that Juhabach is a powerful monster that wields strange powers and controls the 'northern territories' by wiping out other rival factions, and that there are strange rumours that he is 200 years old and the Father of Quincies. Haschwalth claims that his uncle died in the fire when the forest he lived in burned down, which... not a painful enough death for creepy uncle, but there you go. 

Bazz-B tells Haschwalth that they are going to go train up and kill Juhabach, and the two young boys go off to do just that. At some point, the plan became to get close to Juhabach so that they can kill him. As they grow older, Haschwalth expresses doubt that he can be of help since he's a dud of a Quincy, but Bazz-B decides to train him. Five years pass, and we get a montage of the two trying to hone their skills... but Haschwalth still can't do any basic Quincy stuff. We get a scene of Bazz-B lurking as he sees Haschwalth trying to train with his sword the best that he could. There is a very well-animated shot of Bazz-B coming out of a tent during the winter to see Haschwalth practicing with his sword at the dead hours of the morning.

And it's an interesting thing because it's mostly Bazz-B's monologue here. Bazz-B is proud of his growth, but he also has to admit that Haschwalth is kind of hopeless in terms of learning Quincy skills. While he's more liability than asset, whether it's pity or loyalty, Bazz-B couldn't bear to cut Haschwalth off. It's... it's a bit of a somber and pragmatic-laced observation. 

While this is also going on, we get to see a discussion of Juhabach with one of his lieutenants at the time, Seydlitz. Seydlitz is confused because there's nowhere else to conquer within the Lichtreich, but Juhabach makes it clear that his target is... the Soul Society, and that the new combat unit is going to be called the Sternritter. 

This is where the paths of the two young men cross, as the four Lichtreich commanders arrive on a nearby village. Huburt gives a proclamation that a new combat unit called the Sternritter will be formed to invade the Soul Society, for the glory of the Quincies. So... again, the implication is that these are Quincy villages where most people are familiar with a lot of the spiritual world. Of course, we don't dwell on this too much because the focus is still on Bazz-B and Haschwalth. 

Being the hotheaded type, Bazz-B charges in and interrupts the Lichtreich commanders, and asks to be enlisted into the Sternritter. Huburt scoffs dismissively and plans to depart, but Bazz-B spooks his horse with his reishi crossbow, goading Huburt into confronting him. Throughout all of this, it's notable that Haschwalth keeps trying to stop Bazz-B and keeps trying to tell him that the wisest course of action is to infiltrate the Sternritter during the actual recruitment session... but Bazz-B just ignores him. 

Huburt draws his blade and denounces Bazz-B as a monkey, but Bazz-B counters that his friends will have to go back to Juhabach and report that he was killed by a monkey. However, before a fight can properly break out, Bazz-B and all of the villagers are slammed down by immense, overwhelming spiritual pressure. Great visual effects here for sure. Huburt kneels and apologizes to Juhabach for being driven to anger by a mere child... but Juhabach makes the proclamation that he is here to collect the person that will be his 'second in command'. 

And Bazz-B mentally declares that he is this super-talented second-in-command, that he's the one that Juhabach is looking for, that Juhabach will pick him for his talents, that he will get close to Juhabach and get his sweet sweet revenge. We get a scene where Bazz-B is able to stand up from the sheer immense pressure that Juhabach is unleashing upon him... but as Bazz-B stands up, Juhabach ignores him completely and focuses on Jugram Haschwalth, calling him by name and identifying him as his 'other half'. To the confusion of every single person present, Juhabach says that Haschwalth will come with him as his advisor. 

And internally? Internally, Haschwalth is elated. Because after all, wasn't this what he and Bazz have been working so hard for? Haschwalth looks to see Bazz-B on how to proceed, or for affirmation, or for something. But this is a really great scene because what Haschwalth saw on Bazz-B's face is not any kind of support that their plan is progressing, or even pride for his friend for being acknowledged. No. There is nothing but pure hatred in Bazz-B's glare. Envy, jealousy, disbelief. An amazingly drawn panel drawn by Kubo in the manga, and translated very well here. 

Because for Bazz-B, as we learn in his monologue... even if one of them would be chosen for talent, it should be him. Haschwalth silently pleads with Bazz-B not to look at him like this, not understanding why his friend is angry with him. 

Haschwalth even speaks up, and you can tell this isn't an easy thing for the meek young man to do. He asks if there has been a mistake -- much to the anger of Huburt because how dare anyone suggest His Majesty made a mistake -- and Haschwalth points out that he is talentless, while Bazz-B is a genius that would be a better fit of being Juhabach's advisor. Bazz-B, instead of being glad or grateful in any way, gets even more pissed that Haschwalth is essentially taking pity on him. 

However, Juhabach gets off his horse and explains that Haschwalth is not aware of his own awesome power... because a Quincy without the ability to create Heilig Bogens is born every 200 years, but that's not because they are powerless, but rather because their power is different -- it's the ability to share powers. The last Quincy to be born like this? Juhabach himself. Juhabach then turns around and reveals that Haschwalth is unconsciously giving power to other Quincies, and actually turns to face Bazz-B, revealing that Bazz-B's extremely rapid and 'genius' growth was because he was training in close proximity to Haschwalth. 

(Which, by the way, is partially bullshit because we saw Bazz-B already being super-talented as a kid when he's running around with a Quincy bow shooting rabbits. But we know Juhabach is a bit of a gaslighter himself.)

But it also puts things into perspective, because one of the pillars of Bazz-B's existence, the sheer pride he puts into his amazing talent and rapid growth in comparison to the talentless Haschwalth, is not because he's special but because Haschwalth is. 

While all of this is going on, while Haschwalth is being told how special he is by Juhabach and while Bazz-B is doing nothing but glare at him in hatred, Juhabach tells Haschwalth how he "needs" him at his side. This, by the way, has been identified by many people as tying into Haschwalth's history of being an abuse victim, and how he latched on to Juhabach as essentially a 'provider' of sorts. 

We get a lot of great visuals of Bazz-B trying to process all of this with his eyes wide open, and a shot of a dark void with Juhabach and Haschwalth standing on one side, and Bazz-B on the other end... with Haschwalth having this very cold expression on his face. It's not clear to me -- and kept ambiguous on purpose, I think -- how much Haschwalth has decided to essentially abandon Bazz at this point. But in Bazz's head, the 'treachery' is done. He screams in anger, summons his Quincy bow and fires an arrow at Juhabach... only for Haschwalth to stoically, with a dead expression on his face, jump in the way and catch the arrow before it hits Juhabach. 

This cuts beautifully to the present day as Haschwalth also catches an arrow that Bazz-B fires in an identical pose. Haschwalth slashes at Bazz-B, knocking him backwards and causing him to crash through a wall. Haschwalth tries to say that Sternritter infighting does not benefit Juhabach, but Bazz-B yells that he doesn't give a shit because he's here to kill Juhabach, summoning Burner Finger Four and creating a gigantic blade of flame around his arm. Haschwalth finally shows emotion for the first time in the present day, yelling at  'Bazzard Black' to stop.

Bazz-B doesn't, of course, and even in his wounded state, his giant fire blade is able to cleave a gigantic pillar. Haschwalth can run around Bazz-B and he has spent almost the entire fight dodging and blocking other than that one slash. Bazz-B asks Haschwalth why he keeps running away from the fight, and if he's scared of losing to him. 

And we cut away to a different time in the past, a bit later after their confrontation with Juhabach. Apparently, Juhabach and his lieutenants didn't kill young Bazz, and he grew up to an adult. At some point, Bazz-B worked his way into the Sternritter, and one of his first acts is to fire arrows to provoke Haschwalth to a fight. Haschwalth, however, doesn't rise to the bait, only giving some vague warning that infighting among the Sternritter is punishable and he has no intention of fighting. We get a montage of various seasons and years as Bazz-B keeps trying to goad Haschwalth into a fight and he keeps ignoring him. 

At one point, Huburt -- who addresses Haschwalth as Sternritter Grandmaster -- observes that he remembers Bazz-B as the 'monkey from that time', and muses if he needs to beat some manners to him. Haschwalth tells Huburt the same line -- infighting among the Sternritters will be punishable by death. Huburt dismisses this, saying that no one will be watching... but in a way of protecting Bazz-B despite his estrangement, Haschwalth coldly tells Huburt that he will be watching. 

This moment really does add a nice layer of complexity to Haschwalth. That moment during their first meeting with Juhabach was quite transformative already, but if all we had was "Haschwalth became loyal to Juhabach because Bazz-B betrayed him emotionally" it wouldn't be interesting. The revelation that Haschwalth still had loyalty to Bazz-B enough to look out for him? That brings up a bit more complexity around Haschwalth. 

We then cut to the final stages of their present-day confrontation. Bazz-B yells about how he's "not lost yet" to Haschwalth, but Haschwalth finally decides to go on the offensive. With a single strike, he cuts off Bazz-B's arm on the shoulder as he's leaping down with Burner Finger Four active. It's very fluidly animated, particularly the flame effects as the arm rockets off like an out-of-control engine and slices through a pillar in the background. The blood effects are really cool too. Bazz-B stumbles for a bit, but gets back up and uses his other hand to unleash Burning Full Fingers. Bazz's ultimate technique takes the form of a whirling five-pronged energy beam that erupts in one hell of a massive explosion. Again, extremely well animated. 

But this full-power attack fails to harm Haschwalth. For all the huge bluster of the attack, it also ends extremely abruptly as Haschwalth just rushes forwards and slashes Bazz-B down his chest, instantly cutting him down in a shower of blood. And unlike Bazz-B's taunting, Haschwalth hasn't been refusing to fight Bazz-B because he's afraid of losing. Rather, Haschwalth is likely afraid because he knows that he's the powerful one now and can kill Bazz-B very easily. Honestly, though, the episode is a bit less about their actual physical battle (it's just Bazz working up his fingers one by one until he gets two-shot by Haschwalth) but more in their emotional confrontation. 

Bazz-B stumbles up towards Haschwalth as he succumbs to his wounds, admitting that his former friend has won. He observes that things never worked out the way he wanted them to, but also admits that he didn't feel as bad as he thought he would if he ever lost to Jugo. As Bazz-B lies bleeding on the ground, Haschwalth walks up the stairs while their conversation as children plays over the background. 

And... yeah. The anime did a masterful adaptation here, and I really do think that the very flawed relationship between Haschwalth and Bazz is told extremely well both in this episode and in the original source material. Haschwalth and Bazz clearly care for each other as friends, as brothers. Even late in their life with all the animosity, there's still some bond between them. But unlike how Ichigo and Uryu would treat each other even post-betrayal, there's no real amount of communication between them. Bazz's story is tragic, yes, but he's not a particularly good and supportive friend to Haschwalth... and vice versa.

While he dupes himself into thinking that they're friends, Bazz-B views the relationship as being very unequal when the chips are on the table, and he couldn't bring himself to be happy or to cheer for Jugo's victory. Lots of little moments here and there over their backstory -- and while Ichigo and his friends may be a bit rough around the edges, their relationship is a lot healthier. And, indeed, that puts a lot of "Ishida, what the hell are you doing!" attempts at communicating into perspective. So yeah. I really do have a lot more appreciation for this fight now for sure! Great episode, well-animated, well-structured.

Random Notes:

• Not that the previous episode was bad or anything, but this episode has a very pronounced increase in quality in the present-day sequences! Particularly the first and last confrontations of the episode. I guess someone on the production staff really liked these guys!
  
• In the manga, we never see Haschwalth hold Bazz-B's button until all the way at his death scene. Here, the button is shown prominently several times throughout the episode any time the episode zooms into Haschwalth's sword. Most prominently is this shot right before Bazz-B charges in with Burner Finger Two. 
• Some bonus content in the final episode of this cour has given us the proper spellings for the four 'Schutzstaffel' of the past, including the name of the blue-haired sniper girl -- since this episode is where they're getting a bit more screentime, I'll cover them here. We've got the douchebag subcommander of the original Licht Reich, Huburt Alexander Kleich (previously 'Hubert'), the eyepatched Johann Seydlitz (previously 'Zeidritz'), the burly Algora Lallau (previously 'Argola' or 'Algora') and the sniper lady Nikita Deslock. 
  
• We've seen Huburt draw a saber in the manga, and Nikita has used her rifle in the anime before, but the sacking scene reveals that Seydlitz uses reishi pistols and Algora uses reishi hand-axes. Nikita, of course, uses her sniper rifle. That headshot of Bazz's mom is brutal. 
• The manga's version of the events of 'Friends' only has Huburt and sometimes Seydlitz show up, but the anime seem quite intent on having the four older Schutzstaffel show up as a unit.  
• I did mention it in previous episode reviews and in this one, but in the manga, 'Friend' takes place before the 'Baby Hold Your Hand' and 'The Theater Suicide' storylines, whereas the anime swaps things around. It doesn't really matter which one happens first, but this way it does really help to bring the parallel between Bazz and Haschwalth's friendship and betrayal in very stark contrast with Ichigo's confrontation with Uryu next episode. 
  
• Really love the highlighting of 'end' in the anime's title episode for 'friend'. That isn't actually from the manga, but it also feels like something that Tite Kubo would absolutely do. 
• I get why Kubo wanted to be ambiguous on where the Quincies come from geographically, and if timeline-wise it's just "several decades/years before the original invasion of the Soul Society", but it really is kind of vague where all of these Quincy kingdoms and tribes have been. I guess they're all wiped out by either the Soul Society or Juhabach's Auswahlens? 
• In the manga, there is an aborted confrontation between Bazz-B and Shinji's group that wasn't adapted into the anime. This was the first showcase of Burner Finger 3. That technique makes its debut in this episode.
• 
  It is a bit of a missed opportunity for the scene where Bazz-B joins the Sternritter to not have some cameos from some of the older Sternritter. Wouldn't it be nice to have, like, Lille Barro or Quilge Opie or some others show up in the background?
• Also, assuming that this incarnation of the Sternritters invaded the Soul Society (and since we know Huburt, Algora and Seydlitz are killed by Yamamoto's Bankai), were Haschwalth and Bazz-B also killed in that conflict? Or did they survive and just somehow 'migrate' to the Wandenreich separately? 
• So... no new Vollstandig for Bazz-B, although I suppose it's appropriate because out of all the Sternritters, he's probably the one that's going to reject Juhabach's powers the most.