Bleach TYBW E45 Review: orihime inoue's lAst stAnd

Bleach, Thousand-Year Blood War, Episode 45: (Life to) Defend You

So this is the actual 'movie' of this season, huh? 

I don't think I've ever been quite so tense watching a Shonen anime before, and I didn't think that I would ever have this feeling watching something that is a show that ended a clean decade ago -- and is, as far as I understand, still going to adapt the original ending of the manga. So I already know what's going to happen. 

And it's still so intense to watch. 

After the past couple of episodes focusing on adapting the Askin and Gerard fights of the manga, and giving a proper Uryu/Haschwalth extension and a buildup to Ichigo vs. Juhabach... 

Again, I would like to preface this by saying that the original Ichigo vs. Juhabach fight essentially ended after maybe half of what we've got in this cour. Barely any of the Orihime monologue, and right after Ichigo goes through the Gran Rey Cero / Getsuga Tensho attack, he just zips in, activates his brand-new Bankai... and it literally gets snapped in half without doing anything. That was part of the horrid final volume of Bleach.  

I still assume that the anime will go through the same motions, except with an actual fight -- the way they handled Uryu's clash with Ichigo in one of the previous seasons, or the Squad Zero battle. It was something that was implied to be built up to, but we didn't get the payoff. And we've been getting a better Juhabach monologue, some actual motivation from him, some parallels between Ichigo and Uryu's fights, and Orihime gets monologues. 

This episode elevates everything, though. Not just the Orihime stuff, which is probably the unquestionable highlight for me, but it even brings us a lot of great Ichigo moments and even some power-ups and choreography that was definitely lacking in the source material. Which, as I keep emphasizing, the manga equivalent to this sequence is Ichigo charging with his barely-changed Bankai, and getting one-shot by Juhabach. 

But we do start off (after a brief recap of last episode's post-credits sequence) catching up on the statues. And normally I like to meme with Chad. Chad gets to unleash a La Muerte, but the statues regenerate with the Soul King goopy power. But Renji and Rukia arrive, and after a brief discussion,  Renji does some cool Zabimaru whip-swing things to slice off some of these statues. There's a smooth sequence where Rukia runs on Zabimaru to get to the throne room, before Renji flexes Zabimaru to use it to decapitate other statues. 

That's all we see of them, and honestly, it's kind of a bit sad for Chad and Ganju that even their irrelevant role is usurped by the more relevant Renji. But oh well. The episode also really likes to cut into Uryu and Haschwalth... and god bless the new incarnation of the fight with more dynamic powers, but I really didn't care for this fight at the moment with all the bright blues and whatnot. It doesn't help that we've seen the Uryu/Haschwalth fight in the first two or three episodes in this cour and this is mostly more of the same until the end. So for the purposes of this review, I'll talk about the Uryu/Haschwalth fight all together in one go at the beginning:

And, right, in the middle of all that intense emotions and action scenes, we do get the Uryu/Haschwalth stuff. Again, all of these fights are a lot more dynamic than anything we saw in the manga. But it is getting a bit repetitive. Uryu uses his not-Senbonzakura Vollstandig to constantly try to overwhelm Haschwalth, and there's the nice implication that he's repeating some attack patterns -- gathering his flechettes into a big arrow, launching it at Haschwalth, and having them spread apart to surround Haschwalth -- to figure out the timing. 

Haschwalth mocks Uryu a couple more times, using the moniker 'Last Quincy' a couple of times. There is a cute moment around the halfway point of the episode where Uryu tries to backstab Haschwalth with a blade, and Haschwalth makes a joke about Uryu using a 'sword'... but the blade shoots out! It's actually an arrow! It's a bit of a running joke with me back in the Vandenreich era that Sternritters using bows and arrows seem to be the exception rather than the rule, and I found this to be funny. 

And finally, at the climax of the episode, Uryu seems to be putting the Sanrei glove -- or Leiden Hant -- which is the source of his Letzt Stil power-up form. Haschwalth continues to mock Uryu underestimating his foresight powers, and seemed to be able to predict Uryu's Sternenstaub attack that's about to hit him from behind. Uryu grabs Haschwalth, and Uryu notes that Haschwalth needs a gap of three seconds any time he uses Juhabach's powers. But that three seconds is enough for Uryu to get the Sanrei Glove on Haschwalth, and activates it... leading to a cliffhanger for this fight. 

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Anyway, the Throne Room battle! We start off with something from Dragon Ball Z, with Ichigo and Juhabach zipping around the sky in streaks of colourful light, clashing and slamming onto each other. And Orihime seems to be reduced to her manga counterpart's role after her big moment two episodes ago. And hoenstly, I think most would be fine with Orihime's really cool moment a couple of episodes ago. But no, it's not over. 

Juhabach holds Ichigo up with his shadow tendrils, and does his 'what is power' spiel. A good part of why this episode is so good, I feel, is the running themes going through this episode, too. Not to diss on Askin or Gerard; but I really like a personal villain. Juhabach is great at taunting Ichigo (and eventually Orihime), and throughout the first and final sequences of this chapter he goes through a little villain monologue about the nature of power that Ichigo has. 'Power to protect' is weak, according to Juhabach, and that his definition of power is a tyrannical, oppressive one. Pretty simple shonen manga stuff, but the scripting and voice acting is good enough. 

What really makes it work, however, is the contrast with Orihime's constant repetition (almost like a madness mantra) of "my powers are weak,  if only my powers are much stronger, much stronger" all throughout the battle any time we zoom in to her POV. And that constant discussion of power even as Juhabach, Ichigo and later on Rukia are slinging around their big showy attacks is really well done. Even in this first scene, Orihime mentally replies to Juhabach's ramblings about the power to defend or protect to be the power that she wants, with a really nice shot of her hand reaching up towards the trapped Ichigo.  

And then Juhabach runs Ichigo through with his sword. 

This was a bit abrupt and surprisingly graphic with loads of blood, actually showing Juhabach carving a giant hole. Orihime uses Santenkesshun to reject it, restoring Ichigo's chest hole... and in a bit of black comedy, Juhabach just stabs Ichigo again. Orihime then heals Ichigo again... and this time, snaps off Juhabach's sword. 

This earns Orihime the full attention of Juhabach's ire, and he starts launching the shadow-waves at Orihime. One big one to knock her against the pillars, then another spear slamming right through her chest. And then Juhabach attacks Ichigo again...

And still Orihime stands back up, healing Ichigo after healing her own wounds in the split-second that Juhabach turns around. And we get a rather tasteful sequence of depicting Juhabach stabbing and piercing Orihime with near-kill shots, with flashes of her silhouette backlit while being pierced by Juhabach's shadow spears. And she keeps rejecting, and rejecting, and seemingly hits her limit at some point. 

But she keeps rejecting. She keeps healing. 

She keeps standing up. 

Having read Bleach from end to end,  I don't think I would ever say that Inoue Orihime is a 'badass' character at any point in the story. But seeing this? Seeing her stand up, hair strewn around with so much detail from the animation staff on her eyes and hair, dripping blood, doing the one thing she knows she can do -- to heal -- and just holy shit. What a well-done moment. There are shots of her glaring death glares at Juhabach as she keeps standing up. 

Juhabach keeps mocking her. She keeps telling herself that 'if only her powers were stronger', et cetera. 

Not realizing, again, just how impressive she has been throughout just these short five minutes or so. This was what Aizen was saying when her powers could 'trespass into the domain of gods', all the way back when she was kidnapped and reduced to a damsel in distress for the Arrancar arc. And it's such an insane growth to how much she could heal in the past. It's so cool, it's the only thing keeping Ichigo in battle... but Orihime is right that is isn't quite enough. 

And then ice! Rukia shows up!

Rukia freezes Juhabach, gets Ichigo back up,  and Ichigo very briefly checks on Orihime before the two of them stand side by side. How cool is this? How cool is this that the original protagonist duo from the very first chapter of Bleach actually get to stare down Juhabach together? Even if Rukia seemingly only gets this episode, the anime is acutely aware just how starved Ichigo has in terms of conclusions and closures with most of his close friends. Uryu got quite a bit with Ichigo in the last cour, and I've been so impressed with the Orihime stuff,  but Rukia? As Juhabach puts it, the 'Shinigami that set everything into motion'? It is really so nice to let Rukia have a great moment of relevance this close to the end. 

And we get some cute, classic bickering between the two, including a random line about Ichigo defending "the horn is cool!" 

Again, this fight is very smooth and cool. We get a brief cutaway to the Uryu/Haschwalth fight which is understandable considering the intensity of the Orihime stuff. Ichigo blitzes Juhabach with sword blows, while Rukia swings upwards with her ice. There's a bit of commentary about Rukia's powers from Juhabach (?) that makes it hard to fight together with allies? But then Juhabach unleashes what can only be described as a Giant Quincy Laser, which punches a hole through the wall, vaporizes a pillar, and causes Orihime to have a most concerned :o face. 

Ichigo and Rukia do a cool combo attack, with Ichigo slamming down the Gran Rey Cero Getsuga down from the top while Rukia swings upwards with her ice... but Juhabach just summons more pillars of shadows with eyeballs, and the eyeballs all shoot the black-pink Quincy Laser Beams. These pierce Ichigo and Rukia through their chests, 

And we cut back to Orihime. Her hands are trembling, and she continues with her mantra, blaming her own weakness for Ichigo and Rukia being wounded. Juhabach creates giant pillars, and a giant five-pointed Quincy star with shadows, which unleashes the mother of all Quincy Death Lasers in a rather over-the-top pink explosion. 

And Juhabach walks away.... only for an artistic blood moon in the sky to appear. 

And then Ichigo says: "Bankai". 

The red moon in the sky gets eclipsed... and the screen is plunged into pure darkness. And then Ichigo's brand-new Bankai form is shown, glowing and silhouetted with red, flaming light. Ichigo walks out of the darkness, which bleeds off his body and trails off his two horns, and chain-like flames wrap around his wrists, ankles and neck. His sword looks completely new. 

This, by the way, is completely different from the nothingburger 'final Bankai' that we got in the original Thousand-Year-Blood-War arc in the manga, which was just a sword on a chain that I've always felt was a visual downgrade to any of Ichigo's many, many forms. Rukia just calls this 'Zangetsu'. Which, knowing just how much 'the Blade in Me' has been emphasizing that Ichigo needs to reach the true, original form of his Zanpakuto, makes sense!

Juhabach summons more of his eyeball lasers, but Ichigo creates a web-like shield of his fiery chains to block them. It's very cool, and Ichigo does a badass boast about how he needs all of this power to protect everyone from Juhabach. 

Bankai Ichigo does have a cute little gimmick to it, which I'm not sure was the intention with the manga's original form of the Bankai, but Ichigo is able to create what are essentially afterimages or shadow clones. "Delayed strikes" whose impact Juhabach can feel, afterimages that split apart and disappear into shadows, and additional Ichigo 'clones' that appear and slam onto Juhabach with strike after strike... there are moments when Ichigo just summons additional shadowy clones (with a similar effect to Juhabach's own Soul King powers, too) and they all just blitz Juhabach like a goddamn fighting game. 

The next couple of minutes is really hard to describe without going in-depth, and it's just a great showcase of loads and loads of laser beams from Juhabach, and a lot of speedy maneuvering from Ichigo. We get nice shots of Rukia joining in, and at one point Ichigo blocking Orihime from another round of Quincy eye lasers. It's just a delight to watch. Juhabach taunts Ichigo at some point, noting that while it's a new power-up different from Shinigami powers, it's still weak. 

Interestingly, while looking at Ichigo making his shadow clones, Juhabach observes that this runs contrary to Ichigo's own principle, since his powers "scream that you don't need your friends". This feels like a bit of a loaded thing to say, but the episode doesn't really follow up on it. Another speed-blitz attack of Juhabach using his laser spam against Ichigo's shadow clone army ensues. 

This leads to the mother of all Getsuga Tensho's, creating a gigantic, inky black crescent moon in the sky. 

And by gigantic, I mean gigantic. This giant burst of power and black and white energies carves a moon in the sky, and we see shots of everyone else in the battlefield looking up at it. A very cool moon, and in the little space where the two tips meet floats Ichigo. 

It really looks cool. 

And as the moon fades away, Juhabach is seen scattered into little pieces of shadow... but he doesn't seem worried. He mocks Ichigo, noting that Ichigo is trying to get a shot in while Juhabach is underestimating him... but that 'instant' has ended. And Juhabach spreads out with his shadowy eyeballs, and does his own gigantic radial laser-beam spam, shooting eyeball beams everywhere. Ichigo falls out of the sky.

And we're back to focusing on Orihime, who runs towards Ichigo but gets trapped by Juhabach in a shadow pillar. Juhabach is taking this a bit more personally, and taunts them, noting that Orihime will be the last one to see Ichigo -- powerless Ichigo -- vanish from the world. Orihime continues her mantra about needing more power. Juhabach then continues to taunt Orihime, commending her for her resolve... but then trying to deconstruct the fact that it's because Orihime is here, this weak little crutch, that Ichigo couldn't achieve the full strength of his power. Essentially, Juhabach is trying to tear apart the whole 'power to protect' stuff.

This pisses Ichigo the fuck off, who gets a second wind and charges at Juhabach. There's a cool bit where Juhabach shoots a dozen lasers that curve around to strike Ichigo from behind. 

But Rukia yells Ichigo's name and freezers the shadow-pillar holding Rukia in place, calming Ichigo down for the two of them to do a Bankai combo move. Ichigo creates/splits into a dozen black shadow clones that begin zipping all of the place, before charging in to tank Juhabach's own beam-spam. And Rukia goes Bankai! Rukia activates her Bankai a second time in the anime! That is so cool. Ichigo uses his fire chains to hold Juhabach in place; while Rukia unleashes the gigantic icy nuke of Hakka no Togame. And just to seal it in, Ichigo does another of the giant ink-moon Getsuga Tensho. Just big attack after big attack. 

And Orihime wakes up, seemingly seeing Rukia in her snowy Bankai form similar to how the anime (and manga) presented her after the As Nodt fight... only for the fog to clear and instead of showing off Rukia all cool, we see her impaled by a sword, bent backwards and unconscious. Ichigo, meanwhile, is being stabbed on the ground by Juhabach, who monologues about how "this is power", and how his analysis about the 'strong power' is justified. 

And Orihime has a bit of a breakdown. The animation, again, is particularly great here especially in the closeups to Orihime's eyes. She repeats her lines about if only her own powers are stronger. Blood drips on the ground, her hairpins shatter, and the little Rikka birds start moving around and trailing lines of blood in the air. This moment is animated gorgeously as Orihima calls out the names of her six Shun Shun Rikka. 

Juhabach shoots his laser spam, which the Rikka line up in front of her and block, creating a badass 'explosion behind an action scene character' shot for Orihime. Juhabach then does the shadow-pillar-eye-beam attack he used earlier against Ichigo, and Orihime blocks that too. Her Rikka start tracing the air around here like a circle, while Orihime goes back to her little mantra. Blood starts rising up from the ground. She thinks to herself that she wants to make it so that pain and suffering doesn't happen, if only she had stronger powers. Orihime throws herself through what appears to be a strange circular portal of blood (????) before she shoots herself like a cannonball at Juhabach. In another bit of black comedy, Juhabach punts Ichigo at Orihime, who zips past him.

Orihime charges at Juhabach, and her powers form a golden halo around her head, before she pushes a mighty "I reject" at Juhabach. Orihime Inoue is actually 1v1-ing Juhabach at this moment, and I am genuinely so impressed at how well-done this is. How amazing the buildup is. The animation, the voice-acting, the sound effects. It doesn't even take away from main character Ichigo, who had a great showing earlier. 

And Orihime unleashes a gigantic bright light that appears to be reversing time. Her own fallen blood appears to get retracted into her own body, and Juhabach's gloopy eyeball-shadows appear to be reversing as well. Ichigo and Rukia yell at Orihime to stop. Orihime says something that Ichigo can't hear because of the loud noise, and we get a gigantic explosion of black-and-white that envelops Juhabach and Orihime...

And petals fall, leaving only Ichigo and Rukia in the empty throne room. 

The anime cuts away to two tiger lilies from episode 2 of the cour, and one of the tiger lilies fall off, revealing the full title of the episode: "LIFE TO DEFEND YOU". Smash to credits. 

Woah.

People use it as a meme. But honestly? To quote the kids, this was 'absolute cinema'. 

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Intellectually, I know --  I know that they're not going to change the ending that much. Even if they rewrote the final battles against Juhabach and Haschwalth, that they're not going to change that much of the ending. Orihime isn't dead, or at least, won't be by the final episode. Neither is this how Juhabach is dispatched of. But honestly? Honestly, this was done so well that if they adapted out Aizen's participation or the Isshin/Ryuken silver arrow nonsense, would people be really mad? 

I don't know what else I can say here, since I think it's made abundantly clear just how much I was impressed with this episode when I was watching it. Juhabach's new powers, Ichigo's new Bankai, Rukia being involved in the final fight at all, the 'power' monologues, the depiction of the new Getsuga Tensho, and of course, everything about Orihime? This was just phenomenal. The final couple of episodes of the Thousand-Year Blood War was always the ones that needed the most work, and I am so happy that we're getting rather extensive rewrites. 

Random Notes:

• 
  The credits are completely silent, set against a black screen, instead of playing Rasen. Very atmospheric. 
• There's also a great, subtle insert song happening as Orihime does her last charge against Juhabach!
• There is a brief, subtle adorable moment when Renji poses with Zabimaru at the close of his 'rescue' scene, and the big Zabimaru blade just covers Ganju entirely, and he has to peek to the side to get inside the shot. 
• I do wonder if the anime is just doing away entirely with the Allmighty's decidedly uncinematic "lol I can see your next move" powers, as well as the Antithesis-vs-Balance battles... which were always so boring to read about? I wouldn't mind if these fights replaced those, if we're being honest.
• There is also argument that Uryu managed to swap the Sanrei Glove onto Haschwalth's hand with the Antithesis, which would be cool if/when they explain the Antithesis powers later on in the future, but... but honestly, I have so little memory of the original Antithesis power that I wouldn't mind if they just decided that Uryu's new Sternritter powers is just 'action hero'. 
• I like that Haschwalth only calls it 'Leiden Hant', which was just casually dropped as an alternate older name during the Letzt Stil's original debut. 
• I do appreciate the anime not making this an excuse to graphically show Orihime being mutilated on-screen multiple times. They still couldn't resist a 'ass-up' shot, Yoruichi-style, at around 8 minutes in, though.
• I actually kind of forgot the plot and why Juhabach wants Ichigo dead now, since he went through all the trouble of creating him in the first place. Did he really just need Ichigo to crack open the Soul King? I genuinely forget.  
• Interestingly, the mid-episode data cutaway for Ichigo's new Bankai is 'burnt off' and impossible to read. 
• "The horn is cool!"
• But no, seriously, incorporating two horns into his new Bankai really does make it a lot cooler and gives us a nice continuity between the 'Horn of Salvation' form and the Bankai instead of it feeling like them just tossing random form designs for Ichigo.