Bleach, Thousand-Year Blood War, Episode 47: The End 2
Been a bit behind in Bleach: TYBW reviews, but considering that there's a bit of delays in the final two episodes, I guess it all works out in the end. After the previous episode was a relatively faithful adaptation/remastering of some segments in the manga, 'The End 2' gives us mostly new content.
And we start off with a rather fun scene, and one that quite interesting for the anime staff and the writers to focus on, since we start off in a strange purgatory with waters. The near-death Kyoraku gets dragged underneath by an a hand, and is confronted by the spirit of Ukitake. Ukitake gives a bit of a recap about Juhabach's plan to merge the Three Worlds, and how he's managed to delay it with his whole Mimihagi gambit. Ukitake notes that he's very likely to die soon (and Kyoraku agrees), and before he does so, he wants to make a gambit on Kyoraku by giving his last powers to him. There's a nice couple of jokes between the two old friends, before Ukitake notes that despite this not being Kyoraku's style, he's still going to do it since there's no one else that can.
Kyoraku walks off into the distance and wakes up in the real world, while Ukitake fades away (and says his last line in his adult voice). It is quite surprising that we're getting a bit more for Kyoraku to do, but I am absolutely not complaining.
Our main star in this episode is Uryu, however, as we go through a massive sequence that's original to the anime. Fresh off his victory over Haschwalth, zips down into the giant orb of deathly distortion, summons his fancy new four-pronged bow, and starts shooting arrows into it. The arrows whirl around the giant death-orb, and Uryu notes that this is exactly as his master (his grandfather) wrote. Utterly unexpectedly, the two best characters in Bleach, Pesche and Dondochaka show up. They were apparently caught up in the 'black eyeballs' and got teleported there. Which I guess are the portals that were opened a couple episodes by the science team?
But much more exciting is the arrival of Neliel and... Harribel! There's a bit of a comedic bit from Pesche where he accuses Uryu at ogling Nel's adult form. Harribel is completely no-nonsense, pointing her giant shark-bone-sword at Uryu's face. Which, fair enough, he is a Quincy and even though Harribel has been out of the loop, her being suspicious would be entirely proper. Kyoraku and Nanao then show up, leading to a three-way meeting between the Shinigami, Hollows, and (a) Quincy. 
And can I just say how cool it is for Tier Harribel to have a large-ish role here? They didn't have to do this. They could've just had Harribel be freed in the epilogue and called it a day. But I've always had a huge soft spot for the Espada, and seeing Harribel get extended screentime where she had nothing in the manga is great.
We get a brief cutaway to a whole ton of Hollow rampaging and destroying the Rukongai, with Akon and the rest of the science team remarking about how this appears to be stabilizing the distortion as best as they could, and while the destruction of the poor Rukongai to be a necessary evil. There's some discussion about how Shinigami need to ensure balance, although I don't think 'maybe Rukongai existed just for this moment' makes much sense beyond the Shinigami telling themselves that to feel better.
We then get Kyoraku and Harribel both commenting on the big orb of doom, and Uryu identifies it as a 'final arrow' by Juhabach to trigger the collapse of the Three Worlds. And Uryu makes it clear that his duty and objectives as the Last Quincy is to destroy that Seed of Distortion. We get a flashback to Ishida Soken, Uryu's grandfather, apparently being the one to have discovered this distortion with his experimentation... and inadvertently caused this to be known to Juhabach. Soken notes that there might be a way to destroy the Seed of Distortion by driving it into the distortion itself. A bunch of handwave-y explanations that I have watched a couple of times and shrugged, but essentially it gives Uryu a game plan.
The whole Seed of Distortion stuff is admittedly still a bit of a random plot device from out of nowhere, but we at least get some modicum of explanation and exposition this time around. I'm not the biggest fan of it, but I can see how it works around the explanation for Uryu's big moment in this episode, and at least one aspect of Juhabach's plans to merge the three worlds -- even if he seems perfectly capable of doing it on his own with just his Auswahlen powers.
We cut back to Juhabach and Ichigo, where after the previous episode, Ichigo is basically in complete shock while Juhabach does an evil villain monologue. We get a short but powerful monologue from Ichigo, who notes that everyone there has had their powers rendered ineffective... and Juhabach attempts to take back the power he has given to Ichigo. I'm not sure if it actually worked or not, but Juhabach draws in power from Ichigo and Blut Vene appears all over Ichigo's body. As per Ichigo's flashbacking to the origin of his Quincy powers, Juhabach is drawing the Quincy-Hollow powers into himself, and Ichigo's hollow horn shatters.
Shadowy goop comes out and creates a gigantic halo, and this slams down all over the battlefield. Everything is bathed in vague purple light... and sadly, this does mean that the Gerard Valkyrie fight ends the same way, without even the slightest bit of extra scene for Byakuya/Hitsugaya/Kenpachi to do something against Gerard and his heart. Boo! Boo boo!
As the church-bells sound and Gerard gets atomized into a skeleton, the Auswahlen also slams onto the Lille Barro birds, wiping them out of existence while a confused Izuru Kira looks. It's... it's a bit of a little bugbear for me, too, that we didn't even get a token scene of Kira fighting the Lille birds. We don't have to get a proper fight, just to see Kira clash maybe once or twice with the Lille birds. There were enough random scenes with the science team that I'm sure it could've been snuck in.
More importantly, Mimihagi around Ukitake explodes and Ukitake presumably dies properly in this episode... but Kyoraku raises his hand, which contains a fragment of Mimihagi... and that shadow morphs into a mass of energy, and then an eyeball, and gets sucked in by Juhabach as well. What this means, and why Ukitake needed to entrust that power to Kyoraku, I'm not sure... but I really do appreciate the added Kyoraku/Ukitake stuff and hope that all of this builds to a less ass-pull-y finale for how they defeat the Almighty.
Juhabach, fully empowered as thus, flies up above the Wahrwelt and notes about how his plan is entering fruition as the Seed blooms, and as he's about to make an offering to the 'chaotic tranquility'.
(I will still be critical and note that the anime still doesn't explain why Juhabach needs to do a second Auswahlen to get rid of Gerard and Lille, which still feels as random as it was in the original manga. I can infer stuff, but it still feels rather random._
Uryu and Juhabach fight, with Juhabach outspeeding Uryu handily... but then a gigantic blast of water slams onto Juhabach as Tier Harribel joins the battle! That's so awesome. Underused characters actually participating in big fights? I guess the Espada rightfully is more popular even among the writers and animation staff compared to the XCution or Visored.
And Harribel just keeps slamming large amounts of water onto Juhabach. Nelliel charges in with Super Acceleration, although she gets pierced on the side. It is quite cool, since Nel did absolutely nothing but stand around and evacuate people in the manga version of the arc. Juhabach mocks the 'King of the Arrancar', noting the sheer gulf between their powers. Harribel cares not for power level gaps, or of the title of 'King'.
Harribel and Neliel are completely outmatched, mind you. Juhabach is right. But it's still cool to see old school Bleach attacks as Harribel drops a Cascada on Juhabach, dodges some black shadow tendrils before being pierced. Uryu uses Feder Zwinger to break down the reishi of Wahrwelt to create a gigantic arrow, and does a massive combo attack with Nelliel's Lanzador Verde... the scene moves between multiple projectiles and it's a bit odd, but as Juhabach queries whether this is the 'future that Uryu has chosen', Uryu goes "I haven't chosen yet!" So... uncertainty works to work around the Allmighty? Lanzador Verde slams onto Juhabach and seems to stun him for a bit.
In the face of Juhabach's future-swapping abilities, Uryu notes that he could already see that the future's going to be swapped... and he uses Antithesis to reverse the futures, restoring the arrow that Juhabach broke. It breaks apart and swarms around the Seed of Destruction, finally sending the Royal Palace descending down into the giant void in space.
Again, this is cool. In the manga, Uryu barely gets to use his Antithesis powers, but everyone keeps calling him as some kind of special Quincy. Uryu actually having the power to defy Almighty with Antithesis, and his still-unexplained immunity/survival of the Auswahlen (which I really hope the anime explains) really does make it understandable why he's super crucial to defeating Juhabach, instead of it feeling arbitrary. The added Uryu fight scenes against Squad Zero, Renji and Ichigo, of course, most certainly helped out too. I know I did complain a bit across my reviews about some things that could've been extended, like the Visored, or Gerard, or whatever.... but Uryu definitely is someone who went out of this new rewrites with a massive victory.
As the Seed of Distortion falls into the distortion itself, and Juhabach mocks Uryu that this is going to blow up the Seireitei... Uryu uses Antithesis to swap some stuff. With the trinkets that Uryu and Neliel has thrown around, Uryu swaps Juhabach and traps him within the explosion, while teleports the Arrancar into safety. And then with a gigantic amount of Feder Zwingers that take the form of like, mummy bandages, Uryu wraps everything around the gigantic explosion to contain it. The interlocking Quincy arrows is some over-the-top CGI stuff, but it looks impressive enough. Uryu gets a pretty cool Dragon Ball Z style yelling, before the explosion happens. 
And Uryu falls out of the sky, and just like Orihime a couple of episodes ago, this feels like a victory. But then Juhabach appears in the sky, laughs, and notes that this alters nothing of the future he had planned. Can't... can't Uryu just Antithesis this again? But sure. I get where they are going for with this, and we could handwave it as Uryu just losing power.
Juhabach boasts as eyeballs appear all over his body that 'all Schrifts have sublimated' within him, and that the final end and beginning is about to happen. With the distortion plan gone, Juhabach walks into a portal and heads down to the Soul Society. This happens in the manga, too, but felt random and arbitrary.
While I'm still a bit salty about some choices, I really do appreciate that the anime is really showing off some characters that really deserved better. Harribel, Nel and Kyoraku all having stuff to do is absolutely welcome, but Uryu getting a proper huge gambit to fight against Juhabach is great. I also really like that between the Antithesis powers of Uryu and the whole Mimihagi gambit by Ukitake and Kyoraku, that we're slowly building up various other ways to properly get around The Almighty beyond just a vague handwave of 'plot device magic arrow'.
This episode does feel a bit clunky, and if we're being honest a couple of the changes are quick handwaves just to give us some popular characters returning as a bit of a fanservice... but I can't lie; I did really enjoy all the returning characters and the huge Uryu moment. It feels like they could've did some work to make the pacing work better, but otherwise it's still a nice episode.
Random Notes:
- Kyoraku and Ukitake getting extra scenes is most welcome. One could already make an argument that Kyoraku had his big moment, and Ukitake's big moment comes off a lot better now that the anime equivalent of that scene has a flashback attached to it. But having a proper conclusion to that is most certainly welcome.
- And I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Ukitake getting a proper close-out is probably a nod to his upcoming big role in the Hell Arc, whenever that happens.
- Among the discussion between Kyoraku and ghost!Ukitake, there's a cute line where Ukitake notes that the chances of their plan working out is the same chance as Kyoraku successfully asking Unohana out on a date. Okay!
- With Xcution really not doing anything more than their manga counterparts in the next episode, I really thought that they could at least help out in laying down the bombs. At least Kujo, Riruka and the Time Tells No Lies guy would have something to do? They would represent the 'Earth' part of the Three Worlds a lot better than just Uryu alone, at least.
- It was a bit confusing how Pesche, Dondochakka and Harribel got sucked to the Royal Palace. Pesche claims that some 'black shadowy eyeballs' teleported them there, which seems to imply Juhabach's powers, but considering they were all last seen in Hueco Mundo, and the only portals that opened to Hueco Mundo seem to be the one activated by the Gotei 13... it's just a bit odd.
- Nanao was fully ready to throw down and Hado the Arrancar if Kyoraku hadn't stepped in.
- The Gerard fight really does rankle me. Even a couple of extra scenes showing them figuring out that it's the heart that's the source of regeneration and commenting on it would've been something.
- As Juhabach does that final Auswahlen and everything goes purple, there's a very cool chanting background music that I think is Never Meant to Belong (?) but with the Auswahlen church bells effect overlaid on top of it.
- I do like that among the five orbital palaces, we get to see the massive terrain damage caused by Gerard's kaiju fight, as well as Lille's Trompete attack.
- So despite Renji being cut up into ribbons last episode, I guess only the Bankai parts are broken? Because he seems quite whole on top of Bawabawa.
- The bangles that Nelliel drops to allow Uryu to use Antithesis are the bangles that prevent her from reverting to her child form... she does get turned back into a kid next episode, so it's a bit... foolish, I would say, to use those when any item would really do.
- Really love the scene of Uryu swooping in like a damn fighter jet into the glowing yellow explosions of the Seed of Distortion.
- Rangiku, Momo and motherfucking HANATARO make brief cameos around Byakuya and Hitsugaya as they witness Uryu stopping the big explosion.
- ...did none of the Shinigami try to help contain the blast? Even with the handwave that the more powerful Arrancar are wounded, the Shinigami no longer have Gerard to deal with, after all...
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