Bleach HQ

[craigdbfan]

Bleach ep. 344

Amazingly adapted as always. This so far has been my favorite episode in the new season. The episodes animation is top notch as always but I don't expect anything less from the same team that brought us YuYu.

One tiny gripe is that they're having a hard time animating/drawing Ginjou Kuugo. They're not getting the shape of his eyes exactly right as well as the width of his mouth which is pretty darn big in the manga but has been altered in a lot of scenes. In some scenes he looks great but for the most part they're dropping the ball on him a bit.

Hope as time goes on they get better with him.

 

[craigdbfan]

Bleach Chapter 469 is out.

Pretty good chapter for the most part but very little happened in terms of actual progression.

Tsuki's abilities become more and more powerful as the chapter goes on. He's becoming a bit too talkative and cocky so I can see Byakuya at least getting a hit on him next chapter.

Rukia's side plot is more comical than anything especially with Riruka using her love gun and all.

Best battle so far has been Tsuki and Kuchiki so I don't mind thats its being stretched out because its interesting for what it is.

 

[Jick]

Bleach Chapter 469 is out.

Pretty good chapter for the most part but very little happened in terms of actual progression.

Exactly. Take the last Naruto chapter for comparison. See how much is done in each page. There's a lot more content, a lot more going on in each chapter.

Kubo said some time ago that Bleach will last 10 more years. We can see it in the way he conducts the manga. It's like he just want to keep the money coming.

Even so, I'm enjoying the battle between Byakuya and Tsuki, for the little that is shown in each chapter. It's interesting and I'm looking forward to its climax.

 

[November Rain]

loved the last manga, loved it so much, purely for the tsuki/byakua fight

i hope they drag it out into a proper scuffle, it has the elements to be one of the better fights in bleach.

bleach used to be all about the great fights but there hasn't been a half decent one since ulquoirra croaked. THe last palatable one was in the anime with soi fong vs kommomura but that was more fan service than anything else.

the worst thing about this fighting is that i wanted to ichigo vs hollow ichigo + zangetsu to be a drawn out bloodbath in order to get the final getsuga tenshou., isshin made it seem like it would be bad place on earth unlocking that badboy but it wasn't really. Although three months locked in any single conflict has got to be bad. I blame kubo's pacing for that mess and i had wished they made up for it in the anime. I would have much rather have the last arc stretched out rather than the rubbish filler we got. It made the beast swords one look like the rescue arc

 

[Liam_H]

Exactly. Take the last Naruto chapter for comparison. See how much is done in each page. There's a lot more content, a lot more going on in each chapter.

Kubo said some time ago that Bleach will last 10 more years. We can see it in the way he conducts the manga. It's like he just want to keep the money coming.

Even so, I'm enjoying the battle between Byakuya and Tsuki, for the little that is shown in each chapter. It's interesting and I'm looking forward to its climax.

If this is true we're looking at 40+ years of this thing going on unless time skips are involved. I mean look at this current arc of Ichigo getting his powers back, its been like a week and it took a year for us to get here.

 

[TheStrider]

I notice all the old threads are gone now! Come back from China to find the entire internet is different!

 

[craigdbfan]

Bleach episode 345 is out.

Loved this episode thought they did a great job of handling Ryuken Ishidas response and help to both Ichigo and Orihime it was done very well. The ambiance they created when they handled those scenes was something I was hoping they'd do and they delivered.

Glad they still left the scene between Ginjou, Riruka, and Giriko relatively the same only the difference being in terms of location (a park at night in the anime versus right outside the Unagiya store in the day). The conversation and the animation though was stellar.

For those wondering who Tsukishima was talking to I believe its Shishigawara. Reason being the saggy pants and for those who read the manga knowing that he's Tsukishima's goon.

 

[craigdbfan]

Chapter 470 is finally out and what a chapter this was.

The best part was the second half for me just due to Riruka and Rukias conversation.

Rukia asking her why "Is it so important to not be normal".

Riruka goes on to say that it very much is important because otherwise she wouldn't have met Tsukishima and Ginjou. There's a way deeper story going on here as they seem to have a similar ideology that Aizen held to a degree. This necessary need to separate themselves not only from humans but shinigami as well.

This is going to be an interesting explanation from Riruka. She's now even referring to Kuugo as her "saviour" when earlier in this arc she showed a complete lack of respect towards his "leadership".

Things are becoming very engaging indeed.

As for Ginjous fullbring being an absorption ability, I can't say I'm surprised about that although the fact that Ishida said he also has all of Ichigos abilities certainly did. Now the question is to what extent of Ichigos powers does he hold? Is he just referring to all of Ichigos fullbringer energy or are talking all the way to Getsuga Final Tenshou?

If so than this has the potential of getting very messy.

 

[Liam_H]

Isn't Riruka an unreliable narrative considering she's being influenced.

 

[craigdbfan]

From the information we know she is no longer under BotE. That would include herself along with Ginjou and the rest of the fullbringers who were reverted back to their normal selves once Kuugo revealed his plan to Ichigo remember. According to Ginjou it was his plan all along to go under BotE along with his group to convincingly lure Ichigo into believing that Kuugo and company were his friends/allies while Tsukishima was their enemy.

So unless if a future chapter makes it clear they were under BotE even before Ichigo met Ginjou that'd change the story once again.

But according to Kubo right now all the fullbringers are acting under their own will.

 

[November Rain]

the last chapter was a lil meh for me, not much plot development.

ginjou firing getsuga tenshou may simply means he is of the kurosaki bloodline and not necessarily that he managed to absorb it from ichigo

i would say that he and ichigo are actually half brothers or something

perhaps ginjou was bookmarked by isshin to make him forget about his first son, who knows

not quite sure on the direction they took in the anime, don't like tsukishima being revealed so early with no real involvement in the story.

i much preferred his reveal with orihime, it was better in the manga. I guess they are just trying to fill out the story so it doesn't catch up with the manga really quickly but there are better ways to do that

one of the good things about the manga was the pacing and i hope they don't drop the ball and space out everythingi n the anime, all kubo's hard work will be for nothing

saying that, the manga should get the majority of these fights over and done with and concentrate on tsukishima's and ginjou's battles. i don't care about riruka's at all.

 

[craigdbfan]

Really liked this shot of Ginjou thats some awesome work there by Kubo.

 

[Liam_H]

The worse thing about the manga is the pacing, battles are always overly drawn out.

 

[craigdbfan]

I don't really mind that. Short fights are irratating to me, I like the fact that Bleach tends to linger with the fights. It's never been a negative for me quite the opposite actually its one of the reasons I enjoy this manga.

Plus some of the previous fights with the fullbringers was said to be too short and now the fights are too long? Come on now.

 

[craigdbfan]

Really liked how reverent of a job SP did in ep. 345 with adapting a couple of these panels especially this one.

 

[Jick]

Wow. Really good job.

 

[November Rain]

yeah i like the way the manga is taking the story

liked the little backgrounds they gave on the fullbringers, this week but unfortunately, it was a lil bit too late.

it seemed that the most interesting one was the guy from time tells no lies but he died, i feel kinda cheated that his fight with byakuya didn't last much longer.

i enjoyed his revelation of how he found out his contract with god etc

 

[craigdbfan]

I really enjoyed the chapter as well.

But by far I found Jackie to be the most sympathetic one out of them all. Giriko deserved to be one shotted by Kenpachi. I had no remorse for what he did to his wife. Horrible man.

 

[Liam_H]

Has it been confirmed outside of the manga that Jackie or Giriko are actually dead? Kubo does let the antagonists remain dead while the protagonists just get badly injured. However, that would mean this is the final confrontation which would seem kind of odd to me.

 

[craigdbfan]

Giriko seems pretty dead as for Jackie there's still some ambiguity as we've yet to see Renji since she apparently sacrificed herself for him.

Giriko definitely seems like he's gone forever though. Kenpachi got him good.

 

[Liam_H]

I wondered if Ikumi actually had some deeper role in all of this but if shes just regular human with a shop then I hope it stays that way. Not everything has to be connected to everything, she should remain as Ichigo's boss who occasionally gives him advice.

 

[craigdbfan]

Yeah that had crossed my mind before as well.

For a second I though it to be to convenient that when she decides to "kidnap" Ichigo for work within 10 minutes or less Ginjou was already at the door at her shop. Almost as the entire thing was already planned.

Probably a coincidence but it was a bit odd. Personally like you I'd rather if she just stay a normal human.

 

[craigdbfan]

Bleach 473

Ginjou is going to reveal to Ichigo who the "real" enemy is. Things are really getting exciting. I still have my doubts on whether Tsukishima is actually going to die seeing as Ginjou clearly stated he has around 10 minutes of life left in him. I'm sure another twist is coming soon but this is what I'm expecting:

As I said a while back I still believe that Ginjou and the rest of the fullbringers plan was to get "executed" by the Gotei 13 (Thus the quote on the Xcution card "Welcome to our Xcution")

Their mission has always been to infiltrate Soul Society. To what means still remains a mystery but the fact that we're learning about how they all shared their ability to some capacity is quite the revelation and the fact that Riruka has also hidden somewhere inside Rukia and with her speech right beforehand seem to suggest that their story isn't quite done.

 

[Liam_H]

New chapter is out early this week. Ichigo's favorite word makes a comeback.

This whole "Truth" by Kuugo is not really that surprising.

 

[craigdbfan]

It sort of was seeing as most people were thinking it'd be something about Isshin or Urahara or some other ___ member of SS that wasn't Ukitake.

Ukitake was out of left field but when you look at all the events he's been involved it does make sense.

His involvement when that hollow attacked Kaien, ordering his subordinates to place Rukia in Karakura town. Aizen even said he had planned that entire situation so people should have assumed back then that Ukitake should have had some knowledge of that seeing as he was the one that placed her there in the first place.

Ukitake certainly wasn't the main suspect but the seeds were very much laid by Kubo.

Great chapter and an admittedly good surprise.