The Undisputed Truth

Its been a long hard 2 weeks, and finally the Bleach folks have managed to make such a wait worthwhile. Episode 169 was funny, action-filled, suspenseful fanservice…but there a few things about it that are not quite right logically (in terms of the storyline, lets not delve into whether or not there actually are Shinigami in the real-world)..

Firstly, the most obvious : Chad, Rukia and Ishida are there. Now this is just impossible. Especially taking into the consideration the following point about Ishida’s bow which places the timeline of this story after Hueco Mundo or towards the end of the Arrancar arc. This then places them as being either beat up or too busy to be logically placed in the current Amagai Shuusuke arc.

The second peculiarity is Ishida’s bow. In fighting some hollow which surfaced over Karakura Town, Ishida, Chad and Inoue assisted Ichigo and Rukia in disposing of them. Interestingly, Ishida whips out his latest bow, the one he revealed in Hueco Mundo. 

If we were to refer to Episode #144 : Ishida, Chad, the Quickening of a New Power” we would see that this is the first episode where Ishida revealed his new, improved, and certainly more bad-ass bow weapon, Ginrei Kojaku (Silvery Mountaintop Sparrow). Prior to this, Ishida did not show any signs of having the ability to create a new bow or even officially regaining his Quincy powers after losing them as a result of using the Quincy “Final Form” and training with Ishida Ryūken in Episode #126 : Uryū vs. Ryūken! Clash of the parent-child Quincies. Even if he did, the episodes succeeding #126 and #144 were irreversible ; they could not have gone back to the living world, or took a break after having entered Hueco Mundo or beginning the fight with the Arrancar. I would like to see how this is explained.

 Is this “Jumping the Shark”?. Is the entire arc one of Aizen’s illusions? Are the people at Bleach running out of ideas? This is what happens when you try to dilute a series with so much bullshit. I’m interested to see how these inconsistencies are explained.

Is it that they totally ignored the threat of the Arrancar (who also conveniently stopped attacking) and also “vowed never to speak of it again” for the entire arc, even though the only possible timeline where the arc can be placed, with a large stretch of logic is between Episodes 127 and 135 where the Arrancar were an imminent threat? Coming to think of it even that is illogical because we saw a cool, nothing-is-going-on Hitsugaya in Episode 168, and between Episodes 127 and 135 where we are attempting to place the timeline of Episode 169, he was fighting Arrancar!

So in conclusion, Episode #169 of Bleach (New Development, the Dangerous Transfer Student Appears!”) and therefore this Amagai Shuusuke Arc, pending some fantastic logical bending and explanation, doesn’t make any sense at all. This could have well been fanfiction. It is however refreshing to see Ichigo and his dad fight in the morning, Keigo greet Ichigo, Tatsuki, Kon, Ichigo’s sisters, Rukia, Chad and Ishida. Now if only it all made sense.

*EDIT - a fellow fan is telling me that they “went forward in time” with Episode #169…still doesn’t make any sense..so they’re leapfrogging arcs now? Now she’s saying they can “do whatever they want to do” with regards to the timeline. Right…I can dance the macarena naked in the middle of the quadrangle at UWI, but it doesn’t have to make sense to other people…

Well early Thursday morning I watched the first filler episode of Bleach, only to be hit with the following facts :

1) Its not just a set of filler episodes, its a fiiller ARC. Dumb observation you may think, but there were loose filler episodes in the past.

2) There are new cool, but toned-down beginning and ending themes which suggest the previous point as other new characters were shown

3) Amagai Shuusuke is…awkward. His zanpakutou is like a fricking knife or something and so far he isn’t really convincingly cool. One of the lower seats of the 3rd squad even said that “he lacks poise”.

4) Last not certainly not fucking least, THE NEXT EPISODE WILL BE ON MAY 7th.

Yes. Its the beginning of the already unwanted filler arc and they’re already taking another break. I’m this close to abandoning Bleach. Have they no respect for their fans? We’re not asking for shit like, naked pictures of Matsumoto, but just to see something worthwhile after waiting a week to see the show. Lately however its been shit, or nothing.  What a waste. I’m open to suggestions for something better to follow weekly..

Yep. No more relevant content will be seen on the anime “Bleach” for quite some time. They’re going to introduce some lame looking new 3rd squad captain called Amagai Shuusuke in Episode 168 on April 23rd as mentioned before.

But, it was inevitable. The Hueco Mundo arc was one of the best, and ended beautifully with Ichigo destroying Grimmjow, holding out his hand to Inoue and telling her to come with him.

The only thing which is sort of weird, a minor plot hole if you will, throughout the entire arc is….why didn’t Aizen, Gin or Tousen just come out in Las Noches and kill Ichigo? Anyone of them easily can, and Inoue is central to their plans so the idea of him just being a unworthy challenge not posing any serious threat to them is moot.

But anyway, when you’re badass enough to stifle people just by your presence, you can afford to do illogical shit.

The fillers I guess won’t be too bad. At least the production crew can go bananas over putting in all the shit that wasted our time for the past few months in entire episodes rather than just stealing 5 minutes of each episode that actually had some excitement. What worries me is the length of this “filler season”..we all know how painfully long the Bounto arc was : 44 episodes, and now with all the work of introd

ucing new captains and getting the audience back in touch with seemingly discarded characters like Kon, etc…will this last until the end of the year?..One of the final shots of episode 167 dims the hopes of many fans in getting the viewing of the fillers over with ASAP. Nel actually said “Me and my buddies won’t be around for a while because the higher-ups said so“

How long is this “while” going to be? Well, we can only wait and see, and hope Amagai Shuusuke, Matsumoto’s boobs and the countdown to the release of the subbed 3rd Bleach movie, “Diamond Dust Rebellion” keep us entertained in the meantime..

Click here for a complete list of Bleach anime episodes.