Bleach / First Impressions

Summary:

Amagai thinks that Yamamoto should know why he has suddenly appeared with Rurichiyo, but when the old man makes no indication that he does, Amagai explains that he’s here to kill Yamamoto in the place of a man named Kisaragi Shinetsu. Before Amagai can draw his blade though, Kenryuu and Enryuu attack him, and they manage to save Rurichiyo while he’s momentarily occupied. Barely fazed by their attacks, Amagai ignores them and instead takes the eyeball out of the bakkoutou on Kibune’s broken blade. This eyeball because it contains the power of the strong people who had used it before, and feeding it to his own bakkoutou causes it to transform into a new weapon. Yamamoto responds to all this releasing his zanpaktou, but Amagai is ready for this and negates it with his bakkoutou’s special power. Amagai then initiates ban kai and transforms his zanpaktou into a sword arm, and he uses this to attack the old man. The explosion resulting from this is big, but Yamamoto is still standing afterwards, relatively unhurt. Yamamoto tries to prevent Amagai from turning his anger towards Rurichiyo, but Amagai subsequently reveals that Yamamoto isn’t his only target – he’s also after the successor of the Kasumiooji family. Ichigo, however, arrives on the scene before Amagai can do anything else.

Meanwhile, Yoruichi explains to the captains who are gathered at the Kasumiooji estate about how Amagai is behind everything, but she’s unsure of his goals. What they don’t realize is that Amagai is at that very moment explaining this to Yamamoto and Ichigo. It turns out that Kisaragi Shinetsu was Amagai’s father and had been a Shinigami, but he was killed by Yamamoto. Amagai had found his dying father after the battle, and his father had identified Yamamoto as his slayer. Years later, Amagai joined the Gotei 13 so that he could find out the truth behind his father’s death. That’s how he came to understand the bakkoutou that his father had been investigating. Amagai believes that his father had been killed by Yamamoto after his father found evidence that Yamamoto was conspiring with the Kasumiooji family in the development of the bakkoutou. Everything Amagai has done since he realized this – including rising in the ranks and getting close to Kumoi – was in order to get revenge. Having finished saying all this, Amagai tries to attack Yamamoto again, but Ichigo gets in his way. Ichigo doesn’t care about what Amagai talked about and is instead angry over how Amagai’s selfishness put Rurichiyo through a lot of horrible things. Since Ichigo refuses to move, the two prepare to fight each other.

Preview

First things first: Enryuu’s voice makes my ears bleed. It’s like nails on a chalkboard, and I hope they never have him say anything ever again. In fact, it’d probably be safer if he died.

As for the actual meat of the episode, I found it rather hard to stomach a bad guy’s motivation and background when it’s completely revealed in all in a span of five minutes like it was here. The revenge thing wasn’t all that unexpected, and the only thing I come out of this curious about is the extent of Yamamoto’s actual involvement in the bakkoutou ordeal. In short, the whole thing feels like the writers just needed some way to get Amagai facing against Ichigo and then get him eliminated quickly. The upside, however, to them rushing through it all is that we’ll get to see something new once Ichigo defeats Amagai and ends the arc.

Speaking of which, there’s not going to be any Bleach on September 24th or October 1st. Episode 189 will air October 7th, when Bleach moves back to Tuesdays. What will probably happen is that next week will be Ichigo vs. Amagai fight, October 7th will be some sort of conclusion to this arc, and then October 14th – episode 190, when the new OP Velonica by Aqua Timez begins – will start a new arc.

36 Comments

  9. Ugh, Amagai’s bankai looks like a crushed oyster. Just when they were going to fight, they started talking again…for 12 straight mins~ The Ichi blocks an attack & that’s it. I hate filler arcs as much as the next person but this one definitely needs to end…soon. I’ll have to stomach the mushiness of the next eps so I can live peacefully knowing I won’t have to see Lurichiyo’s depressed mug for 2 whole weeks 🙂

    Megas
    Reply

  10. “I am Fillar Captain! You killed my father, prepare to die!”

    Wait, what? THAT’S his bankai? I thought most bankais were really, really big. That’s why Byakuya was so surprised with Ichigo little bankai sword. Sure, Fillar Captain’s Bankai is bigger then his shikai, but it still looks like something that can reasonably fit inside a room. O.o

    Also, maybe it’s just me, but it doesn’t seem to have any relation to his shikai, unless I’m missing something by reading the recaps instead of bothering to download the episodes.

    platedlizard
    Reply

  11. Who writes these fillers? the janitor of the office?
    That was the lamest bankai i have ever seen it looks like something a oyster craped out.
    It is so fckin weak that ichigo can block it with one hand on a useless zangetsu. Just kill amalgai already.use the hollow form and kill him in 0.26 secs

    †sukiyomi
    Reply

  12. ya kinda fast.

    I see a similarity with this filler arc and the last one, when they fight Against people with a special skill, also both Final Boss like Bount arc one and this, use attached sword to their hands to fight. Kariya used his Doll and turned it in to a wind arm-sword, this fool used his eye ball sword that eats up energy and made it in to a arm-sword. Though later turns huge and in to soemthing else… whatever..

    and yeaaii next week a fight episode plus its ichigo…

    Chimasternmay
    Reply

  14. Yeah, if they end this stupid ass filler on ep. 190 im going to be happy as hell because I want to see adult Neliel Tu and her release form now. If they don’t end it soon im going to fucking scream and be pissed off as hell. Plus the god damn opening fooled me because I thought Ichigo and Amagai would team up and fight together.

    Taylor Paul
    Reply

  24. My guess is that Amagai actually misunderstood the whole thing and the truth is probably his OWN father conspired with the Kasumiooji, or some false evidence planned up on Yamamoto. Whatever.

    Kaitune
    Reply

  26. Blargh. Why waste all this time on making Amagai a somewhat sympathetic and semi-decent character only to piss it all away on some stupid avenge-the-father subplot that literally comes out of nowhere? Not that I was expecting Amagai to make it past the HM arc, but I was sort of hoping there’d be more political subtext to the patrol corps and the Gotei 13. I mean, seriously, the captain turnover in Sereitei is just ridiculous. If Amagai doesn’t bite it, I can see him being banished/exiled instead if this does happen to be all just one big misunderstanding.

    Reiter
    Reply

  28. i thought that this filler will be a good one to subjugate the too much violence in the Hueco mundo arc but Amagai’s sudden change of heart is the thing that pissed me off. Amagai is a morally upright and a model captain; better than Gin Ichimaru in almost every aspect.
    they could hav eliminated Amagai in a more heroic and humane way, as a to contrast Aizen’s betrayal. I think it will be better if Amagai remained on the good side and died heroically fighting the conspirator of the Kasumioji clan and may have left the matter of the Bakkotou to Yamamoto and the Twelfth division. WHY ARE THEY CALLED THE SCIENCE DIVISION IF THEY DIDN’T CARE FOR THE BAKKOTOu IN THE FIRST PLACE, LIKE THEY DID IN THE BOUNT ARC?

    Nejibana
    Reply

  30. Dum dum dum, pointless hatred on anime original ars, JUST BECAUSE they are that, continue. Sad, as this was one of the best episodes. The whole “filler” arc was great, since we got to get away from the Hueco Mundo crap into something better. Oh well, few episodes and we are back on to the lameness of current manga story.

    The most sad thing is that Bleach is taking the slot of D.gray-man. With the cancellation of D.Gray-man, no good shows with “shonen” genre remain on tv.

    Oh well, lets go on with Failruto and Bleach, aka mainstream success commercial shows for kids…

    UnknownVoice
    Reply

  31. I to would like this filler arc to end but lets face it the filler was not all that bad. i has its ups and downs.and to unknown voice wtf if you can say the hueco mundo arc is crap you need to stop watching anime on the whole.

    simply me
    Reply

  33. Seriously Bleach anime become rubbish with all of those filler show

    it’s time to go back to it’s original plot do’h
    we ain’t need this scraped filler show

    hope there will be no more stoopid scraped filler show after this guy died

    Seafarer
    Reply

  34. I hear so much ppl complaining about this filler. I, on the other hand, don’t mind. Especially since I prefer reading the manga watching the anime. Anyways, my thoughts on this filler is that if there has to be any connection to the main story it would be that somehow Aizen used his Zanpaktou’s ability to make it appear as if Yamamoto killed his father. Yup simple theory huh? Aizen doing like he usually does. I actually wouldn’t mind if this filler continue, because since I feel that somethings don’t appear as dynamic as it does in the manga.

    Agevhunter
    Reply

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