Bleach / First Impressions

Summary:

Realizing Zaraki’s power, Nnoitra tries to tell Tesla to run, but it’s too late: the 11th Division captain promptly slices the fracción in half. With one down, Zaraki turns to face Nnoitra, but he first kicks Ichigo out of the way and explains that Urahara helped him get here. Zaraki isn’t here alone though. Three other captains have now appeared in various parts of Las Noches: Kurotsuchi where Szayel is, Unohana where the Exequias are, and Byakuya where Zommari is. After introducing herself, Unohana tells the Exequias that she doesn’t intend to fight them because she’s there to heal injuries only. The Exequias leader decides to leave for the time being, and Unohana gets to healing Sado and Gantenbainne. Kurotsuchi meanwhile is delighted to be facing an Espada, and although Szayel questions who he is, Szayel ultimately decides that it’s pointless to ask for his new opponent’s name since he’s just going to erase him. The 12th Division captain, however, claims he’d be troubled if he didn’t hear Szayel’s name because he needs to label the bottle in which he’s going to put Szayel in. This amuses Szayel, so he wraps his wings around his opponent and makes a doll out of him, but Kurotsuchi remains unfazed by this.

Back where Ichigo is, Nnoitra starts fighting Zaraki, and Yachiru keeps Ichigo from interfering because she can see how excited Zaraki is. After Zaraki and Nnoitra introduce themselves to each other, they really get into their battle, and Zaraki soon becomes thrilled by the challenge. As for Byakuya, he declines to introduce himself to Zommari, but he does question if the seventh Espada is the one who fought Rukia. Although Zommari denies that he was, he admits that he was about to finish her off. The two start fighting after Byakuya attempts his favorite attack-from-behind move on Zommari, however Zommari counters by creating a copy of himself. The Espada explains that his sonido is the fastest out of any of the others, and he can use it to create pseudo-clones of himself. Byakuya has no problem handling two or even three of these pseudo-clones, but it turns out that Zommari can create up to five, and that briefly overwhelms the 6th Division captain. Before Zommari can attempt to finish Byakuya off though, Byakuya uses a shunpo move that Yoruichi taught him to get out of the jam. He feels that the reason Zommari is going to lose is not because of arrogance, but because of a simple difference in their power.

 
 
 

It’s definitely good to see Byakuya, Zaraki, and Kurotsuchi back in action again. I found it amusing that they each (at least the latter two anyway) face an enemy who’s in many ways similar to them. Kurotsuchi and Szayel’s perfect pairing was the one I was most excited about back when I was reading the manga since they’re both the mad scientist types, and it’s fun to root for a former bad guy – who’s arguably still got some pretty villain-y traits – against the new one. Zaraki and Byakuya were interesting to a lesser extent because it was harder for me to see either of them ultimately losing their respective battles, so it became more a question of how lopsidedly they’d win. Regardless, the anime did a fairly good adaptation from the manga material (about two chapters worth covered here), though it did jump around a bit too much between all the battles for my tastes. Hopefully they’ll focus down on one or two of the fights next week.

37 Comments

  3. just a little complain with the animation quality though.. i hope it will get better as the battle goes on.. I will really enjoy the battle between Kurotsuchi and Syazel, i hope they will have a good adaptation from the manga.

    whitey-chan
    Reply

  19. think they gonna have to show pendulum, or a lot of stuff wont get explained + if they skip pendulum they wudav practically caught up with manga and wud go for another filler =.=

    brianleung8912
    Reply

  22. Easily the best episode in quite a while. They really hit a home run this week. I wish the blood was red but considering the time it airs in Japan I’m surprised they even showed that whole cut him in half scene. Ichigo or Inoue don’t seem concerned for Nell after she got kicked like a soccer ball?

    Splash
    Reply

  24. weird that the captains are matched up with people similar to him for example zaraki is matched up with another mad beserker type, the research captain against the research type espada and byukiaya with another speed time fighter LOL concidence i dont think so!

    ForeignUtopia
    Reply

  27. can they really show that much blood and dismemberment on tv? also, i don’t remember tesla falling apart into as many pieces as the there were transitions between battles in the manga.

    valdor
    Reply

  28. i am super excited for these fights but i wish peshe and dondochaka would just go off in a corner and die somewhere. their comic relief is amusing at times but in an action oriented episode they just take away from the seriuosness of the situation.
    anyway i cant wait for santa teresa and Zommari’s release even though it is the cheapest thing ever. theres no way they would skip the pendulum arc though, they have no reason to skip it and a bunch of reasons to show it

    v
    Reply

  29. The Espada-Captain similarity pair up is indeed awesome and creative…

    Zaraki vs Nnoitora – Just plain Brute Strength (no magic allowed)
    Byakuya vs Zommari – Speed and Agility is the game!
    Mayuri vs Szayel Aporro – Battle of the Minds!

    Anime Vampire
    Reply

  30. yeah animation sucked, too bad they shoulda pumped it up fo this one.. but still, even with the black blood, the way kenpachi split that nigga like a bagel was still GRUESOME!! ithink it was the severed hand that did the trick.. and what gives?! i thought ichi was all broken bone to shit? yet its still all good? lotta inconsistencys

    BROOKLYN otaku
    Reply

  32. Have to say I hope Mayuri and Szayel kill each other off. I don’t like either and may dislike Mayuri to a greater extent. It all makes sense with the writer focusing on similar fights. Ishida fights Szayel who is similar to Mayuri and thus it finishes off with a battle of mad scientists.

    Kenpachi’s fight should be good with the two just slashing at each other. Eyepatch is still on so still that boost available if it gets down to it.

    FlareKnight
    Reply

  34. Whats with the sudden yellow teeth of Mayuri…?
    Still think his old mask looks more sinister, and I also still hope for the day we see him totally without the make-up (and not just his ass from the shower-scene)

    Nyte
    Reply

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