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Urahara finally contacts Ichigo by using an unwittingly-modified Kon, but we get absolutely no new information on what’s actually going on. Even the unknown person who confronted Urahara a while back remains unrevealed. Judging from Ichigo’s reaction, Ryuuken or Ishida would be a good guess, but the katana we saw in the cliffhanger seems to imply someone else. Whoever it is has a pretty foul mouth as well and seems to know Ichigo as well, which brings Grimmjow to mind. He fits the description pretty well, and we know he didn’t die so it seems like an appropriate time for him to show up again.
Grimmjow wouldn’t be the only former villain returning to help the good guys; Kubo seems to be bringing back a lot of characters for this final arc. Kuugo, Tsukishima and Giriko are back. I’m assuming they were sent to Soul Society after they died, and they are training for battle again with the Shiba family. Though it’s not clear whether or not the three of them lost their Full-bring powers, unless they come up with something radical, they are not likely to be able to do anything significant in the upcoming battles.
As for Ichigo, I can’t help but think that there are a lot of things that people are withholding from him. He really knows very little about a lot the circumstances around him. Ichigo’s mind is purely focused on protecting his friends, which makes him too trusting of people who seem to offer help in that regard. It also causes him to miss the big picture sometimes, making him little more than a pawn (albeit a very strong pawn) that is good for showing up and winning battles, but little else. I see more double-crosses and shocking revelations on his plate in the near future.
I really do wonder who it is….would be really…odd, if it was Gin. >>
As if Gin could be shooed off by Orihime and Chad like that! XD (But I do miss him since he was pretty cool when he attempted to kill Aizen so fast with his zanpaktou)
So are you suggesting that Grimmjow could be simply shooed away by those two?? I THINK NOT! =]
It was definitely Grimmjow. If you look closely you can see his black sash along with his rolled up sleeves.
Judging from the style of speaking, the katana and Ichigos reaction it likely to be Grimmjow
Grimmjow is the only one I remember wear jacket with sleeve rolled-up
That’s exactly who I taught it was.
The Fullbringers and Grimmjow might actually be useful since they don’t rely on bankais like the captains do. Also, it’s crazy how Ichigo’s roots are tied to Quincies, Hollows, Soul Reapers, and now the Shiba Clan too. That chick seemed to be referring to Isshin as “uncle”, though it probably wasn’t meant to be taken literally.
that’s because ichigo’s a unicorn
or the product of some crazy soul society orgy
Ichigo is the Kwisatz Haderach.
@SQA All hail the God Emperor of
DuneSoul SocietyHe’s a Mexican Unicorn.
I’ve come to the conclusion that ichigo’s mother was a whore, and his father was her pimp. She was hired to be part of some giant orgy between all the various races and species of soul society, and after much pounding, ichigo came into existence.
Of coarse this was all a set-up by Aizen, who, behind the scenes had used his hypnosis to forced Isshin to license her out to this party in the first place.
In fact, this whole situation is all Aizen, he was never defeated, in fact, he never attacked! You know why? Soul society never existed! It was all Aizen! The quincy’s you say? Aizen. Hollow’s? Aizen says hello!
Let it be known that Aizen rules the Aizen.
trololol kubo, trololol.
God not the full bringer characters, that arc was so bad it killed the show. They were all boring and we are already full up on characters.
boom baby.
kubo being kubo again. nothing new.
just shut up and read the manga, you always comment nonsense about how the author was f*cked up and yet you’re still reading Bleach… stupid
I really respect you for being able to cover and blog this manga week after week. Because latelly its only causes me frustration. Bringing up the fullbringers was totally pointless. Except if they get some ridicoulus and nonsensial power-up (actually its very Kubo-like) they wont be able to hold even a candle.
Tsukishima as a human was able to hold his own against Byakuya. Now he’s going to get nifty ghost powers.
Far from useless.
Only because he have that stupid overpowered ability.
Nobody’s forcing you to continue reading this. If you don’t like it, don’t read it.
Is it just me or was this chapter difficult to follow? The panels/flow was horrible, and the fullbringer return was even worse.
Does any one notice Ganjil’s extreme make over.
C’mon Kubo, bring Hollow Ichigo to the scene! Damn, separate him from Ichigo!
Meanwhile with Ura… Oh wait.
Finally, Urahara!
Okay, Tsukishima and Giriko’s souls being preserved KIND OF makes sense, but Ginjo was already a Soul Reaper wasn’t he? How does that work?
Also, why even bring them back? None of them were even close to a Captain’s level when they were alive, AND they were all incredibly irresponsible with their abilities, so I don’t know how they got clearance to come back when they should clearly be in hell. We still don’t even know why Ginjo was evil in the first place or what he was trying to accomplish by bringing the Fullbringers together. I so wish we could’ve just brushed that whole arc under the rug…
And just to be a contrarian, I’m gonna say that guy Ichigo talked to is Nnoitora.
Actually, it’s (really, really hidden under tons of subtext) implied that Ginjo’s Soul Reaper half lost the fight against his inner Hollow, leaving him as a human who, if his soul was knocked out of his body, would be a Hollow, not a Soul Reaper.
But then…that doesn’t answer any of my questions…
Er, not to put too fine a point on it, but I kinda did answer one, at least. Ginjo, as a Hollow, only wanted more power in the guise of finding someone who could kill him, giving him (and the other Fullbringers) back their lost hearts.
As for the return of the three Fullbringers, all I can say is that this is the final arc. It’s a universal thing for the final arc to make references to all previous arcs, including characters from those arcs returning. Just be glad that we get those three and not have Jackie, Yukio, or Riruka return as Quincies fighting for the Vandenreich (irrelevant of the gravitas they’d bring when the Quincies inevitably revolt against Juha Bach in an anticlimactic disarmament on the part of both sides).
Okay, for one, that reason sounds way too convoluted. Also, why would he need 6 other Fullbringers (who were weak as shit) to achieve this goal? Couldn’t he have just Hollowfied (if he even could, because there’s no clear sign he even has an Inner Hollow) and provoked the Soul Society to kill him earlier in the story if he was so desperate to die?
And yeah, it’s the final arc, but bringing people back at least requires CONTEXT, not just cameos for the lulz. The Fullbringers are so weak and irrelevant that even bringing them to A SINGLE BATTLE with these quinces is like bringing giant pool noodle to a warzone. It doesn’t fit, it has no use, and it only distracts from the important stuff.
My question is that I thought when you die and go to the Soul Society, you lose all of the memories you had when you were alive? Ginjo may be a special case, but I’m pretty sure that Giriko and Tsukishima were human, meaning they shouldn’t remember anything about Ichigo.
I don’t think you lose your memories. The parrot child from right at the beginning of the series still remembered Chad.
This is Bleach…..yeah, we really should stop drinking it.
Drinking Bleach is a lot easier than drinking Naruto. How does drinking a ninja work?
Nel… is that you…?
what happened….!
Kuukaku’s presence made this the best Bleach chapter in ever for me. She so kuruu
Coincidentally, her lack of presence in things makes all the bad unassociated with her
Wonder how the king of soul society looks like..
how about a character like baby Nel Kubo Tite ?? lol
Do you guys remember when Tsukishima drove Juha Bach away from Soul Society?
Our hero!
You know, Shuu-chan was besides Ichigo when he fought Juha Bach and that Quincy in Hueco Mundo. Without Shuu-chan, Ichigo would have died.
It’s Grimmjow man, even dress was an arrancar get up and the way he spoke, that’s Grimmy and he’s been pimped up.
I love the way that Kubo’s trump cards in this arc seem to be Grimmjow (I believe mystery man is Grimjow, nobody else really fits all of the details), Tsukishima, and Ginjo family….ALL of which have already lost to the people who have been annihilated by the quincies already (Ichigo, Byakuya and Kenpachi). Somehow their appearance now doesn’t seem like it will change much at all.
P.S. I read somewhere a list of what Kubo wanted to achieve with this arc, one thing was bringing Grimjow back, another was tie in the relationship between Isshin and Ryuken, and another was that he wanted to show Kyoraku/ Unohana’s Bankai (or at least have her fight).
This chapter is one of the examples why BLEACH is ending and why it lost some of its fans.
Since when was Kukaku the King Kai of Bleach? Restoring former villains that have been defeated.
Any who… I’m pretty sure it’s Grimmjow.
Urahara? …Kukaku?? Ganju??
I try to get out, but Kubo keeps PULLING ME BACK IN!!!
It’s obvious that it was Grimmjow, just by the rolled up sleeve and the torso which reveals his white Arrancar uniform, and of course, by the foul mouth he had.
And this finally confirms that Tsukishima died as well. It was pretty obvious from the manga (“lol ‘beautiful scenery’ with white background xDxDxD hurr”), but in the anime, it seemed that he lived. Guess they didn’t take the hint either.
Actually, Tsukishima was shown holding his Book of the End, indicating that they still had their Fullbrings. Which kinda fits in when you realize that Mayuri’s worked on Quincy souls in the thousands, despite their having been wiped out almost a hundred years before his was released from the Maggots Nest (irrelevant that he had to have been free some time beforehand), inferring that humans with special powers keep those powers after becoming souls.
In fact, this might just explain where Vandenreich got all their non-arrancar soldiers, since I refuse to believe there exist so, so many spiritually aware people in the world. I might be wrong on that point, but I shall stand by it until outright proven wrong.
Wait, are you saying that Tsukishima helped the Quincies to recruit Arrancar? He’s very clearly aligned with Ganju and Kukaku, so I doubt he has any Quincy ties.
No, he said that when a quincy dies, he keeps his power in the afterlife. He assumes that Juha Bach reqruited those because it’s unlikely that there are that many Quincy still alive.
Also, Bach is more than a thousand years old. How does that even work for a race that is supposedly human?
How Ginjou and Giriko still exist? Giriko was cut in half, CUT IN HALF, from the head to the bottom, when a soul dies and go to the soul society they are BORN again, like a baby, like Rukia and Renji were, doesnt make anysense for them to keep their age, shape or powers, specially when you had 3 other fullbringers who did stayed alive, and now they are on the good side?, Giriko was downright mad and he murdered his wife! Kukaku doesnt have the means or the power to keep their souls intanct, DOES NOT MAKE SENSE.
Uh…. no. They aren’t born again. People who die in the physical world move on to Soul Society and retain their ages. Rukia was a baby when she died, and was a baby of the same age when she moved on to Soul Society. Do you remember when Chad ripped a pole from the ground to fight a hollow and was swinging wildly because he still couldn’t see them entirely? The dead child he was helping then moved on to Soul Society, and even helped Chad out when they went to save Rukia.
Go Ask the TROLL himself! oooooh kubooo-san? dokodesu ka? Shinnesai onegaishimasu! Tororutan!
They ARE dead. This is the Soul Society, the afterlife where souls of the dead are guided to once their physical bodies die. Where else are they gonna go? Detroit?
Hahaha. Grimmjow is back. Awesome :D.
One thing I’m really puzzling over is the fact that if it’s so easy to get to the Soul King realm via Kuukaku’s cannon, WHY didn’t Aizen just hijack and use the cannon? o_O Would have been much easier than a century of planning, waiting and going through the whole winter war just to make the King’s Key :P.
I think you wont get that far anyway if you use the cannon to get to the palace without the “key”, as i guess you need it to enter the palace itself. But there isnt that much explained about the key anyway, and i am sure we will get to that very soon.
“…no new information on what’s actually going on.”
Uh, dont you contradict yourself? In the next paragraph you state what is going on! Let me recap:
Grimmjow saved ichigo from the cage (and helps urahara)
The dead fullbringers teamed up with Ganjou.
Ichigo IS AT THE MOFO’ING PALACE!
Ichigo is RELATED TO THE SHIBA CLAN HOLY CRAP!
Do you know how big this is? It confirms old theories, many wondered why kaien shiba (think that was his name) looked so much like ichigo. And then ishida who also looks a lot like ichigo. And now ichigo has latent quincy powers. And ishiin and ryukken just so happens to be old “friends”.
I believe you can connect the last few dots yourself.
lol “Related to the Shiba Clan”? I think you might be getting ahead yourself there. I didn’t see anything there to imply that. At least I hope not, because that would be a very weak twist.
Also, since when does Ishida look a lot like Ichigo?
What? Are you commenting to Rex that Ichigo and Ishida are half-brothers?
No, he said Ishida and Ichigo look alike, when they clearly don’t.
I still get the feeling Ishida’s dad and Ichigo’s mom are brother and sister making Ichigo and Ishida cousins. It explains why the 2 older men are very friendly to each other.
I meant that Urahara told Ichigo nothing besides the fact that they were fine. This is why I put the “but” after “Urahara finally contacts Ichigo”.
Urahara usually knows more than he’s letting off.
‘sigh’ I wish next week come soon, since I won’t be working on the rest of December afterword.
Soooo… you guys wouldn’t accept a logical explaination of Ichigo’s powers, even if it was explained in a consistent fashion,(even though I doubt it ever would be), or you will see it as an complete random asspull of Kubo on his part?
what ever happened to yammy
Killed by Kenpachi. And I only say Kenpachi because even though Byakuya-san was there when they returned to the SS he looked as if he hadn’t broken a sweat.
You know, except for that other Espada he fought alone and the initial struggle with Yammy that we DID get to see.
Kuugo, Tsukishima, and Giriko could come back as they were human when they died. But unfortunately no GIN. I guess we are going to see Espada & Xcution fighting alongside Soul Society in a long drawn out epic battle. What would really be a surprise, is that after dealing with the Quincy. Each faction decides to go at each other. But we all know that won’t happen. So what I will look forward too is finally seeing what the Soul King looks like http://southparkstudios.mtvnimages.com/shared/characters/non-human/god.jpg
I really hope Kubo shows us the Soul King next chapter or he may troll us with some enemy attack.
Spirit King is either a loli or Don Kanonji. I’m calling it.
Don Kanonji as spirit king would bring the biggest smile on my face ever.
i say it far more likely Soul King is Ichigo’s grandfather on his dad side. on his mom side his grandfather is Juha Bach.
Soul King please. I need things to climax and finish.
I know who that person was, it’s Mr. Plot. But Kubo can’t come up with a plot to save his life, so he couldn’t show the person.
I bet the mystery person is Ulquiorra.
Ulquiorra vaporized. It looks a lot like Grimmjow and we know for sure he didnt die.
I didn’t notice how a lot of the characters were being reintroduced. Now that I think about it, I’m kind of psyched to see a lot of the characters come together for the final arc.
Ppl do we really not know that person is Grimmjow?! Kubo is trolling but this is the best paced chapter we’ve had so far