Bleach: Sennen Kessen-hen – Ketsubetsu-tan – 02

「Peace from Shadows」

Bleach: Sennen Kessen-hen – Ketsubetsu-tan’s second episode kicks right off with Yhwach wanting to replicate his success from last time by paying the Soul Society another visit while the Squad Captains are still at their most vulnerable. And, wouldn’t you know it, the first two Captains to face trouble are the two who have to maneuver around their missing Bankai.

FIRE AND ICE

To be honest, this is one of the beginning episodes that still needs to take some time before it gets the ball rolling. If anything, the best moments of the episode are from Hitsugaya’s side of the fight as him and Rangiku have to fight Bazz-B, and figure out ways to circumvent the increasingly concerning problem that his heat abilities are powerful enough to give Hitsugaya a hard time.

I’m looking forward to seeing how Hitsugaya navigates through the remainder of the fight as his confidence in his ice abilities without his Bankai is short-lived as Bazz-B picks up momentum. Admittedly, it feels like one of those patterns Bleach likes to go into where they need to continuously make a fight one-sided until the losing party whips out something to make the fight one-sided in their favor. They feed into this cycle until either of the two are down for the count, but rarely is there ever a fight where two evenly matched people are evenly matched for the whole fight.

Soifon’s is a more obvious instance of this, but that’s because she’s practically going at it on her own, given Omaeda’s mediocrity. But at the very least with Hitsugaya’s fight, he has Rangiku to help him fend off Bazz-B. And to its credit, it’s a ton of fun to see Rangiku incorporated more into the story and get involved with some of the major fights in there. You don’t get to see her shine as much, so it’s amusing to see her rapport with Hitsugaya and her disposition as she gets in some good hits on Bazz-B.

The news that a Bankai can be restored definitely feels like it’ll be a race against the clock to get Hitsugaya his Bankai back in time to not be killed by Bazz-B and the Sternritter who took it from him. With Soifon and Hitsugaya in a pretty rough place at the moment, the clock’s ticking as to whether Urahara can get them out of the tight pinch that the two are trapped in.