Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War - The Calamity

Episode 6

I WONDERED LAST WEEK IF YHWACH WAS GOING TO PULL A BREAKING DAWN PART 2, AND HE DID!!! THAT ABSOLUTE MAD LAD, HE DID IT!!! HE DID BREAKING DAWN PART 2!!! OH, THAT'S FUNNY!!! I should give the episode 5 stars for that alone, but honestly, everything else was pretty great as well, so I guess once again, we got another 5-star episode!!!

For those unfamiliar, Breaking Dawn Part 2 is the 2012 movie adaptation of the second act of Breaking Dawn, which itself is the last (well, asterisk—depends on where you put Midnight Sun, but whatever) book in the Twilight saga. The films are, for the most part, pretty loyal to the books. But then, in the final movie they included a scene where someone rips off the head of one of the (widely beloved) protagonists. What proceeds is a bloody battle, where several main characters die. Hilariously, there's surviving footage online of moviegoers—taken completely by surprise by this, regardless of how many times they'd read the books—freaking out upon seeing this for the first time. But then, the camera pans out, revealing it was all a vision of a potential but unrealized future. The movie then proceeds as expected. It's a hilarious way to subvert expectations, give a surprise to the diehard fans, create a memorable theater-going experience, all while remaining loyal to the books. An absolute stroke of genius.

This week, we got our “Haha that was only a potential future, just call me Aizen because as always, all things are going according to *keikaku.” And honestly, fascinating as it would've been to see the anime do its own thing, I'm not surprised it went this route—it's what makes the most sense for Bleach. And, like with Twilight, this was nonetheless a good way to keep the audience—including the audience familiar with the source material—on their collective toes, while subverting expectations and giving Orihime some much-needed time in the spotlight. It's a fun way to go about things, while putting a bit of an original spin on things that still ultimately remain true to the story.

It's certainly the most notable part of the episode, though I would say the main meat of the week is the fight between Uryu and Jugram, which has been going on in the background of everything else for weeks now. I haven't spoken much about this fight, because up until this week, it's always felt like the least memorable or noteworthy thing going on. Not because it's not noteworthy in and of itself, but because we were only getting short bursts of this fight sandwiched between much bigger and better things. One Piece does this a lot, too—cutting between short bursts of each fight every week—and while I understand that this is usually done for pacing reasons, what I don't like about this is how overshadowed it lets some fights get. This one is a prime example of that. Inevitably, something has to be the least interesting thing going on, and Uryu vs Jugram has been exactly that up until now. So now, when we suddenly got much more substance, it feels really out of left field. The whole fight could've felt much more weighty and memorable if it was an episode by itself; I don't think this approach of sprinkling a little here and there has worked well. Still, this was a pretty fun watch.

I'm going to say something that might be controversial: I like it in anime and manga (or any other piece of fiction, really) when someone's powers sound like overly complicated bullshit. The more convoluted and hyper-specific the better. If the person with the power needs a few minutes to explain it—which they obviously do, because if they don't, then the audience won't be able to parse what's going on—all the better. It's one of the things I like most about JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, which has made an artform out of this, but Bleach has definitely tread into these waters before. Not all the time, sure, but often enough that I wouldn't call it something wholly unknown to Bleach. Even so, listening to Jugram and Uryu explain the nonsense that is their Schrifts and their ruleset—not to mention Yhwach, in all his grandiose smug-ness, saying, “Haha I broke your Bankai in the future therefore it's gone,” that's exactly the kind of good stuff I want. Delicious. Give me more of this, please. Yes, tell me all about how the planets have to be in proper alignment, how they need to pull up Symphogear GX episode 3 on their phone and have it paused at exactly the 10:33 mark, and how your victim's social security number needs to have at least two instances of the number 3. That's awesome. That rules.

We're not more than halfway through this final act, and I'm curious and excited as ever to see where we go in these last few episodes. There's still a few fights yet unresolved, and a few characters we've yet to see verifiably dead or alive. There's a lot to stuff into these last few episodes for sure, and if this were any other battle shonen I'd be worried. But thus far, Thousand-Year Blood War has proven itself more than capable of pulling off some pretty impressive feats, so as always, I'm content to just keep enjoying the thrilling ride that this series has consistently managed to be.

*Translator's Note: Keikaku means plan.

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Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War - The Calamity is currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+.