Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War

Episode 6

For pretty much the entirety of Bleach, Captain-Commander Yamamoto has been that one guy we were always waiting to see do something. His status as the greatest Soul Reaper, combined with his impending silhouette and the sheer reverence even the strongest captains hold towards him, has always promised that whenever this old man finally showed off his stuff, it would be something to behold. Aizen knew that, and went to the trouble of crafting a bespoke Arrancar just to nerf Yamamoto for their fight, meaning we've never seen the full extent of this grumpy old timer's powers. But with the fate of the universe on the line, there's no more time for stalling, and at last we get to see Yamamoto with all the stops pulled out.

And by god does this episode deliver on all that long-building suspense. “The Fire” is a perfect title for this episode, because the indisputable star is that fire animation. Yamamoto, his blade, and eventually every inch of the battlefield is bathed in truly hellacious flames throughout this episode, and it all looks exquisite. Be it the glowing cinders of his Bankai's East form, the flowing cloak of flame from the West, the blinding supernova of the North, or Yamamoto literally melting the stone beneath his feet, the show perfectly sells the sheer intensity of Yamamoto's power, turning what is otherwise a curbstomp fight into grand spectacle as Ywach is turned into barbequincy against the Captain-Commander.

My favorite detail is when the Bankai first activates, reverting all of Soul Society to the calm, pale colors it sported when Ichigo and co. first laid eyes upon it. It creates this perfect unease after so many weeks of the world being coated in blue and grey, and the shift back to the roaring reds and charcoal blacks when Zanka no Tachi changes from its East form brings all that energy back with a vengeance. This new series' use of color has always been its killer edge in adapting Kubo's fights, and here it's all put to excellent use.

The only weak spot is the South form, a conceptually fantastic power that reforms the sword's slain enemies from their collected ashes, siccing a horde of Ywach's own fallen soldiers onto him. It's a really cool idea that further ties in to two leaders' grim history, but sadly has to be rendered by some questionably integrated CG skeletons that never quite look like they exist in the same world as the traditional animation. It's not enough to ruin the otherwise spectacular fight, but it makes what should be the most dramatic turn of the battle feel stiff and awkward at the worst possible moment. It's compensated by how fantastic the rest of this fight looks, but the dip really couldn't have happened at a more inopportune place.

Once the flames have died down, we get the twist we all knew was coming, and the narrative's knees begin to shake once again. Don't get me wrong, I'm not put off by Ywach having a plan to take Yamamoto out without risking his own skin – it was obvious that something was up once Yamamoto started wrecking shop, since there couldn't be much of a story if the big bad lost in episode six. But it's part of a long, repetitive pattern of Bleach's genius villains just always being a hundred steps ahead in increasingly contrived ways, made all the more glaring when we briefly stop in with Aizen to remind us of all the times he pulled this exact move. It's generally compelling to have your villains outsmart the heroes, but it gets exhausting once the good guys have been tricked in the same way a million times in a row and never catch on. I just take solace in the fact that Ywach can't pull the R/Loyd Loyd trick more than once, since the never-ending illusion reveals from Aizen were easily the worst aspects of his tenure as main villain.

Similarly, this marks the third straight episode of the Gotei 13 taking hard and fast Ls, and it's starting to feel a little too one-sided, personally. It's all well and good to establish the Quincy as powerful, but there's only so long we can watch one side of the fight get stomped into the dirt before it gets old, especially when the fighting is focused on an extended cast I'm not hugely invested in. There needs to be some kind of turnabout here, or at least a sign that the good guys can manage to fight back in any fashion, otherwise it'll really start to resemble the worst parts of the fight against Aizen. Yamamoto's flame burned bright and powerful, but it's been extinguished, and both the characters and story will need to pull something from the ashes to keep this story moving.

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Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War is currently streaming on Hulu.