Bleach: Sennen Kessen-hen - Soukoku-tan Episode 2 Discussion

Yeah, back in the day there was someone who has everything planned and things do used to happen in a way he has planned, and now, there is someone who doesn’t have to plan anything because he has already seen and knows everything… bad guys in Bleach and their powers lol. Though yeah, the soul king just passing away like that was really something. Nothing Ichigo could’ve done about… but yeah, you know that second round between him and Yhwach was just pure cinema.

When they were talking about adding additional scenes for the Ichigo and Yhwach’s fight, they were dead serious. Will have to go back and check in the manga still, but yeah, the barrage of Getsuga-Tenshou kind of actually overpowering Yhwach was a great way for Ichigo to give Yhwach back for all that disrespect they did to him when they came to raid Soul society. Though man, there’s only so much that can be done against an OP villain… Ichigo dealing the decisive blow to Soul king was really the last nail in the coffin. Dude’s not gonna recover from that:( Great episode again, btw.

I'll start by saying, this was an amazing Bleach episode. The Bleach part is important — I think a lot of the polarisation in how people perceive the new seasons is due to comparing apples to oranges.

The animation was objectively great. Crisp, clean, detailed but not overdone. It showed off some key moves, set the tone, established powers and weaknesses. It did its job very well in releasing some of the pressure that had been building up since the cliffhanger last season.

Is it fanservice? Somewhat, but it was necessary. And it wasn't just fanservice. It played a constructive plot role: we've established Yhwach has outclassed everyone so badly, including Ichigo, that he could afford to play with his food. THAT's why he didn't use his eyes from the start. It gets boring knowing the future all the time. A fair battle with Ichigo was enjoyable to him. The fact he ended up using his eyes to win is a sign of how much Ichigo has grown.

That said, as much as this was a great Bleach episode, it had the usual weaknesses of Bleach as whole. Most characters sat there doing nothing — only Inoue contributed something tangible, by healing Ichigo, and even then it didn't really change anything. Everyone at Seiretei is just looking busy and doing unexplained things until the plot calls for them. There are too many cooks in this story and Kubo can only focus on a couple at a time, which makes pacing stretched.

Some people have pointed out other nonsense — if Ichigo was the only way to kill the Soul King (and surely a few others knew about it?) why did they allow him to be there? Even encouraged it? Maybe Ichibei wanted the Soul King to die? Why didn't Ichigo use his Bankai? And such other questions, which likely will go unanswered.

And then there's the dialogue and general story progression of the episode. Not the worst as far as action anime goes, but it did feel like I heard "I can see the future" a few times too many, and alas it never really sunk in for Ichigo. He never changed his approach. And now it's too late.

But whatever, I'm not watching Bleach for the writing, the dialogue, the character depth. I'm watching it for fun, for the action, for the cool visuals. If there's one thing Kubo does well and this adaptation is recreating just as well is creating a cool, distinctive supernatural battle setting. There's a reason so many later authors and artists have taken inspiration from him. So, to the haters, my suggestion is to either turn off your critical thinking for a bit and enjoy the ride, or just go away. Otherwise you're in for unlimited frustration.

@yasm "But whatever, I'm not watching Bleach for the writing, the dialogue, the character depth. I'm watching it for fun, for the action, for the cool visuals." Ah, a classic. "How do you do, fellow Bleach fans!" This is a surefire way to out yourself as a layman speedreader, and it'll become evident once you read my second paragraph. There's a reason Kubo is the most influential shounen magaka post-Dragon Ball and it isn't just because of his sense of style/aesthetics and power designs. Character and story framework as well as thematic character writing are pretty obvious to apprehend from them if you actually understand Bleach. It's obvious which of the "Big 3" the modern shounen landscape resembles most today not just in how they look but how the pages read and move as well. Of course, these new mangaka attempt to replicate their inspiration to varying degrees of quality.

And this guy really just asked why Ichigo—one of the most powerful characters to ever exist in the series at this point—was allowed into the Soul Palace while Quincies were marching towards the lynchpin of the universe to rewrite the world order while massacring the Royal Guards on their way. And where are you getting this notion that Ichigo is the only one who can kill the Soul King? Yhwach made Ichigo land the finishing blow because it's prophetic and poetic. He effortlessly impaled him himself in the previous episode. If you still aren't convinced then the next episode should make it perfectly clear that Yhwach has the means to do it himself. You see, this is what I mean by you being a speedreader. In this case, someone who turns his brain off and just consumes the flashing lights without taking in the actual narrative because it turns out Kubo hates spoonfeeding his audience and treating them like meatheads (unlike other shounen). One needs to comprehend visual storytelling and subtle context clues to properly grasp Bleach because Kubo uses literary techniques such as symbolism, allegory and especially subtext a lot while taking inspiration from actual art beyond the animanga ouroboros, such as philosophy, literature and music. This is not a light novel or your standard shounen where everything can be read just from the dialogue. Bleach is Kubo's art-piece. The average animanga consumer will enjoy this series because it excels even on the surface level, but he won't completely pick up on the deceptive amount of depth underneath (especially not on the first read) for the aforementioned reasons.

"But why didn't he use his Bankai at least?" His Bankai is so powerful it would've probably destroyed the entire palace just from clashing with Yhwach lol, which is the thing he's precisely trying to avoid here. If you've read the manga then you'd know this.

"Some people have pointed out" I know who you're referencing here and I wouldn't take him seriously, he's a notorious Re:Z*ro-tard who was making the same awful attempts at critique during Frieren as well.

@-za- let's have some fun. I'll take the bait.



I never said I'm a Bleach fan. I'm just having fun seeing the conclusion of an anime I sorta kinda liked when I was a teen. I think I read parts of the manga at some point, but it's been so long my memory's fuzzy — I didn't even know this arc existed until it started getting animated. So yeah, I'm absolutely not a Bleach expert, and I never pretended to be one. Don't make assumptions about what people are or want to be.



Yhwach literally said "To completely break the Soul King's seal, I needed someone who possessed the powers of Quincies, humans, Soul Reapers, Fullbringers, and Hollows... I needed you, who possessed all of them." Which literally means Yhwach couldn't have done it without Ichigo. Who's the speedreader, here? Maybe this was different in the manga.



LOL. Maybe you're just trolling. Sorry for feeding you.



Ah, right, the "I'm so powerful now I actually can't use my powers Deus Ex Machina". Truly a sign of great writing. Very clever.



LOLOLOL. I guess it's a given that people watching Bleach nowadays have read the manga? I like going in spoiler-free, thank you very much.



Not sure we are referring to the same guy, I saw a couple making some good points, though I don't entirely agree with them. I actually sympathise with you on the Re:Z fans, I watch that too but I don't get why some people think it's such a masterpiece, and will lash out at actually great works like Frieren.

@yasm A lot of words to say so little here. Let's address the meat of your argument:

And what is keeping Ichigo away from the Soul Palace going to achieve for the Shinigami besides stalling their inevitable fate? Also, you do realize Ichigo was essentially playing a game of cat and mouse, right? He hurried DOWN from the Soul Palace to the Seireitei after his royal training during the Sternritter's second invasion, then once he finally arrived he found out that Yhwach was already on his way UP to the Soul Palace. Once Ichigo caught up again, Yhwach had already slaughtered the Zero Division. This was the plan by Yhwach and Ichigo got baited. So who's the speedreader? You don't even remember the chronology of events going on.

Ichigo isn't retarded. Why do you want him to destroy the place and people he's trying to protect lol? I don't think you know what a deus ex machina is either. The """critics""" of Bleach sure do love abusing this term because they think the latin makes them sound smart, lol.

@-za- ok, so you're not even remotely trying to sound reasonable, now. Go touch grass, do something else with all that inner rage. I'm gone.

I need to watch again some fights from SS arc, because I'm not sure if I was just young and haven't seen much anime, or were fights in Bleach always kind of crap. Swirling light trails are the most noticeable sign of poor fight choreography. Fighting in the air where strikes barely carry any weigh and should be cushioned by, you know, moving in the air is another bad trope. Dust clouds appearing for no reason as well. I guess you can count on rule of cool to partially cover it but with a garbage antagonist like yuhawahahaha, who already saw everything and just had to stroll to the goal, it's impossible to be invested in any way to consider it cool.

As a side note, it's almost hilarious what a worthless side character Chad is at this point. IIRC he played some role in the beginning but for the most of the series you could wonder what even was the point of that character. He's as meaningless as Orihime's crush on Ichigo.