Retsgip’s Anime Blog

Darkshaunz sheds a fanboy tear

Score: 8.0/10 (Why take Rukia away from us!?)

I said in my previous entry that Rukia’s had an awesome run in the show ever since her return to Karakura town, and after our drowning wait of her return during the terrifying fillers. It was all too good to be true as usual, and we see her exiting stage right yet again (for no real reason). The episode continued on with the dark, angsty and twisted metal feel once again, leaving a bittersweet and tingling sensation at the back of your mouth. It is time for the hero to dim the light inside him and embrace the darkness, because there’s going to be a lot of it in the Citadel of night.

I want to dream what he is dreaming.

The episode starts with Ichigo falling out of his bed, as a guy would do after a hot babe cries on his cheek and nearly kisses him. At least now whenever I fall out of bed, I can brag to my friends how I score with a hot redhead even whilst unconscious (I’m off to narrow the width of my bed after this entry). After slapping himself for being such a lucky, yet spastic smacktard, Ichigo realizes that his bandaged hand is now healed. Of course I was trying very hard not to make a “LOL HE FAPPED TOO MUCH” joke whilst watching. I tried, and failed miserably, as I giggled like some immature fifth grader at his predicament. Noticing that his window was open, Ichigo was probrably thinking, “Those curtains I have are simply fabulous!”. Before he could finish admiring this fine piece of tapestry, Captain Shouta shows up at his window like some juvenile burglar and instructs Ichigo to follow him. I need to make friends with people like Toshirou, only because that is the coolest way I know of waking a friend up.

“I’m so fucked up”

“Yo, someone turn the fucking lights on, I can’t see shit”

When in Rome, do as the Romans do, is the saying. However, in this case, when in Karakura Town….whore the crap out of a nice girl’s apartment and make it a Shinigami base of operations (and installing a huge ass tentacle monster television in the middle). Whilst most viewers were probably all wearing serious faces as a high-ranking and important Shinigami conference was taking place in this dark and gloomy space, I was clasping my face like a vice with my hands in horror as I saw a once cheerful living space belonging to a young schoolgirl turned into a pseudo-military underground base controlled by the F.B.I of the Spirit world. On the Bananascreen now then, and Captain AIDS answers the hailing by Captain Shouta. Captain Ukitake is reasonably upset, because as a high-level fighter and administration leader, he failed to do something like making sure a human got back to Earth. Now in this situation, damage control is logical, you’d want to make her friends calm to receive the news. Not Captain AIDS, Fuck no, he gives the news in the harshest way ever, “According to mah hypothesis, bitch could be dead yo”…”haha jus kidding, maybe she was just kidnapped by Aizen an’ his homies boi!”. Ichigo is rightfully Super saiyan by now.

Captain! We get Signal!

What!? Main Screen Turn On!

How are you Gentlemen? BTW Orihime might be dead lol!

Captain Ukitake is admittedly disturbed at having to say what he did to the attentive crew, and cited that he had to list all the worst case scenarios. Detective Ichigo’s brain was working today, so he realized that if Orihime was killed or kidnapped, then how could he feel her reiatsu on his hand? It made sense of course, but viewers knew in hindsight that Orihime had no choice but to say goodbye to one person (having chosen Ichigo) and was escorted to Las Nachos Burrito by Mascara Espada in exchange for sparing the lives of her beloved friends. Then Cranky Captain-General steps in and calls Orihime a traitor. By his logic, she “obviously” had to go on her freewill (which is true), but he makes it sound like she did it intentionally. Captain AIDS may have failed a simple task, but this old man needs to hit the Coffin soon, because only a retarded half-dead monkey would even consider Orihime a traitor. The girl couldn’t betray her shoelaces if she tried, and even I can see that, I am known for being absolutely clueless when dealing with personality traits at times. Renji, sensing that Ichigo was going to crack any moment, steps in and offer his services as a fine soldier to “retrieve the estranged comrade” from the land of muchachos. In a totally unexpected and shocking move, the old fart says, “No”. We so didn’t see that coming, right guys?

Stop! Zanpaktou Time!

“Cough, I think you mean Collaborate and Listen”

Defiance.

Rukia’s similarly not too pleased about this either, not after she spent a couple of episodes just bonding with Orihime. She wouldn’t let her special time alone with Inoue just go down the zinger because some old guy with a beard longer than Rapunzel’s hairdo said no. In a rare moment where Rukia’s constant submissiveness to the Hierarchical system was promoted during her selfless cries in Soul Society, she chose to reject the Captain-commander’s orders directly. I was kind of half-stunned at this moment, because this is one of those rare and awesome moments where time itself stops to assess what the fuck is going on. After a mild temporal pause, the world moved again and my eyes shrunk from being anime-huge at this display of outward insurbodinance by Rukia. We all knew her defiance was going to end in futility, but it was sure nice of her to take the old fart’s words and shove it up his scrawny ass anyway (That takes balls). Naturally arrangements were made in advance because the brass in Soul Society all have creepy mind-reading and future-seeing clairvoyant bullshit hacks. The Captain-commander deploys Captain GAR and Captain Byakuya to retrieve the crew to “bolster” the defences of Soul Society. Audiences were now laughing because we all knew that if Aizen and his East-side boys really wanted to tear Soul Society up, his “defences” would be completely in vain.

Renji and Ichigo share a “He did not just say that!” moment.

I think in some twisted fanfic, Rukia and Revy shared the same balls-y genes.

Untile we meet again.

The last two episodes are all about goodbyes apparently. Last episode was Orihime farewelling her endeared Ichigo and this episode is about Ichigo and Rukia’s second goodbye. Though let’s recap, when Ichigo last left Soul Society, it was a pretty lighthearted and cheerful goodbye he extended to Rukia. This time however, Rukia realizes she was completely done in by her superiors in Soul Society and had no avenue of assisting Ichigo in his bid to rescue Orihime. So this time, the goodbye is almost in complete disappointment on Ichigo’s part and in utter frustration on Rukia’s part as both parties realize that although none of them are at fault for what has transpired, they can’t help but feel that are guilty of being unable to strike a solid plan to extract their estranged comrade. Naturally, Rukia fans worldwide all powered up or Kaio-ken’d at their monitors as Kubo Tite and his evil animation studio decided that we’ve had enough Rukia and so they were going to take her away from us. Yet again. At the point when Rukia had to say her sorrowful goodbye to an important comrade and the wooden doors shut on her….wait a minute, she did the exact same thing when Byakuya and Renji escorted her back to Soul Society for her execution didn’t she? Memmoorriiies. Anyway, when those wooden doors shut on Ichigo, it shut on Rukia fans worldwide. I expect massive e-riots and e-molotov cocktails to erupt on Bleach forums worldwide by the start of the weekend.

“Ichigo…..” (*I’m so sorry, this is so screwed up*)

“Rukia…..” (*Just Go. I know you’ll punch your brother in the dick for this faggotry anyway*)

“Gomen….” (*I’m going to fuck him up real good, see you on the other side*)

Ichigo starts his melancholic drift into worry-land, as he spires his mind to find a way to get to Hueco Mondo. In doing so, he isolates Tatsuki who confronts him during his now extremely rare appearances at school. Tatsuki, who we’ve learnt is Ichigo’s childhood friend decides that the only way to squeeze information out of Ichigo was to Falcon Punch his face into the glass pane. Her punch was so full of force that Ichigo’s head breaks the glass instantly and he is thrown to the floor. Ichigo’s friends rush to restrain the girl before she totally maims our hero. Ichigo coolly walks out of the confrontation and asks his friends to take care of a crying Tatsuki. Ichigo’s intention was to protect his friends from any exposure to the horrors of the arrancar and the espada. He just doesn’t realize that two out of his three friends already have seen or know about the crazy spirit wars transpiring in their lovely little town.

Back when I used to go to school, this meant that she was the “one” or that you were one huge douche.

This isn’t Evangelion yet folks, it’s still Bleach. I think.

Stairway into a Dark Heaven

Back to where it all began. I feel like I’ve taken a time capsule to the first time I watched Bleach. Seeing Ichigo prepare himself and worry himself to death for a girl he hardly knew and stepping into an alien world where he was vastly outclassed by an unknown enemy. For justice he did it, and by this power of Justice alone, he accomplished it. Now we see our young hero don the burden all alone again, prepared to take the punishment, prepared to venture into the dark abyss of hell itself and prepared to be but a memory in the name of Justice. Ah, the refreshing cliche’d-ness of it all is what made Bleach the tour de force of emotion and raw power we all identified and loved, and it’s come back. His old friends, Chad (Sado) the HULK and his witty, yet suave Sidekick Ishida await him, coaxing and convincing him that they are once more prepared to save a friend important to not just Ichigo, but them as well. Old Enemies are now New Allies, Old Alliances are now Reborn and although the goal is the same, although the rescuee chose her path much the same way - in free will, Ichigo, Ishida and Chad now venture into the stark unknown. Orihime, whilst your climb to the Citadel of Night is long and hard, when you fall, you will no doubt fall into the comforting clutches of your comrades. Good things always come to those who wait.

Sado is back in action, I’m delighted to see this.

Ishida looks cool in his Level two Quincy garb.

To my fellow Rukia fans, wherever Bleach goes, there will always be Rukia. Even if it meant punching her precious “Nii-sama” in the nuts and Bitchslapping the old fart of a captain-commander into submission, our Queen of Ice would never abandon a friend without a fight. This winter in Karakura, the soil where Hollows tread will see host to a new group of warriors, Human, Quincy and Death God. All united under one banner, and whose newfound powers will be put to the test. Dear readers, our second journey to Namek has begun, but this time Freeza has been dethroned by Cell (with 70’s hairgel). Forward to the Citadel of Night!

Have faith. The Icy Queen will not leave us from her cold snaps for very long.

Cheers,

Darkshaunz

PS: 1st Lieutenant in WiC. Rukia’s army is pushing hard to victory!