Retsgip’s Anime Blog

Darkshaunz rides on a Giant Sandworm

Score: 8.7/10

It’s a beautiful Saturday afternoon here, after a glorious sleep in preceeding a hectic university week, it was time to hit up the Bleach machine for some sand-filled goodness. Bleach’s performance is erratic at the moment, one week it is good, the next it dives into the oblivion, but this week’s latest installment takes off on all hydrogen boosters, hopefully propelling audiences into the vestiges of space before once again re-entering Earth’s atmosphere in some ditzy and cosmic catastrophe. If you have some sushi, some chips, or some beer, Bleach 146 is ridiculously satisfying for an episode in which nothing “really” happens. Goes to show that Bleach doesn’t have to continuously kill shit to keep it entertaining, seinfeld-ism helps in between after all.

You can kiss whatever serious mood present, goodbye.

The chaser’s war.

A little girl is being chased by a Yellow Pedobear, a guy that looks like his mother was a stag beetle and a giant worm with lips thicker than Louis Armstrong. Let’s assume the shoes of Ichigo and gang for now, if it were me, I’d be laughing non-stop to be honest. The sight of the scene is ridiculous at best, in a setting where Death and loneliness is a huge overtone, to see three whacky looking monsters chase a little girl is a great way to completely break whatever sanity you have left, leaving you giggling and chuckling like a Leprechaun. The motley crew introduce themselves when Ichigo flexes his “Gotta Protect em’ All” attitude. The little girl is Nell, The Pedobear is Dondo Chakka (what the fuck) and the other guy is uh, Pesche. They are brothers and sisters, and the only scientific explanation I can come up with is that a Giant Beetle, a Yellow Slug, a Bear and a Loli all had one R-rated orgy in the back corners of Hueco Mondo, you could probably also throw in a shoe, a brick and a sock in there too. Please don’t ask me where the Giant Worm fits in in that horrific mental image. Don’t get me wrong though, Bawabawa is an awesome creature, a seemingly sentient and emotional worm, Bawabawa makes Kon look stupid. Fuck yeah Sandworms (then again, I have a soft spot for anything Herbert-inspired, a’la Dune series).

Da East Side.

Da West Side.

Nell’s VA, the title of this entry is dedicated to you.

Alright, I have to say that Nell’s VA did a fantastic job of Nell’s voice. She sounds great, not because of a sexy voice or anything, but just because she sounded like a five-year old with a massive lisp combined with too much consumption of crack cocaine. She has managed to capture audience’s attention with this innocent charm about her, and there is also that rough, heavy and accuentated slang about her speech. If I had to put it in my own words, it was like watching a little princess mixed in with a Harley Davidson bike (she can go to from zero to batshit in less than 30 seconds). Dondo Chakka also sounds quite amusing, Pesche sounds the most normal out of all of them, and seems to be the odd one out (fancy the irony of that). Raving aside though, Nell and gang realize that Ichigo and his cronies do not look like the regular inhabitants of Hueco Mondo, and to their horror, realize that they are “bad guys”. Though mind you, the two parties of three both looked as intimidating as a teddy bear in a chocolate shop. Ichigo assures them that he was not going to kill them. Of course not, because if he tried, Bawabawa would just swallow them whole, don’t mess with the giant sandworm with thick, sexy lips. Anyone notice how Bawabawa has such a nice set of teeth? seriously, I didn’t think there were such skillful orthodontists in such a deathly place.

….don’t look intimidating at all.

Nell realizes that her brothers are furries after all.

Ichigo, Chad and Ishida all decide that it was time to rescue their princess in distress, but the lonely Nell still wanted to play with them. So she devised a plan in which she takes Ichigo’s sword to pull them all in for a game of Eternal tag. She succeeds in snatching a huge-ass sword from Ichigo’s back almost effortlessly, to Ishida’s surprise (and to mine). However, Ishida and Chad are also urged into the fun by Bawabawa, who seems to be accustomed to this game of “Eternal tag”. The fun and games halt abruptly as something massive from the sand starts materializing in front of the gang. The being’s name was entirely too long, and had way too many ‘A’s, I think it was Lunagamaga-sama or something along those lines. We can just call him Sandman, because that’s what he is, sand. I was happy to see that they were coming up with Creative monsters for Hueco Mondo this time. “Hey it’s a place with sand……Let’s make a sand monster!!!”, “Omg best idea evurrr hurrrrrrrr”. Speaking of retarded moments, Ichigo seems to be in full supply of them at the moment. What does one do when fighting sand? Getsuga Tenshou apparently. Yes Ichigo, the fucking dude’s made out of sand, Getsuga Tenshou is as effective as trying to drown a fish. Of course like all anime, the characters have to pretend to look Absolutely shocked when a Sand Monster REGENERATES from more sand. “Wow! we didn’t see that coming, even though we are standing on one billion tonnes of fucking sand”.

Bitch stole his penis-compensating sword.

Chad and Ishida are about get surprise Bawabawa secks’d.

“ROFLMAO!!!”

Darth Vader still hates sand.

So do Ichigo and his cronies, along with Nell’s posse it seems. Sandman decided that punching into the ground was a waste of time, so he now decided to sink them all into a quicksand trap in which there was no escape. Wait a minute, why didn’t the moron just do that from the start? I guess I am expecting too much from a being with a sand for brains. This scene was amusing to watch, because the gang realized that they were in trouble, but the doom of death just wasn’t present in this scene. The whole thing was screaming, “We are going to get rescued anyway, so let’s just chill here and have a rainbow sequence where Ichigo pinches Nell”. I disgress, despite having the benefit of hindsight, I still coulnd’t help but feel that more urgency could have been pumped into that scene, where you know, they could have really died. Nell divulges that Sandman’s primary weakness is water. Exactly where water is in a soul-eating desert, Haruhi only knows. Just as we think that, the entire place is lined up with an icy chill and Sandman is sent to the freezers for much needed cyrogenic rest. But wait there’s more, this time it’s the damsel doing the rescuing on part of the knight in distress. Oh yes, my beloved Rukia’s back in the fold, and she’s brought Renji into the fold. They look pretty snazzy in those beige capes too.

“Quick guys, let’s just stand still as the sands sink to claim our lives!!!”. “Okay Ichigo, will do!”

Ichigo starts abusing lolis as he tries to “Macho” up his image.

Come on now, you have to say this just looks superfabulous.

I’m on the Highhwayyy tah Hell!!!

It just struck me how well this episode tunes in to Ac/Dc’s “Highway to Hell”. Seriously just mute the episode and choose a 3 minute sequence to blast this song on, that’s the kind of awesome groove I got from this episode when watching it, it just felt very appropriate (maybe I’m just an old fogey). Right, seems I got a bit deviated from all of that. Rukia then, well she’s here now and I am definitely overjoyed (moreso than I will let on). Bleach without Rukia always seems to feel like it’s missing something. Kind of like having steak without the delicious gravy and side dishes, you just need her to make the entire series whole and smack-delicious. Renji now, I’m a big fan of Renji and I know that Ichigo’s equally as pleased to see Renji as he is to see Rukia. When you add Renji to the mix of Ichigo, Chad, Ishida and Rukia, the party becomes slightly goofier, rougher and that tinge of badass which mixed nicely with Chad. If I had to describe the characters going to Hueco Mondo at the moment, I’d describe it as, “Aww Yeahhhh, you are the best and most overpowered RPG party yet”. Ichigo was surprised to see Rukia and Renji, but he is greeted with multiple punches to the face for his lack of faith. Rukia expresses her regret at his impatience and distrust for the both of them, but reminds him that they’ll always be brothers (sisters too) in arms and to imply that one should never misplace trust in important comrades.

Rukia shows her love.

Renji says Hello.

Renji strikes a cool pose for no reason whatsoever.

Don’t make Bawabawa cry, you fags.

After the obligatory, long camera pan of Rukia and Renji’s face and pose (hey, I liked it), it was time to move on with the story. Rukia inquires about Nell and her attache’, rightfully intrigued as to why Ichigo has linked up with such strange looking individuals. Nell, Dondo Chakka and Pesche all introduce themselves out of sync, but made a fatal mistake of leaving out Bawabawa. Terrible, just terrible, how could they do that? leave a Giant, emotional sandworm out of the fun? I was relatively worried because I was not sure how emotionally charged sandworms would react to having abandonment issues (see: Flight of the Conchords). They rightfully changed their approach to include Bawabawa in the next act, to which Ichigo and his combat rangers ignore, only to press forward to rescue Orihime. Nell, who had grown fond of Ichigo, decides to offer Ichigo, Rukia, Renji, Ishida and Chad the opportunity to ride on her giant sandworm to Las Noches Citadel. Holy shit, I wish I could ride on a Giant Sandworm to some enemy fortress to rescue a princess with a massive rack too. Thankfully the gang had my mentality and they all sat comfortably on Bawabawa’s back as the giant sandworm trawled along like some weird-ass freight train on the HIGHHWAYYY TAH HELLL!!!! (sorry).

Ichigo has to explain he is hanging out with a loli, a pedo, a beetle ranger and a giant worm.

I beg your pardon, crack-cocaine miss.

Bawabawa doesn’t get his cut of Spice Melange.

Nii-sama did…

Eyugh, I felt a bit dirty typing that out, goddamn inces-Ohhhkay, better stop there. One thing I liked about the following scene is that of Nell attaching herself to Ichigo and then glaring in a very hostile manner at Rukia. This reminded me of Ririn, when she first spotted Rukia and then clung on to Ichigo in some form of self-defence and possession. Of course there is the implied relationship between Strawberry face and the Queen of Ice, but it cracks me up that these secondary characters always get the wrong idea. Nell even asks Rukia, “what is your relationship with Ichigo?”, if I was there, I’d answer, “She’s his pimpstress, little miss, the red-haired tattoo guy at the back pretty much belongs to her also”. But of course, we have the observational benefit here, Rukia was utterly oblivious to the question and confusingly retorted with a puzzled “huh?!”. Ichigo couldn’t help but ask Rukia where she acquired her smashing (and cute) cape. To which she blushes (oh Haruhi, I came) and says, “Nii-sama did”. Now this is where I looked out the window to see if meteors were finally going to claim the world for the second coming of Kyon Christ and where all of mankind is visited by naked Reis and exploded into LCL. Ichigo and Ishida are also as shocked, so shocked that their faces warped to demonstrate complete terror (my jaw just dropped slightly in real life). Seems that Captain Byaku-bishi had enough of a heart to send out reinforcements to Ichigo and gang.

Nell can’t help but check Rukia’s cape out. Let’s face it, it looks good.

Savour it Rukia fans, we won’t see a scene like this for a while.

Ichigo and gang find out that Byakuya plans to do when he gets his “hands” on them. /shudder

Shinigami Examinations.

The episode concludes with Ichigo punching Bawabawa (douchebag) after finding out that Byakuya allowed Rukia and Renji to go to Hueco Mondo because, “That filthy rat (Ichigo) would probably get into trouble if left to his own devices”. The gang share a moment of peace until Sandman returns again for a rematch. It is here that I must note to you, my dear readers, that I will be having university examinations starting November 12th and ending November 20th. If you are about to have exams or having them now, I wish you the absolute best of luck (come on, none of you need luck, my readers are pro-skilled yo’). So as a student to fellow students, I’ll ask for pardon if there are no entries from me in the coming three weeks. Or if there is, there might be a late Bleach one. I am also going to Malaysia in December and off looking for Rets in Tokyo on January 8th (More information about that trip in future entries). Rukia’s back, Renji’s here and the party’s only getting started, I’m sure Danny from Novastorm can help fill in the blanks if I do go MIA.

This scene looked sexual to me, Biology 101 anyone?

Cheers,

Darkshaunz

PS: Study “smart”, not hard. Unless you’re “hard” all the time, if you know what I mean. Heh.