Bleach Chapter 470 – Pray for Predators

A little bit of Kon nostalgia(not that I miss him, a little bit of old school Ishida-Ichigo banter. But nothing special this chapter.

Chapter 470: Pray for Predators
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Rukia has been moved into a stuffed animal, which actually looks alot like the stuff she draws herself whenever she was explaining something to Ichigo.

These two don’t seem to be that intent on fighting, but Riruka got a little pissed off last time around and here we are… Even in this position, Rukia keep thinking, trying to figure what happened, and if there is something she can do. Which she end up doing. She noticed her reiatsu is still very much intact and tries a kidou, since she can’t use her blade. It’s actually catching Riruka off-guard, not expecting something like this. Of Course she never fought Shinigami before, I do reckon she has been told about them by Ginjou, because let us not forget. He was in a similar spot as Ichigo was. A big question is… How long ago exactly. I really wonder how old he actually is.

Anyway… Unfortunately it doesn’t end up as she hoped, the Kido actually exploding inside her body. I love Riruka’s expression.

In the second half of the chapter we switch to the fight against Ginjou. To be honest. I like Tsukushima alot more as the bad guy then Ginjou. By the look on his face he seems to have simpler motives than Tsukushima. I still don’t understand this rage against he has against Ichigo. no doubt it could involve Ishinn.

Ginjou’s fullbring absorbs the power and abilities of it’s target, in this case he sucked Ichigo dry so now he can use Getsuga Tenshou. I wonder if those abilities extend to Ichigo’s Bankai abilities or
everything he was capable of when he was carrying his fullbring. A second question is, does it maintain the abbilites of older victims, or are those already ‘dried’ out by simply using it till the reserves run out.

After a bit of their fight we switch to an interesting part of this chapter. Tsukushima seems to be the origin of the Excution group. Ginjou saving them from Soul Society perhaps? We Know what happened between Soul Society and the Quincy. this small group could have experienced something similar.

Hopefully Riruka will share us a bit more info into the past of the Fullbring users.

p.s. I know I said I was going to write these quick, but they we’re late. I was home late on Friday when I wanted to write it, and I work on Saturday’s.. so forgive me.

Bleach Chapter 464 – Quiet Chamber, Noisy Heart

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Hey folks, sorry about the lack of a review last week, as I said, I’ve been very busy in the real world lately. I still plan on doing the weekly review regularly, but to avoid an absence like last week from happening again I propose the following: If I have not posted a review by Friday, anyone who wishes to is free to post a review of their own for that week. If anybody needs help with submitting a post, click here, or just go to the “Submitting Blog Posts” tab on the right. If you have any other problems just ask me or Bob, and we’ll see what we can do for you. Now, onto the good stuff:

463 – Extreme Divider:

So Xcution receives some power-ups from Ichigo’s Fullbring. Sure they look cool, but can they back it up?

It also becomes clear that  Shishigawara was a new ally of Tsukishima’s, and Ginjou never had any respect for him. Ginjou actually even fears the potential of his Fullbring to some degree, and tells Tsukishima to kill him when this is all over. I have a feeling that Shishigawara is going to become an ally of Ichigo’s in the future (along with Riruka), once he learns the truth about Ginjou and Tsukishima. He just isn’t as evil as the rest of them.

I understand why Ginjou didn’t give shishigawara any of Ichigo’s powers, but why not Tsukishima? Is he afraid Tsukishima might be more powerful than him afterwards? And why is Tsukishima okay with this? I’m still unsure of their relationship and Tsukishima’s motives.

Ichigo would have dispatched of all of them easily without their recent power-up, but that in combination with the fact that he tries to
go easy on them in his first strike allows for them to dodge his first attack. I still don’t consider them a serious threat.  They’re filler-villains at best.

With Ichigo’s enhancement, Yukio is now able to project his “Invaders Must Die” Fullbring into the real world. According to Yukio, what each of them received from Ichigo’s fullbring is the ability to wear their Fullbring powers as a mantel. For example, Ichigo’s Fullbring enhanced his external powers. So Yukio is now able to project his Fullbrings abilities around him.

Yukio separates everyone into private “chatrooms.” This breaks everything up into one-on-one fights. The match-ups are:

• Tsukishima vs. Byakuya: The stoics. They are similar characters in appearance and demeanor, but have a very key difference. Though Tsukishima is very strong by Fullbring standards, I don’t think he stands a chance against Byakuya. I’ll get back to this when I cover 464.
• Shishigawara vs. Ikkaku: The two hot heads. Shishigawara’s ability is interesting, but again I don’t think Ikkaku should have much of a problem with the novice, and if he does, it is for nothing more than Tite trying desperately to make this arc interesting.
• Yukio vs. Hitsugaya: The young prodigies. Yukio’s new Fullbring is perhaps the most frightening, allowing him to manifest any object of his choosing, and apply video-game-like rules on anything of his choosing. However, Toshiro is a true genius, and after the intense training I’m sure he’s gone through over the past year, I think he may have reached the rank of monster.
• Riruka vs. Rukia: The little loudmouths. I am uninterested in this battle for two reasons: 1.) I’m not very interested in either of their abilities, and 2.) Riruka’s heart is not in this battle. It was obvious earlier that she doesn’t want to be part of what Xcution has become, and I doubt she would kill Rukia if she could. Though I do want to know what her gun does.
• Ginjou vs. Ichigo – Battle of the Substitutes. This is the only battle I expect to be a challenge. If Tite had any concept of power scaling, Ichigo would break Ginjou in a matter of seconds, seeing as how he should be back to the strength he had when he fought Aizen, but I’m sure for some reason or another Ichigo will be thrown a curve ball and have to work for this victory.
• Giriko vs. Kenpachi: The eye-patchers. As expected, this fight is over before it starts. Due to Ichigo’s enhancement, Giriko is now able to take the power of the Time Gods, and project that power unto himself, bulking his body up. Unfortunately for him, Kenpachi is an absolute animal, and slices him in half before he can say the word “power.” Thank you Kenpachi. Thank you.
• And by process of elimination, I assume the last bout is Jackie vs. Renji. Jackie’s powers already enhanced her physical abilities, similar to how Ichigo’s did, so I’m interested to see what her new “Ichigo-enhancement,” will be. Still, I’m sure Renji has gotten even stronger in the past year, and will outclass her no problem.

Well it was supposed to be a one-on-one, but the Quincy seems to have slipped into Ichigo’s battle against Ginjou. I’m not sure how I feel about his, but I expect the only reason Tite put Ishida in there is to have some third-person commentary on the fight, and have someone other than Ginjou witness the dieselness Ichigo is about to illustrate.

Bleach Chapter 462 – Why me sad.

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Okay kiddos, this one is going to be brief since my computer is still on the fritz, and I have minimal time to make this.

The gist of this chapter is that Ichigo learns that Ginjou was the first, and only other substitute shinigami before him. The badge and the rules were all created because of him. It is very likely that Rukia was prosecuted for giving her powers to Ichigo, and in turn creating another possible substitute shinigami, because of what happened with Ginjou. They were afraid of having another threat like him running around.

I’m curious though, if Ginjou was the first substitute shinigami, why is he using Fullbring? When did he learn about Fullbring? Even now, he is just boosting his previous Fullbring with Ichigo’s. I think Ichigo clearly exemplified that Shinigami powers are stronger than Fullbring, seeing as how just the swing of his sword with his Shinigami powers was stronger than a full Getsuga Tenshou blast from his fully evolved Fullbring. So what happened in Ginjou’s past to make him go AWOL on Soul Society, and start using Fullbring instead of his Shinigami powers?

Also, we see Orihime and Chad struggle against Tsukishima’s influence. Their minds are telling them to be loyal to Tsukishima, but their hearts are pointing toward Ichigo. When Tsukishima sees this, he (sadistically) throws them into madness. Luckily, when they lose consciousness, Urahara and Isshin are there to sweep them away.

It turns out that all of Xcution was in on this from the beginning, and they all wanted a piece of Ichigo’s powers… except Riruka. I know from her look here that she knew the plan all along, but it seems she is the only one showing any regret. Her dialogue when Ginjou offers them Ichigo’s powers leads me to believe she is no longer on board for their plans, and will likely turn on Xcution at some point in this battle.

So all of Xcution gets a little boost to their abilities with Ichigo’s powers. But let me ask this: what is so special about Ichigo’s Fullbring, and Ichigo in general, to make him so sought out by them? I can see why they would prey on other Fullbring users to boost their own powers (the bastards), but they started targeting Ichigo for this intricate plan before he even knew what a Fullbring was. They had no clue if he would succeed in achieving Fullbring, they didn’t know what the extent of his Fullbring powers would be, so why put all this time and effort into this? And what kind of enemies do they have that their previous powers wouldn’t have sufficed?

Also, why was Tsukishima the only one not to get any of Ichigo’s powers? I agree with Bob, he is definitely the wild card in this situation, but still, it seems as though Ginjou holds more authority of the two.

So now it is the Ichigo-enhanced Xcution versus Ichigo and his Shinigami brethren. Honestly, I don’t see how Xcution stands a chance in this battle, unless Ichigo takes them all on on his own. But, we will see, Tite always has a way of making it interesting…

Bleach Chapter 412 – Diecide 14

J is off on a mission with silent Bob, so I’ll be filling in for him here and on Mellorine. I’m not in the greatest state of mind so excuse the lack of pictures, I decided links worked just as well for 10% of the effort. I’m going to keep it short and sweet with four major points.

http://www.onemanga.com/Bleach/412/06/

1. Tatsuki: Waaaay back Tatsuki was exposed to hollows (pre-soul society arc) but she has been acting like Karin and ignoring the spirits. We later see her get re-introduced to them when Yami came to town, but she still hasn’t really come to terms with them, however in this chapter she notes Rangiku as one of “Ichigo’s friends” and in her typical R.B.D. fashion is angry at Ichigo for not mentioning her. Will her powers finally awaken and if they did would they be any use? or will she just be cannon folder for Aizen’s rampage? I’m guessing she’ll awaken her power only to have Aizen own her like everyone else.

http://www.onemanga.com/Bleach/412/13/

2. This leads to my next point. Rangiku: Last chapter she arived to save the day, after which she promtly puts Don Konoji in his place. When she was yelling at him I couldn’t help but wonder if she was talking about what she would do or Aizen… Anyway, Aizen tells Gin that they’ve got time to kill, so Gin grabs Rangiku and takes her to a roof top, where she confronts him about her actions on the premise of Izuru’s honor, but Gin promtly sees through this and tells her she is in the way.

http://www.onemanga.com/Bleach/412/16/

3. Then it skips over to Asano: We see him holding a sword, to which my first reaction was to think that he finally awakened his powers meaning Tatsuki would soon folow. But, it turns out he just took “afro-man’s” sword. Again this had me fooled thinking that Kensei was afro-man until I remembered that almost folder character who took over protecting Kakura town in Rukia’s place. This is also a reference to the rapper Afro-Man. I think his sword will shatter when Asano uses it since he isn’t pumping Reiatsu into it, OR Aizen will stab Asano with it to raise the spiritual awareness levels of Kakura town.

http://www.onemanga.com/Bleach/412/18/

4. Finnaly we switch back to Rangiku: It seems like Gin has killed her, but this whole situation has made me think of the movie “Hero” about a man who learns how to fake assasinations by stabbing a person in the correct spot on their chest. He does this in order to get close to the Chinease Emporer to take revenge for his dead brother but in the end decides that killing the Emporer would only bring more instability and death, something his brother wouldn’t want, so he uses his same fake assasination technique on the emporer. The topper for this whole connection is that the name of his technique was also the “God Killing Spear” (lance) as it was meant for the Emporer or was treated like a god. Therefor following the metaphor, I think he is simply faking Rangiku’s death to get close to Aizen.

Enjoy and discuss.