Bleach: The Hueco Mundo Arc

Episodes 132-141

Captain Hitsugaya is mistaken for a kid by Ichigo’s little sister (more shortie jibes here than in Fullmetal Alchemist) when she’s looking for someone to help her and her friends beat some bullies in a soccer game.

Ikkaku is persuaded by Mizuho, Keigo’s adoring (not adorable) older sister, to train her school’s defeated kendo team when the rival team play dirty just before a tournament.

Kon – catapulted into a different soft toy body by Rangiku – reluctantly befriends a lonely little girl and helps her when…

Okay, it’s episode 134 already and I’m tapping my fingertips on the table, getting a little bored here with yet more filler (or scene-setting, if you prefer, showing the Soul Reapers hanging out in Karakura Town, while the main action is still on hold.) Sure, it’s fun seeing the warriors from the Soul Society trying to fit in with their human hosts. But we’re in Season 7 now and I was hoping that the big showdown between Aizen’s Arrancars and Ichigo and friends was about to get underway.

Even when there’s rebellion brewing in Lord Aizen’s palace of Las Noches in Hueco Mundo, as arrogant Arrancar Patros decides to steal the MacGuffin Hogyoku, the ensuing battles between the Arrancar and the Soul Reapers on earth take on a repetitive pattern that we’ve seen too many times before. Bleach needs to adopt a change of pace – although as these episodes date from 2007, that should read ‘needed to adopt a change of…’ well, you get the general idea. There’s trash-talking. There’s fighting. And more fighting. Ichigo reappears at last (even though he can’t stay in his Visored form for very long) and embarks on a return match with one-armed Grimmjow. Will he overdo things and need rescuing at the eleventh hour? What do you think? So far, so (sadly) predictable. And then…

And then Tito Kube puts a twist on the story that makes you remember how good Bleach can be when it tries. Orihime is on her way back to Karakura from the Soul Society where she has been in training with Rukia. But something goes wrong on the journey home and she doesn’t arrive. The others are distracted and aren’t even aware that anything is amiss. [Spoiler Alert!] Abducted on Aizen’s orders, Orihime is told by Ulquiorra that she has twelve hours in which to return to earth to say farewell to one person – and one person alone. With a bracelet that makes her invisible, she walks the streets of her home town, knowing that she may never return. As the sun sets, she makes her way to Ichigo’s house. He is unconscious, still recovering from the grave wounds received in the latest encounter with Grimmjow, and as she leans over him to say a silent farewell, we see her tears falling on his face.

This poignant episode brings a greater and necessary depth to a narrative that has too often fallen into lazy habits. I realize that the team making Bleach the TV series were working to a tight budget and just one step behind the ongoing manga. But lengthy recaps at the beginning of each episode begin to try the patience, especially when much of the animation that follows is pretty standard (cheap) fare. This wouldn’t matter so much if the rhythm of the battles could be varied, but they fall into a repetitive and predictable pattern too often. As even more powerful (and bizarre but not in an amusing way) opponents are rolled out and the impossible odds that Ichigo and his friends face become even more impossible, all sense of dramatic tension seeps away. 

I can only hope that matters will improve…

Oh – and there’s a new Closing Theme called “Daidai”  (“Bitter Orange”) by chatmonchy. So-so.

Extras : Production Art, Textless Closing, and Trailers. 

In Summary
A disappointingly predictable bundle of episodes is rescued by an unexpectedly moving plot-twist at the end.