Bleach Volume 68
The Ordinary Peace
The first volume of Bleach to be released in the UK after its official end over in Japan, Volume 68 does its best to regroup everyone for one last push, but does it do well?
The battle between the Shinigami and the Quincy still rages on, though most of the invading villains were wiped out in the last chapter (with little-to-no thought), leaving only the top brass on either side of the war. The goal of the Quincy, or specifically the goal of their leader (the still-hard-to-pronounce Yhwach), is to kill the Soul King, an omnipotent being that apparently ties all the realms together. After breaking into the Soul King’s realm and defeating its guardians in Squad Zero, Yhwach is finally about to achieve his goal as Ichigo and his fellow humans are hot on his tail.
The volume begins with several remaining Captain Level Shinigami gathering together, battered but not beaten, under the orders of former captain Urahara. The original mad scientist plans to open a portal to the royal realm and lead an attack on the remaining Quincy. Speaking of whom, Yhwach succeeds in stabbing the Soul King before Ichigo and his friends arrive, but then uses his influence over Quincy blood to force Ichigo to slice the Soul King in half to finish it off. This surely means the end of all realms of reality?! Right?! Well, I won’t spoil how, but no, and in fact when he is foiled Yhwach gets the chance to do it again, but goes down a different route, for some reason, and tries to absorb the Soul King’s power for himself instead.
Just to touch on some of the other happenings in this volume: Captain Commander Kyoraku visits Bleach’s iconic villain Aizen with an offer to partially free him in exchange for his help; classic Captain Ukitake finally does something in this final arc… briefly (but so you don’t get your hopes up, it’s not revealing his Bankai…) and the Quincy “Schutzstaffel”, or Elite Guard, who were powered up in the previous volume (at the expense of all the other characters Kubo had built up…) appear a few times in the background towards the end, with one or two lines shared between them. I mention that because Schutzstaffel member Askin Nakk Le Vaar is featured on the cover for this volume, but doesn’t even get a single line of dialogue and barely appears. Weird! You’d think maybe Aizen in his prison bondage (oo-er) or Ukitake would have featured on the cover instead.
The volume ends with Yhwach gaining even more power while his men watch on, and Ichigo and friends, along with the Shinigami, getting ready for one last run at them.
So, unlike the previous volume which was great and had a well drawn fight take up most of it, this volume is a come-down after that, where the good guys and the bad guys re-collect into groups and then get separated, leading to an inevitable final showdown between the two of them in the last few volumes to come. As always it’s well drawn, even if there’s a lot of standing around and talking, but it comes with a few “huh?” moments surrounding the lead villain’s goals and an interesting twist with a much-loved Captain… that literally become irrelevant two or three chapters later. This may be the final calm before the storm, but it wasn’t as exciting as it should have been. More… mildly annoying.
