Bleach – Volume 72 Review
Bleach is wrapping up what little storyline it has left, as the now God-like Quincy leader Yhwach and his three remaining Wandenreich Sternritter Schutzstaffel (or, you know, powerful henchmen…) are fighting off the ragtag group of Ichigo, his friends and the remaining Shinigami. At the end of the last volume the battle between Captain Commander Kyoraku, his lieutenant Nanao and Sternritter X “The X-Axis” Lille Barro was coming to a close after a good chunk of the Commander’s backstory was revealed, and Nanao’s zanpakuto finally appeared. Well it’s no surprise that this volume opens with the very end of this battle, complete with the last little bit of Kyoraku’s sad backstory. As I said in the last review, it’s great to see the character get explored after being a prominent figure throughout the whole run, so if this last push of the story is good for anything, it’s that.
Once that’s over we see a gathering of shinigami who haven’t been given a last opponent to fight all battling Wandenreich Sternritter Schutzstaffel (I won’t get tired of putting that) M “The Miracle” Gerard Valkyrie, who reveals his power is to grow in size comparable to the amount of damage he sustains… in other words, he grows to a massive size, big enough that every character still conscious at this point can have a little scene where they try and take him down. It reminds me a lot of when Byakuya and Kenpachi were given the super-large Arrancar Yammy to fight towards the end of the Arrancar arc; it ties them up but its not the kind of fight you have to focus on.
Sure enough, it’s not focused on for long as we soon switch to Ichigo and his allies Chad and Orihime fighting Wandenreich Sternritter Schutzstaffel (told you!) D “The Deathdealing” Askin Nakk Le Vaar (jeez, the names of these guys…) but they soon get the go-ahead to run on further as former Captain and cat Yoruichi arrives on the scene. Le Vaar has a strange set of powers however, and the fight ends up being more than she can handle, leading to the arrival of her old friend and also a former Captain (along with a lot of other things) Kisuke Urahara. The volume ends with this fight half-finished, but most importantly there were a few chapters in-between this fight…
Uryu (our “poster boy” for this volume) has his loyalty to the Quincy once again tested by Yhwach’s right hand man Jugram Haschwalth, who, thanks to swapping powers with the Quincy leader when he is asleep, now has Yhwach’s all-seeing eyes. Ichigo and friends arrive and confront Uryu once again, and we finally find out just what has been going on with our bespectacled Quincy friend. I have to say that after all the build-up it’s not very satisfying, and almost throw-away, so… look out for that when you read it…
As I’ve said for the last few volumes, Kubo may have pretty much thrown in the towel story-wise, but his artwork is still on-point, with lovely detail and characters always looking correctly proportioned.
So Volume 72 is, in reality, is not much. It’s the pay-off to the fight from Vol 71, the disappointing reveal of what Uryu has been doing with the Quincy all along, and two starts to new battles that aren’t resolved in this volume. The calm before the final storm? I guess we won’t have long to find out…
