The bankai show returned with all the usual bullshit you came to expect from it. Nobody watches it for the plot since there is no plot to play attention to. We got someone becoming the successor of the main villain without any build up, without any explanation, and without any dramatic impact. The protagonist didn’t even know of the betrayal until the final battle was half-way over. Naruto versus Sasuke this is not.
Instead of that we just get more of what Bleach was always about. Stuff happening for the heck of it, such as a slut seducing and then killing her own allies because she got a bit annoyed. This was the extent of her personality and her contribution to the plot. She goes to fight some captain and their stories end there, with zero impact. Expect the same for 99% of the rest of the characters. Just hollow (not the monsters) battles between nobodies.
Kubo continues to introduce and kill his characters within seconds, which is the worst possible way to write characters. Did you catch the name of that guy who was sliced in half by the slightly annoyed yandere? Did you get what his powers were? Of course not. He didn’t matter. None of those hundreds of Nazi-wannabe people matter.
Half of every episode is still wasted on people bickering at each other or shit-talking while standing still. “Oh, it’s what’s giving them personality” you might think, but when everybody is yelling and screaming and shit-talking in the exact same way, nobody feels unique since they all feel same-y. In fact, they end up being a design because that is the only thing Kubo had in mind when he created them. He had no idea who these people are or what he was supposed to do with them. They don’t matter in the plot either, they are just there to waste time in unimportant fights.
And yes, people are watching it for the action and not the plot, but there comes a time when you realize all the fights play out in the exact same predictable way, despite trying to come off as unpredictable. It’s been that way since the Soul Society arc and without the whole mysterybait of who is the traitor to keep you guessing. There is nothing to guess here, so you don’t care.
Here is a list of all the dumb crap that stand out in this arc:
A captain invites Ichigo’s friends to casually enter Soul Society just so they can say hi. In the middle of a genocide. Perfect timing for a very important reason that calls for the living to casually go to the afterlife.
We got the recovery of that captain who should be dead, but Kubo changed his mind because he was popular. Now he is alive and with a power up. Glad to see the animation studio bothering to fix his bullshit.
The “Kurosaki kun chick” (that is not her name, but since that is 90% of what she says, she deserves to be the “Kurosaki kun chick”) wishes for her current life to last as much as possible. She literally wants the massacre to go on indefinitely, while being in Hueco Mundo, the place she was taken to by force and where she was tormented horribly for months. Really, you want that crap to go on forever?
The Quincy attack again, which is a rehash of stuff we already got in the previous season. The first attack had to be conveniently cut short because the bad guys ran out of energy or some bullshit, something that was never established and was used only as an excuse for the good guys to get a power up.
The leader of the bad guys orders them to kill the captains instantly. They show how loyal they are when it comes to orders by not killing their enemies instantly and instead have a prolonged chitchat.
The captains make sure to take advantage of the extra time they are given by casually explaining all their techniques to the Quincy. There is absolutely no reason to assume their enemies will find a way to counter their techniques after they know how they work. Needless to say, the more they explain their powers the less intelligent they come off.
This is doubly as stupid, since nobody watches the bankai show for its tactical battles. There are no tactics, it’s a dumb action flick about transforming swords and a bigbadabeem light show. The more the characters explain their powers, the less the audience gets to see the bigbadabeem light show.
Anyways, after that the captains find a way to get back their stolen bankais. Oh my, if only the Quincy had obeyed their command and had killed them immediately instead of chitchatting. That way they wouldn’t have given them the time to take away their advantage.
But it’s okay, now the captains can show off their bankais once again, and they happen to be the main reason people are watching the show for. Too bad this also means we wasted a dozen episodes on nothing. Kubo thought initially “Haha I will make the Quincy a bigger threat by allowing them to steal bankais.” But then he saw how it pissed off the audience became and undid the whole thing in a hurry, thus destroying the threat of the bad guys. A brilliant stroke of genius that explains why this anime is among the highest rated anime of all time.
Kenpachi, the captain who is more popular than even the protagonist because he is that badass, gets a power up and beat up a Nazi-wannabe who can manifest anything he likes with his imagination. All he had to do is to convince him he is scary. Then he stands like an oaf, looking for his loli sidekick who disappeared because she became a weapon or some shit. It was never explained because Kubo doesn’t care.
