Bleach 168

So I usually write these reviews with the episode running in the background, but I’m think I’m going to forego that right now and just tell you what I remember happening. This may work or it may not. I figure that a filler episode deserves no less.

The episode begins, as all great anime should begin, with breasts. Rangiku’s breasts to be precise, then followed by her face, and she shouts at Captain Hitsugaya that they’ve found a new captain for one of the squads. She gives the squad’s number, but I can’t remember it. It’s the squad that Ichimaru Gin ran, before he turned traitor and left. Hitsugaya knows this already, because he’s a captain. Rangiku says something cute or obnoxious or both, like she always does.

I think we cut right to a big captain’s meeting next. Captain Commander Yamamoto announces the new captain, some guy whose name I completely can’t remember. He’s got tousled hair, a nice smile, a whole joie de vivre thing going on. The captain commander explains that the new guy’s been on an extended patrol hunting Hollows, and he’s returned without losing a single man. I suppose that’s impressive because every other shinigami seems to die right after being introduced. Everyone eventually all splits up and the captains stand around, posing, asking each other who supervised the new guy’s captain’s examination. Seems no one knows. Quite the mystery.

Now we cut to the house of the captain-less squad. Kira, the hapless lieutenant, is trying to tell his men that a new captain will be arriving soon, but, predictably, some of the guys are pretty resistant to the idea. They’ve gotten along fine without a captain so far, right. I sort of get the impression that Kira hasn’t really been doing much, almost as if Gin kept him deliberately hapless. Gin doesn’t seem like he would have been the best mentor.

The new captain shows up, and he has a purple eyeglasses guy with him, who is now going to be the third seat of the squad. There is mumbling and murmuring, and some big meat-headed guy says aloud that they don’t need a captain. The new captain ignores him, says that his only goal is to protect all of his men.

Then something happens that I don’t quite remember. I think Kira goes to visit Rangiku and he’s moaning about how badly things are going. She suggests that they have a drink and reveals that she’s been hiding booze in Hitsugaya’s office. Naturally, he catches them and yells at her.

Kira, inspired, decides to throw a party for the new captain. Everyone is sitting around little low tables, like they do in Japan, and the new captain enters. Kira explains the party, it’s going to be good for morale, see? It’s pretty tense. Awkward, even. Everyone looks to the captain as he mulls over a little cup of saki, hesitating, but he finally drinks it and everything seems to be going fine, until he passes out. Purple eyeglasses guy explains that the captain can’t hold his liquor.

Just then, everyone gets an alert that a clump of Gillian (yes, a group of Gillian is a clump) is heading toward Soul Society through some weird tunnel thing. I’m sure it’s been mentioned before. The new captain’s squad has been assigned to clear them out! But the captain?! Purple eyeglasses says they’ll have to do without him. They have their orders. So Kira and purple eyeglasses and a bunch of other guys head off to the weird tunnel place to fight the Gillian. It’s going pretty well. The Gillian just sort of stand there. One does manage to fire off a cero, but purple eyeglasses deflects it. However, everything turns bad when the giant train monster thing that roams the weird tunnel place shows up. Normally, the train monster would have been turned off, but it’s still on! Why? It’s a mystery!

Kira and the men try to run away, but they can’t outrace the train monster. That’s when the new captain shows up. He whips out his zanpaktou, it turns into some kind of energy cloud, and the train monster is destroyed. The men are charmed by him. Even the big meat headed guy loves his new captain now. He, too, wonders about why it wasn’t turned off, and promptly passes out again.