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.

Code Geass - Lelouch of the Rebellion: Stage 1

The sound of locusts, a girl with green hair, sunflowers, young boys with giant eyes... I'm unconvinced it's anime until I see the giant robots. Two boys climb a small hill out in the middle of nowhere, and so far, there's only the sound of locusts. But as they get to the top, the soundtrack jumps to attention, and they both look towards the camera, surprised at the ominous music.

"2010 a.t.b., August 10th. The New Britannia Empire declared war on Japan." Okay. Evidently, them Englishes took over the entire world, except for most of Asia. The map we're shown has the Britannia attack leaving the US. Either someone was as bad at geography as I am, or there is no United States. At this point, I'm pretty okay with either option. During the attack on Japan, Britannia breaks out their 'Mobile Humanoid Armor Vehicles,' or "Nightmares." We've hit anime! With the Nightmares, the British Empire easily takes over Japan, which has 'its freedom, rights, and name taken away." That's right, just to make sure Japan knows it's been utterly defeated, the Empire takes away the name "Japan," and instead calls the whole country, Area 11. One of the boys from a minute ago is sitting by an army vehicle, while dead bodies are set ablaze nearby. The other boy, a purple-eyed fellow, stands up and says, "Suzaku, I'm going to destroy Britannia!" So, a minute and a half in, Japan has been taken over by tea-drinking, robot-wearing fops; a pile of bodies has been set on fire; and a young boy has set out on a life of revenge. Not that it stops the show from having a typical anime opening theme song that sounds cheery and upbeat, but is probably about isolation and suicide and dead puppies.

It's now seven years after the war, or 'freedoming,' and we're in the Britannia Suburb of Tokyo City. It's very shiny. A flying police thingie chases after a truck. Inside a nearby building, a TV reporter shows us images of a terrorist bombing from the week before. We pan out to see two men playing chess. A chess clock beeps, and one of the players, a scared, old man, is about to explode. He's playing against a noble who is calmly filing his nails. The old man's 'substitute' arrives through the door behind him, only to find it's a student. A purple-eyed student, in fact. "Lelouch Lamperouge," is his name. I hear he's of some rebellion. Lelouch's buddy, Rival, looks at the chess board, and exclaims that there's no way to win. I guess they aren't starting over. There's some banter to show how cocky Lelouch is, then he sits down and makes his first move with his king. The noble laughs, Lelouch smiles, and we're whisked away to a school to see girls talking about their "Lulu-chan." They think he's smart, stupid, and cute. The animators quickly get bored, and take us back to the stolen truck. But after a few seconds where we learn nothing, we get back to Lelouch, just as he's beaten the noble at exciting chess. Rival and Lulu leave the noble's place to see a public address by His Majesty Clovis, the Third Prince of the Britannian Empire, starting on the giant TV that just happens to be on the building across the street. He pretends to be heartbroken over the fighting and terrorist attacks. Blah, blah. Rival and Lulu chat about not crying over the dead, with Lelouch shoe-horning in the line, "No matter how hard you stretch, the world won't change." A slam against yoga, I'm pretty sure.

A camera shuts off, and Clovis walks down from where he gave his speech to rejoin a flippin' party. Very heartbroken. A military dude walks in to give Clovis some information. We don't hear what it is, but it pisses Clovis off. Military Dude tells him, "We've told the police that it was just some medical equipment." So, it's probably not. Clovis orders in some troops and alerts the Nightmares. A few horribly skinny people hop into their robots, and start them up with their ignition USB sticks by Lexar.

Rival and Lelouch are heading back to school in Rival's sort of femmy motorcycle - Lulu in the bitch seat - and talk more about chess. Rival is curious as to why Lelouch started by moving the king. "If the King doesn't move, then his subjects won't follow," Lulu says while reading. The stolen truck comes up behind them too quickly, and veers off into an abandoned building. The two stop to check it out, and Lelouch sees a green mist leak out from the top of the truck. Lelouch sees a crowd form to take pictures with their phones and talk about how someone should help the drivers. Seeing that they're just going to talk about helping, Lelouch runs in to help by himself. A woman with her cell phone out even asks if someone 'could at least call the cops.' Take THAT, modern society! The drivers are fine, but Lelouch can't get to them through the rubble, so he has to climb onto the back. He calls out to them, but the animation shimmers and all he hears is a disembodied voice say, "I found him." As he looks around to investigate the new voice, the truck starts back up, and Lelouch falls inside. The flying military thingies open fire on the truck, prompting one of the drivers to remove her hat. In the back of the truck, Lelouch is stuck with a big contraption that sort of looks like a giant, robotic Easter egg. He's about to pull out his phone to call for help, when the female driver, Karen (or "Kallen" as she's even called in the American dubbed version), walks in and over to a step ladder.

Somewhere, Rival is looking for Lelouch.

Just as the military is about to open fire again, a "smash hawk" flies out and blows up one of the flying thingies. It's basically a big rope dart, but it was shot out of the Nightmare that was hidden in the back of the truck. Karen blows up another flying thingie, just as the Britannian Nightmares arrive. They're using the Sutherland model of killer robot, while Karen is using a piddly Glasglow. Karen's Glasglow loses an arm during her retreat. It's looking bad for the terrorists (aw), but Lelouch got himself a transmitter (yay).

A doctorly-looking guy with purply/grey hair is talking to Military Dude about how they lost something secret to the terrorists. Military Dude is ready to pay off Doctorly for keeping quiet, but it turns out he's there to help. But it'd be nice if they told Doctorly what was stolen. He tells him and Woman Behind Doctorly that it was some poison gas. Of course, he tells them this in a voice-over while we see Lelouch sitting right next to the container.

Break.

The military sends out orders to infantrymen to find the container, but not try to retrieve it themselves. Then they bitch at them cause they're all Elevens looking for Britannian citizenship. Lousy Elevens. The other driver has been hurt, but is still trying to drive. And does so, right into a hole. He opens the back of the truck, revealing Lelouch and the container to an infantryman, who quickly jumps inside. After a quick fight, the infantryman is revealed to be Suzaku from the opening. Evidently, Suzaku is Japanese, working for the Empire, and Lelouch is Britannian, looking like a terrorist. They try to figure out why anything's anything, but don't get far. The container opens itself. Suzaku throws Lelouch to the floor, covering his mouth from the gas he expects to bellow out. However, inside is just the green haired girl we briefly saw in the opening. Lelouch tries to help the girl, but the military bursts in to call Suzaku a monkey then order him to kill Lelouch. He refuses, saying he can't shoot a civilian, and is promptly shot in the back by the commanding officer. As the rest of the military officers close in on Lelouch, the driver reaches for a switch that blows up the front of the truck. Nobody's happy about this. Especially Clovis, who orders the Shinjuku Ghetto destroyed. Nobody can know about... the girl? How badly they all just fucked up? At least one of those. More Nightmares are released, and they start to open fire on anyone they see. Soldiers go door-to-door, murdering people.

Lelouch sort of freaks out. Rightly so. Doctorly complains that since the 'gas' was already released, there's no use for his "Lancelot" and is bummed they don't get to collect data on it. Lelouch is trying to help the green-haired girl out, but runs into the military shooting children. Before he can give a flowery monologue, his phone rings, giving away his position. The man in charge of the local murdering goes to shoot Lulu, but the green-haired girl yells out and runs in front of the bullet, getting shot in the head. Lulu gets shaky anime eyed over the girl's body, and before he can get shot or fully go insane, she grabs his arm. During a vision of some sort, filled with production art, she offers him a contract; "In return for power, I want you to grant one of my wishes. If you agree to the contract, you will live as a human, but differ from other humans. A different source, a different time, a different life. The power of the King will make you isolated." Either as a part of the vision or as a cutaway, a man with his back to the audience says, "The union of Ragnarok." Lelouch binds the contract, stands up over the still dead girl, and addresses the military, a hand over his left eye. "Aren't you going to shoot? Or have you realized it? That those who are allowed to shoot are only those who are prepared to shoot?" He removes his hand to reveal his eye has changed, and grown more anime-like.

The guy in charge shakes, unable to shoot. "Lelouch orders those of Britannia, you guys... to die." The reply from each man is "Yes, Your Highness!" They each put their gun to their own head, and fire. Lelouch takes a moment to pontificate about how stuff sucks. But now, he has power. And he smiles over the bodies.

Welcome to the show.

Bleach 167

Remember last time I mentioned how http://www.deviantart.com/ would be filled with drawings of Grimmjaw? I was right. Just go over there, search under his name (or “Grimmjow”), and be filled with horror. Some people trace other pictures, some jerk spasmodically with a pencil in their hand. Some draw Grimmjaw and Inoue in love (oh my Gawd) without regard to anatomy or perspective. Sure, there is an occasional quality piece, but just imagine all the people sitting out there, thinking, I must draw Grimmjaw. That frightens me.

So after what seems like a five minute recap of what’s been going on, we return to see Ichigo slashing Grimmjaw. But good. Grimmjaw falls to his knees, and Ichigo starts to relax, but Grimmjaw curses him. Does he really think this is the end? High up above, Inoue calls out for Ichigo. Watch out! We see blood splatter through the air. There is so much blood that it covers the whole screen, and that serves as a nice little transition to the next scene.

Seems that it’s lecture time on Bleach. Here’s how this works: Hollow eat human souls to feed the emptiness in their own souls. However, some Hollows have a greater thirst, and they start to feed on other Hollow. These cannibalistic Hollow all tend to gather together, and then they do, they all naturally meld together to form Gillian. Gillian are powerful, but have no consciousness. On occasion, though, there are Gillian formed from Hollow with exceptionally strong personalities, and the resulting Gillian might rarely retain its sense of individuality. Now, the narrator is explaining all of this the animation on screen shows, you know, Hollow and then Gillian, but then pans to a weird Gillian with a gate for a face. That could be kind of creepy. I think I saw a guy like that in an alley once, but I was pretty drunk.

These smart Gillian will eat other Gillian, and in turn become Adjuchas. Now we see a leonine Hollow leaping up from the sands of Hueco Mundo. It shakes its head, roars at the weird moon. Adjuchas eat each other, just like everything else in this wretched realm, and if they don’t continue eating, they regress back into plain ol’ Gillian and can never evolve in Adjuchas again. We watch the leonine Adjuchas chasing down other Adjuchas without mercy and eating them. It’s covered with green blood.

A shadow suddenly covers it, and it turns to face a whole slew of bigger Adjuchas. One threatens to eat the lion thing, and we pan over the new group, and they look distinctly familiar, maybe like some of the Arrancar who’ve been wiped out previously. The leonine one pauses for a second, and then attacks quickly, biting three of them in quick succession. They scream in agony. Like little girls.

One of the Adjuchas asks his name. It’s Grimmjaw, naturally. The other introduces himself as Showlong, who did, indeed, die a little ways back when Captain Hitsugaya froze him to death. Showlong and the others are on their way to becoming Vasto Lordes, the very highest level of Hollow, and they need a strong leader, like Grimmjaw, to lead them. They want him to be their king.

End flashback, and we see Grimmjaw skewering Ichigo with his claws. He pulls out his hand and they jump apart. Grimmjaw glowers at Ichigo. He hates Ichigo, especially the way he looks at Grimmjaw, for, no matter what’s happening, no matter how badly Grimmjaw is beating him up, Ichigo always looks like he knows that he’s going to win in the end. He attacks again, but Ichigo blocks his hand with his sword. Ichigo says that maybe Grimmjaw is upset that, he, a mere human, is fighting on equal footing with him.

Too bad that Grimmjaw has two hands! Ichigo looks surprised when he gets stabbed again. Grimmjaw drop kicks him like a football. Grimmjaw doesn’t care who he’s fighting. He’ll kill anyone who looks down on him. I think that Grimmjaw has deep, deep insecurity issues. He pulls back and his claws start to glow blue and…lines appear out of them, stretching up into the sky. They look strange, and not that scary, but this is apparently Grimmjaw’s greatest attack: Desgarron. That means laceration, in Spanish.

Flashback again, back to Adjuchas Grimmjaw and his merry band. Showlong says that they’re giving up. Even after eating three thousand other Hollow, they can’t feel themselves becoming any more powerful. Hence, they have evolved as far as they can. Grimmjaw scoffs and invites them to die in a ditch somewhere. I wasn’t aware that Hueco Mundo had ditches, but okay. He starts to leave, but Showlong begs him to eat them. They can go no further, they accept that, but Grimmjaw can continue to evolve.

In the now, Grimmjaw fires off desgarron. It mainly consists of those shiny blue lines dashing toward Ichigo. It’s not that impressive. Overall, the animation for this episode is of poorer quality than the last one. Yawn. Ichigo blocks desgarron with his sword and gets pushed way back. Grimmjaw laughs and thinks that he’s going to win! He recalls the flashback we just saw, and he says, fine, he’ll eat his companions. They’ll know what it’s like to evolve as part of his own flesh. He’s the king, after all.

Too bad Ichigo interrupts his thoughts, because he sticks his sword into one of the desgarron blades and breaks it apart. He tells Grimmjaw that he wants to win too, and he opens his eye and we can see that it’s his normal, human eye (by now he only has a quarter of his Hollow mask left, mind you), and he moves in to attack! Grimmjaw fires off another desgarron, but Ichigo sticks his sword in it and rides the wave like Mary Poppins riding through the sky with her magical umbrella. Ichigo shouts something about defeating all his enemies and saving his friends as Bleach’s determined-to-win music plays. The desgarron blades all fall apart and Grimmjaw just stands there as Ichigo stabs him.

Grimmjaw stares at Ichigo as he withdraws the blade, and he topples backwards. We see leonine Grimmjaw again, walking alone along the wastelands as he stops to look up at the moon. Mournful cello music plays. Blood pours from Grimmjaw now and he falls to the sand but Ichigo catches him by the arm. Ichigo’s Hollow mask falls away completely and he slowly lowers Grimmjaw to the ground, where he lays on his side with his eyes closed. Ichigo looks at him for a long time before finally turning away.

Frankly, I’m not sure how to feel. On one hand, this is just a cartoon, and these people aren’t real. On the other hand, you look at Grimmjaw and you think, he’s nothing more than a victim of circumstance. He’s vicious and angry because, if he’s isn’t, he dies; but he does have some noble qualities. He thanks Inoue for healing his arm. He doesn’t eat his companions, because they all become arrancar together. In the end Grimmjaw is a pitiable figure. So powerful, yet still terrified of being condescended to, and all he knows how to do is lash out. Point is, complex characters are good characters, and sometimes Bleach does things right. And Ichigo catching Grimmjaw as he falls? Very nice.

Ichigo goes up to Inoue. She’s happy that he’s back to normal; Nel is just happy that Ichigo is alive. Ichigo and Inoue hold hands and look into the sky. Everyone is waiting for them.

Next episode: Seems to feature someone who is decidedly not Ichigo. And the “Shinigami Golden” has Nel saying goodbye for some reason. Rumor has it that we are facing terrible, horrible filler episodes for a prolonged period. I’m sure this will be fantastic.

Bleach 166

Last we reviewed Bleach, the gang was heading into Hueco Mundo to rescue someone from Aizen and his evil Spanish guitar music. Maybe Inoue. I’m not sure. I am sure that she has huge breasts. They fight some big Hollows, they meet Nel and some insipidly annoying sidekicks, Rukia and Renji join them and they crash into Aizen’s massive fortress.

Then they start fighting. And fighting some more. Everyone powers up, and powers up again, and it’s kind of like Dragonball Z where everyone yells for half an hour before unleashing a discombobulatingly devastating attack. Now, that doesn’t mean that any of this is very good. It’s entertaining though.

So Ulquiorra stabs Ichigo, our very favoritest protagonist, right in the chest. Grimmjaw frees Inoue, takes her to Ichigo, and tells her to heal him so that he can beat up Ichigo properly, and not in the half-assed manner that is Ulquiorra’s preferred idiom. They exchange tentative blows, and Grimmjaw fires off the greatest cero ever, but it’s not actually aimed at Ichigo. It’s aimed at Inoue and Nel, right behind him. Ichigo has to put on his Hollow mask to save the gals, which is exactly what Grimmjaw wanted all along. Everyone freezes; Grimmjaw has a menacing sneer; Inoue doesn’t know what the hell just happened. Ichigo looks at her, she’s scared, and he tells her not to be afraid, to relax. He’ll end all of this soon.

Grimmjaw is like a kid in a candy store. Do kids still go to candy stores? I assume so. With a cry of “Grind, Pantera!” he unlocks his sword. A huge windstorm whips up, and Ichigo tells Inoue to put up her shield, which she obediently does. The sand blows away and we see Grimmjaw, transformed into a some kind of feline antelope thing with a great mane of blue hair and fantastic eye makeup, and I'm pretty positive that an entire generation of amateur anime artists have been inspired to draw this handsome guy. Deviantart or whatever it's called is going to be overflowing with crudely drawn pictures by fanguys and -girls of this Pantera thing. Whatever. He roars, shaking things up so much with the sheer power of his vocal chords that even Ichigo is impressed.

Grimmjaw goes right on the attack, jumping up and kicking Ichigo through the landscape. Now, mind you, the landscape here consists of massive red columns rising up from the sand, so being kicked through them probably hurts a lot. Grimmjaw meets him at the other end and kicks him some more, and then slashed down at Ichigo with nasty nasty claws, sending Ichigo straight down through a big gray column. There’s a lot of smoke and Grimmjaw floats above looking for Ichigo, and they actually animated his eyes moving around, which is a nice touch. Usually people just blink on this show, or their eyebrows move a bit, and that’s about it.

Before the dust even clears Ichigo flash steps right behind Grimmjaw and fires off his GETSUGA TENSHOU! Grimmjaw just laughs. He hates Ichigo’s eyes, and, now that he mentions it, so do I. Who likes yellow eyes?

Cut away now to a ledge over on the fortress. We see one of the Espada, the large breasted one, and if you read the manga (and I know you do), then you know that her name is Halibel. Three of her hot arrancar lieutenants, Mila Rose, Apache, and Sun Sun, are yapping about the battle they’re watching between Ichigo and Grimmjaw. A huge blast of wind unsettles them all, and Halibel steps forward and says that’s it’s understandable that they’re afraid. Mila Rose and Apache look at each other and pretty much admit that it’s true. Halibel goes on some more about their fear, telling them to remember it, and then muses on how powerful Ichigo is, with his mightly reiatsu and evil aura. It’s almost like watching two Espada fighting.

Back to Ichigo and Grimmjaw. They’re flashing around, explosions abound, huge shock waves rattle the air. Grimmjaw slams Ichigo into one of the big red columns and notices how Ichigo can keep his Hollow mask on for longer now. Much longer. Remember how at first he could only use it for eleven seconds? I’m pretty sure more than that has passed, even in cartoon time. Grimmjaw wonders why, but doesn’t really care. He just doesn’t want the mask to break off in the middle of the fight. He thrusts a razor sharp hand at Ichigo, but our guy catches it and says that he doesn’t want Grimmjaw to release his own form yet. Then Ichigo slashes Grimmjaw right across the chest, and blood spurts all over. Ichigo presses the attack, but Grimmjaw parries his sword with little arm blades, and then flies into a whirlwind of kicks. Ichigo avoids them, but it’s just a feint, and Grimmjaw smacks him right back to the earth. Seems that Ichigo can’t really keep up with Grimmjaw’s speed and agility. Too bad.

He dives down to finish Ichigo off, but Ichigo is waiting for him with his sword. Grimmjaw manages to avoid it, but still manages to get a sword dragged along his arm. They attack and slam into each other and throw up a huge atomic bowl of sand.

More fighting, kicks and blows, and Grimmjaw dashes around to outflank Ichigo. The animation is really much better than usual. The producers should take more time between episodes (there was a two week gap between the last and this one), if this is the kind of quality they can produce when they’re not being rushed. I wouldn’t mind the wait, and neither should you. More blows are exchanged, and Ichigo gets knocked up along a column but manages to skid to a midair stop.

Grimmjaw snorts and aims his elbow and fires off a quintet of weird missiles. Ichigo avoids them, but realizes that (again) they’re heading toward Inoue and Nel. He corrects his mistake and intercepts the projectiles with his back, and they must really hurt because he spits up blood. Ichigo says he’s fine and looks directly at Inoue, who starts freaking out because she has a sudden vision of her brother as a Hollow, from way back in the second episode of the series. Remember that?

Ichigo flies down to face off with Grimmjaw. He notes that Ichigo is breathing prettily heavily. He jerks up his elbow and casually fires off an elbow missiles at a big red column behind him, and it sort of breaks in half. Five of those in Ichigo’s back? He must be hurting, and to prove the point, his Hollow mask starts to crack a little. Ichigo says he’s not even close to his limit. That pleases Grimmjaw to no end, but then his own mask starts to crack! Can’t anyone find a non-crackable mask here?

Inoue watches them fight some more and continues her freaking out. The eyes are the thing, you see. They remind her of her brother’s terrible, terrible Hollow eyes. Down below, Ichigo’s mask is really starting to go to pieces and Grimmjaw finally gains the upper hand, kicking him into one of those big red columns, and it falls apart too. Nel starts to mutter something that I don’t care about, then she begins to cheer Ichigo on, because what he really needs now is a cheering section. Then she starts to yell at Inoue, something to the effect that Ichigo’s using a terrible, ominous power, and being cut and thrashed because of you, Inoue, so the very least you can do is cheer for him. Inoue has an epiphany, naturally, and starts to talk about her womanly feelings. Point is, everyone came to save her. How could she be afraid of Ichigo?

By now half of Ichigo’s mask has fallen off. Grimmjaw makes like a spinning top (awesome) and slams right into him. They even animated the very moment of the hit, with Ichigo grimacing in agony. Grimmjaw says that this is the end, and he even looks a little sad for Ichigo. Ichigo pants and pants some more.

But, “Don’t die!” Inoue shouts from above. “You don’t have to win. Just don’t, you know, get hurt anymore.” Gee, thanks. Ichigo looks amazed, however, but doesn’t have much time for that, as Grimmjaw dives toward him with a cry of “Kurosaki!” Ichigo, I suppose inspired by Inoue, suddenly grabs Grimmjaws hand, says that he can’t afford to take any more hits, and cuts the Espada, but good.

Next week: More Ichigo and Grimmjaw action. Grimmy does the voice over, and his voice is just full of anger and hatred. He's not evil; he's just sad and misunderstood. I feel like I'm the only one who understands that.