Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War

Episodes 1-2

In the world of manga-to-anime projects, it's exceedingly rare for a series that ran as long as Bleach to get a complete adaptation. There's generally just way too many factors working against that happening, business or otherwise, and for quite awhile fans figured it would never happen for this series. But here we are, six years removed from the manga's conclusion, a whole decade since the first anime series called it quits, and the last arc of Bleach has finally made it to the small screen.

Before we get into it all though, here's a quick programming note. This arc is in a unique position, being adapted several years after it concluded, and with how big this franchise is I imagine a lot of readers have already read the source material. For the sake of anime-only readers – and to have something to talk about rather than just re-litigating material published a decade ago – I'll be doing my best to approach these reviews with fresh eyes and ears. So just know that if I raise questions about something that is answered later or anything like that, you don't need to answer those questions or point out if I follow something that will later turn out to be a misdirect. I also won't be comparing it too closely to the manga unless I think a particular change is notable, because lord knows there's nothing more tedious than a review that's just a checklist of differences between two versions of something, right? For the sake of fruitful discussion, I'm going to largely be treating this adaptation as a stand-alone work, one episode at a time, the way I would any show where I'm not familiar with the source.

With that preamble out of the way, let's get into it. I covered episode one in preview guide but the short version is the premiere of TYBW does a rock solid job setting up this new threat, reintroducing our core cast, and looking damn good while doing it all. That remains the same in the second episode, though things slow down in order to do some proper place setting. We now know the face and immediate goal of our main bad guy, the as-of-yet unnamed King of the Quincy, so this episode takes its time shuffling pieces around and building suspense for the battles to come.

In that regard, I actually think this second episode is better than the first. Making a bombastic bit of shonen action is all well and good, but what really grabbed my attention in this episode was how well these quieter moments were handled. Chief among them is the funeral at Soul Society for Yamamoto's lieutenant. Speaking frankly, Sasakibe was nothing more than one of countless cool-looking background characters that the series never did anything with, and on its own his death only served the purpose of establishing stakes for this upcoming war, and passing on the detail about the enemy stealing Bankai. As an actual character I have no attachment to him. And yet, somehow his funeral managed to make me feel for him – or at least feel for Captain Yamamoto – through sheer direction. The solemn stillness of the attendants, lit by waning sunlight and scored by distant drums, fading into a totally silent remembrance of Sasakibe simply kneeling in fealty to Yamamoto, before the captain finally ordered the pyre to be lit; it all just worked. I still couldn't tell you anything about the guy besides him having a cool sword, but somewhere in my bones, if only for a moment, I felt the gut-wrenching loss Yamamoto must be feeling. That's just excellent craft right there.

The other main focus of episode two is properly introducing our villains, first with our on-the-ground opponent, Quilge Opie, who thanks to his name I can only picture as the evil version of Ron Howard's character on The Andy Griffith Show. He's the Quincy we see in charge of rounding up Arrancar to bolster their vanguard before their full invasion of Soul Society, and he certainly makes an impact. Considering the Quincy have a Germanic theme – similar to the Arrancar's Spanish motif – dressing up our first real enemy in that early 20th century soldier garb is what I'd call a loaded choice, especially when he's leading an extermination of huddled, helpless victims lined up against a wall. Questionable taste in aesthetics aside, the presentation again sells Opie's introduction, showing you just how ruthless and pointlessly cruel he is to those he sees as lesser, then showing off just how much power he has to back it all up. Knowing the tenets of shonen battle manga, he's still destined to lose to Ichigo, but by god do you want to see that happen after this bastard's spent minutes mugging at the camera and brutalizing Arrancar.

Conversely, we get very little from the enigmatic King here. We know he's powerful – strong enough to completely clown Halibel and take over Hueco Mundo without breaking a sweat – but outside of pure strength it's hard to get a read on him. He does the typical villain shtick of killing an inept flunky, which I'm not really a fan of, if only because it's such a go-to move to establish that our bad guy is, in fact, a bad guy. It's especially questionable here since he kills one off before the guy can even give his full report, leaving their side to figure out later on that he wasn't able to steal Ichigo's Bankai for whatever reason. It paints the picture of a big bad who's more concerned with flaunting power than seeing his plans to fruition, and taints some of the threat and mystique he might otherwise offer. I certainly don't want a repeat of Aizen and his credulity-straining uber-genius, but I also hope our nameless villain here isn't just winging this whole blood war thing.

The blood feud behind the war is actually the aspect that I'm most interested in seeing play out in this arc. The Quincy have long been an interesting yet unexplored part of the larger world, and with them now in the spotlight there's a lot of questions with potentially interesting answers. Where have this King and his followers been for the past millennium? Is revenge against Soul Society their only goal, or are they aiming for something bigger with this scheme to shift the balance of living and dead souls? Uryu seems to have some inkling of what's going on, but just how involved is he, and which side will he choose? Sure, he's bonded with Ichigo and fought alongside other Soul Reapers before, but is that enough to side against his own heritage? For that matter how many of these Quincy are going to be gunning to bust open Mayuri's dome considering he very proudly boasted about doing human experimentation on the Quincy?

Whether any of those questions get satisfying answers is yet to be seen, but it's a strong foundation for the closing story of such a big and influential franchise. If nothing else these episodes have shown the adaptation is in the right hands, with a team who both understand and can replicate the appeal of the original in animation. For good or ill, we're in for the long haul, let's see where it leads us.

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Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War is currently streaming on Hulu.