Volume 24 covers episodes 330-342, which constitutes the second half of the series' final filler arc: the Nozomi/Kageroza/Reigai story. It also marks Ichigo's last gasp as a Soul Reaper before being completely depowered; in fact, the arc actually resolves in episode 341, allowing for the entirety of 342 to be used for Ichigo to bid farewell to the realm of the Soul Reapers. When Rukia finally fades from his view at the end, it is arguably second only to Orihime's unheard farewell in episode 141 as the saddest moment in the whole series. (Admittedly, though, that isn't saying much, as the series has hardly had a plethora of such moments be effective.)

The actual story arc, on the other hand, is pretty typical as Bleach filler arcs go. In this half we learn about Kageroza's backstory and motives, and once again they prove to have been at least partly the result of the Soul Society's heavy-handed way of handling internal matters; really, this has happened often enough throughout the series that one would think that Central 46 and longer-tenured Captains would have figured out a thing or two by now. Clearly the concept of psychological counseling, which could have helped prevent the rise of situations like this, is utterly foreign to the Soul Society, too. (In fairness, though, the emphasis on this is relatively recent even in the West, which would have made the Soul Society at the time this started awfully progressive had they had it. By all accounts Japan also puts far less stock in this than Western countries do.) Once again the villain seems improbably strong personally, and once again the villain is revealed to be a loner, even a social misfit; if Bleach has a recurring message, it's that being a loner is the surest path to evil unless someone saves you from it. (One could probably read some subtle commentary about basic Japanese values into that, and a whole essay could probably be written about how hypocritical that attitude is given the series' penchant for one-on-one battles.) Really, the only difference between this filler arc and the earlier Zanpakuto arc is that this time everyone is fighting themselves rather than their Zanpakuto.

Actually, that isn't entirely fair; for one of the few times in the series Kon actually gets to be useful and for the only time in the series he has a major role in one of the arcs. Though he is ineffective in the actual battles, he is a motive force throughout the arc; it is his persistence that finally breaks through to Nozomi and he enables things to happen in other place. Nozomi, for her part, improves a little on her irritatingly standoffish and uncooperative nature, though the drama surrounding her gets laid on so thickly that it descends into melodrama at times. Smoothly handling emotional drama has never been a strong point for the series, though, so expecting much more than this would have been unrealistic. Watching how the Reigai behave slightly differently from their originals is a little more interesting, although the writing never focuses on that enough to fully explore it; the series did a much better job in this regard during the Zanpakuto arc.

As much as these episodes showcase some of the typical weaknesses of the series, they also do, at times, show its strengths. Bleach is always at its best when two hugely-powerful individuals clash with devastatingly-explosive force in a scene bolstered by its powerhouse battle themes – really, it does dramatic explosions better than probably any other shonen action series – and that happens on a few occasions here. Though the soundtrack still regularly falls back on long-established core musical themes, it also makes good use of fresher ones made specifically for this arc, including ones with dramatic vocals. And when the artistry is at its peak then it looks pretty sharp by shonen series standards. Sadly, though, the artistic quality fluctuates significantly over the course of both the arc in general and individual episodes. A viewer can easily see which scenes were considered important enough to give extra animation effort and which were not.

For openers, this block of episodes continues with “BLUE” by ViViD, a suitably dramatic song whose accompanying art sharply applies some coloring gimmicks. New closer “Haruka Kanata,” an up-tempo rock song, starts with episode 330 and runs for the entire block. Instead of using set artistry, it takes an entirely different approach: over the course of the 13 episodes it progressively recaps the series' entire core story, from the first episode up through the climactic battle between Ichigo and Aizen.

Since the Reigai are simply copies of the original Soul Reapers, the English dub really only requires two significant new cast members. The rest are voiced by the actors who have been doing the roles for dozens of episodes (if not the whole series), and they do fine with the marginally adjusted attitudes of their characters' Reigai versions. For the new roles, Cam Clarke does an excellent job as Kageroza; it's hard to believe that he is the same person who (under an alias) provided the original English voices of Kaneda in Akira and Max Sterling in Robotech. Much less impressive is the rendition of Nozomi by Julie Anne Taylor; she has previously done fine work in this series as Haineko and a couple of minor roles, and has quite the anime resume otherwise, but her take on Nozomi uses a raspy voice, a quality not present in the original Japanese performance and which grates on the nerves after a while. As always, the script varies some but never entirely changes the meaning of what is being said.

The release is currently only available in DVD form. Extras included on the second of two disks are the clean version of the opener and a clean version of the episode 341 version of the closer; both are available with either English or romaji subtitles. Also present as separate items are the episode-ending omake for the whole set. Most of them are quite funny and all are well worth the time to watch.

Judged either as a filler arc or as part of the series as a whole, the Reigai arc is a middle-of-the-road effort for the franchise. Despite some irritating habits, execution problems, and a redundant feel, it does have a sufficient amount of fun scenes, exciting battles, and effective drama to be entertaining, and the pacing is not too bad, either. (Being able to marathon these episodes definitely helps, though.) Most importantly, it provides a well-thought-out and satisfying conclusion to the post-Aizen decline of Ichigo's powers; in fact, its epilogue in episode 342 is easily one of the series' ten best episodes. Not entirely memorable, but not entirely forgettable, either.