Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War Season 2

Episodes 25-26

Like last season, we've got another double-header to close out this cour of Thousand-Year Blood War. Like last season, this finale acts as a solid microcosm of the 11 episodes that preceded it, for better and worse. Unlike last season, I won't be splitting things down the middle, since this two-parter is a very much one-long episode cut in half for broadcast, and I don't see the point in dividing them up to talk about them.

This finale is, quite frankly, massively underwhelming. Perhaps that was always going to be the case, considering it's 40 minutes of characters we barely know fighting for the first time, all while the actual main characters are sitting in a magic minivan waiting for their carpool to drop them off at the fight. Even if you didn't know this was only the halfway point of Thousand-Year Blood War, it would be clear that this couldn't be the actual climax. Yet even accounting for all that, eschewing any expectations of narrative or character drama for the sake of cool action, the fights that cap off this season just aren't very good.

Much of that comes down to the powers on display. I have a theory that any shonen battle series with a sufficiently flexible power system will, with enough time, eventually become JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, and that's firmly where we're at with these battles. Askin Nakk Le Vaar's “death dealer” power is so convoluted that he has to explain it for the audience's sake, even though that immediately allows his opponent to counteract it. The reverse problem happens later when Oh-Etsu takes on Lille Barro's “X-Axis” power, where he seemingly forgets the explanation of said power that happened five minutes previously and gets taken out like a chump. So much of the action here hinges on characters making ridiculous mistakes that it stops being impressive, and it feels like the show is just throwing out powers it thought were cool without really thinking about how they'd function within a narrative. By the time three of the members sacrifice themselves to unlock Senjumaru's bankai, it feels like we've completely lost the plot, and the extended sequence of her taking out the entire royal guard feels limp and meandering rather than like the epic conclusion of a struggle for the fate of the universe.

But alright, that's the side characters. The main dish is going to be Ywach vs Ichibe, right? Not only is this the leader of Zero Squad taking on the ultimate villain of this arc, but it's the first time we'll see Ywach himself fight for more than a moment. Surely this will make up for the lackluster bouts happening lower on the card, yeah?

Not really. Despite being the far more important fight, this face-off gets a minimal amount of screen time, and it mostly amounts to Ichibe explaining his power, Ywach pulling an Uno reverse card, and then Ichibe explaining why his power negates that rule anyway. Sure, the power to cut the “name” of things in half to dilute their power is cool, and dominion over the very color Black is wild – though it meant a lot more in the manga where it gave Ichibe control over half the universe. Yet if you pay attention to what's physically happening, what you get is Ywach tanking a couple of hits and then standing still while Ichibe talks over him. This should be a meaningful, even emotional fight, considering last episode established these two have a long history of antagonism, yet what we get here is just boring and inert.

The real kicker, though, is that we cut off the fight right in the middle. Yes, I know the show wants us to think the fight is over, with Quincy defeated at the hands of Senjumaru and Ywach utterly destroyed by Ichibe. But nobody, not even a single anime-only viewer, is going to believe that. We know the story isn't going to defeat the villains while Ichigo and his friends are sitting in traffic and haven't had the chance to confront Uryu. We know damn well Uryu didn't die, and that means none of the other Sternritter did either. We know that Ywach is going to lose after doing nothing during this whole standoff. When the final credits started rolling, I was certain we'd be getting a post-credits scene where the villains turn the tables once more, leaving us on a cliffhanger to set up for next season's premiere. It was the only move that would make any sense.

Instead, after the post-credits we get a lengthy series of comedy sketches featuring Kon. Remember Kon? The comedy relief character who's been so thoroughly excised from this arc that he hasn't appeared once, this whole cour? Apparently, they were saving all his bits for the very end. Don't ask me why. It's a baffling choice that doesn't just undercut any intended drama from this finale – it obliterates it, and I don't know what could motivate that choice. The anime staff have struggled during this season, but they have by and large shown they knew how to give the material at hand the best presentation they could. To fail like this, especially with so much anime-original material added to the fights, is confounding.

Even ignoring that weird-ass coda, this finale represents just about every weakness that has dragged down the back half of this season. What started as a high-stakes war with tons of implications for both the characters and the larger world, has devolved into esoteric, disjointed fights between characters we have no reason to care about, while the main casts are huddled off-screen, waiting to be relevant again. My hope for the rest of this arc is that this is just a lull, getting through the necessary fanservice and padding before we can once more focus on the elements that made the first cour such a welcome return. If not, it calls into question why we had to wait so long for Bleach to return, if this was all it had to offer.

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Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War Season 2 is currently streaming on Hulu.