Bleach Recaps: Ep. 190, Hueco Mundo Chapter, Restart!

Hey look, a new season!  New opening credits, new ending credits, and we've finally returned to the main plot.  Shusuke Amagai's tangent universe has collapsed thanks to the helpful guidance of Frank the Bunny, so now we're back twenty-eight days in the past where Amagai never existed and none of the events I recapped here ever happened.

Are your hopes up?  Time to crash them down.  "Bleach" may have finished its filler season, but there's still so much filler to be had.  For example, in this episode, the recap starts all the way back at when Aizen gave himself a more METAL doo, and fled to Hueco Mundo.  For the next half of the episode, "Bleach" replays Ichigo's fight against Ulquiorra and Grimmjow.  The Grimmjow fight isn't bad since that actually was easily the best fight in all of "Bleach"'s sixteen dozen episodes.  But do I need to watch it again?  If I wanted to I could just watch it online in a second, but that's the thing:  I wanted to watch new things today, not the same old nonsense!  If this was a clip show, I could almost have accepted it.  I wouldn't have liked it, but at least I could have watched something else.  Clip shows are also a nuisance I've made peace with over the years.  They're common enough, even in anime*, that its no longer an egregious thing.  But for some reason tonight "Bleach" simply decided to have half an episode.  No particular reason, just half an episode.  Quality!

In case you haven't noticed, I'm not very happy about this.  I'm glad to see that "Bleach" is willing to explain things a bit to people who say, don't know about Aizen or his Doom Fortress or his Arrancar Army of Ultimate Darkness or his badass couch, but must we all suffer half an episode for this?  I'd like to give half a recap out of vindictive rage but I can't.  I have a job and I do it well (needless typos notwithstanding).

First, here's the reaction of the entire fanbase to the first half of this episode:

 

By the way, "Bleach", you could probably avoid all the filler arcs, half-assed animation, and other cheap tricks like reusing scenes for half an episode if you just took a three month break every summer.  A smart showrunner would notice that 1) you're overtaking the comics constantly so there's no reason to be working all year, 2) its hurting your show quality, so that smart showrunner would do something about it.  But NOOOOO.  You gotta release Japanese shows every single week for like seven years straight.  Guess what you get?  This, congrats.  We have one more filler arc on the way, folks.  And I'm betting there will be many more to come.

Ichigo has just defeated Espada #6, Grimmjow, and so flies up to Orihime and Nel.  At this point Ichigo decides to enjoy his portion of the spoils of war:

Mario was content with a kiss on the nose, 

Ichigo has other ideas...

Turns out Ichigo is just picking her up to fly her down to the ground level instead of what I was thinking of.  Too bad Ichigo, she definitely wanted it.  When are you going to make your move on this one, Ichigo?  Be a man!  This all leads to a rather unfunny scene where Ichigo and Nel argue about Orihime's weight.  Orihime probably shouldn't worry about her weight, considering that its pretty apparent what body parts soak up all her calories.

Well, that's nowhere near interesting, so let's move on to Grimmjow attacking again.  Grimmjow is back on his feet despite being clearly stabbed in the heart before because he's just that badass.  Not that heart blows are that much trouble to "Bleach" character anatomy, Ulquiorra actually ripped Ichigo's heart out and he's fine now.  So Grimmjow is still freaking out that any person could dare be stronger than him, but he's so low on power that Ichigo can block his blows with just his bare hand.  If you recall, Grimmjow had an obsession about being "THE KING!!!" or something or other.  Ichigo schools him on this:  "Grimmjow, baby, if you want to be the king, what's the point of killing everybody you meet?  Its pointless to be a king without subjects, nobody can do stuff for you."  To Grimmjow, Ichigo's revelation must hurt like a giant scythe to the neck.

Then Grimmjow actually feels a giant scythe to the neck:

 "Hmmmmmm whaatchaa saaaaay?"

Turns out that Nnoritora, from here on called "the Spoony One" because his name is impossible to spell, has appeared out of nowhere to finish Grimmjow off.  Ichigo saves Grimmjow from the killing blow, assuming that Grimmjow isn't fatally wounded already.  Now Ichigo is fighting Spoony.  Unfortunately Spoony is Espada #5, meaning that Ichigo, already pretty exhausted from the last battle, now has to fight an even stronger enemy.  Man that's bad luck.  Meanwhile Orihime is kidnapped by Spoony's sidekick, Tesla, from here on named "Burton".  So Orihime was saved for all of five minutes.  That sucks.

Worse you're getting beaten by a wacko who dresses like a kitchen utensil.  Kubo has had weird character designs before, but Jesus Christ.  Just look at the guy:

"My spoon is too big..."

At this point Ichigo really could use a random character to pop out of nowhere to save him.  Oh that's far too silly to even be considered!  RIGHT?  Right?  ...right?  ...Please god let me be right...

As for Grimmjow, he's okay I think.  We never do actually find out.  The anime has had another 100 episodes since this and this is probably Grimmjow's final appearance.  In fact in the comics, the whole Aizen war has concluded and we still don't know if Grimmjow is alive or dead.  Either he's died right here or he'll be back in the future to join Ichigo's party.  Grimmjow already saved Ichigo's life just to fight him again, he's totally walking the path of Vegeta right now.  I really don't like this because I like Grimmjow.  He's a cool character.  He'd be a good frontman to some 90s alternative band I think.  But he's wasted in this bloated plot, completely forgotten to die in the desert while lesser characters fight a war for three years.

Meanwhile Renji and Uryu and the two annoying idiots are trying to escape Granz and run right back into him.  Granz sucks so I won't talk any more about that.

So that's "Bleach" today.  It wasn't bad... for half an episode.  But you don't get sympathy for half an effort.  You fail, "Bleach".  For not answering half the questions on the test, you get 50%.  Your final score is F-.  I want this test signed by your parents so they can know how much of a failure you will be in life.  Don't worry "Bleach", gas stations and burger joints all across this great nation have use of people of your skills.  Loser.

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* "Eureka Seven", "Neon Genesis Evangelion", "Gundam Wing" had two clip shows in a row, "Ranma 1/2" (a few times), "Trigun", "Excel Saga", "Wolf's Rain" had four in a row.  "Bleach" strangely, never has had a clip show.  But I'd take five clip shows in a row if that meant that they cut out those stupid recaps at the start of the episode.  No need to be recapping anything "Bleach", that's my job.