Bleach 120

[Mr. Roboto]

its out

http://yhbt.mine.nu/t/b120.torrent

[zangetsu]

man, i can't believe how pathetic these captain and vice-captains are as opposed to Ikkaku. the arrancars haven't even released their zanpo. yet, and they're already close to death. so from we saw in this episode, would it be safe to assume that Ikkaku is the strongest shinigami amongst the team that was sent there? heck, i think he would rank even higher than kenpachi in terms of power. next week looks good. hopefully we'll get to see Hollow Ichigo in action. :)

[DarthEnderX]

You must have not been paying attention to this episode.


As has been mentioned before, Vice-captains and Captains have their powers sealed in the real world so they don't cause too much damage.

Obviously those seals were just broken at the end of the episode.

Ikkaku had the benefit of having the power of a captain, without being sealed because he doesn't have the rank of one.

Now, what was it Renji said, he's 5 times stronger in SS than he is on earth. If the seals all work on that ratio, all 3 of them will get 5 times as powerful now. The fights should be alot more even.



Seriously though...Ururu?...what the hell?!

[Assassin]

lol ya, that part with ururu was pure pwnage. she made that arrancar her bitch.

This ep was freaking awesome. Especially the end, since i've been waiting for it to be animated for so long. I loved how matsumoto just blocks the fat guy with one hand and stands rite up like nothings happened. The next few eps should be pretty awesome.

We also found out about the arrancar strength system. 1-10 are the strongest, and 11-20 (there were 20 total rite?), are named in order of birth/transformation. If Grimjow is the 6th strongest, i wonder who the first is. And where does ulquirra rank, since im pretty sure he's an espada as well.

[RyougaZell]

Ururu owned this episode. Sadly censorship didn't allow us to see her painful defeat clearly.

Ilforte Grantz... I still believe he should be Ilforte Grandz... -> El Fuerte Grande (The Big Strong)

At least they used Del Toro.

It sux to read a translation that says... 'You said you are Arrancar Eleven... so then you are the eleventh'

Nice episode.

No ep next week.

[an0nym0u5]

I have a feeling Ichigo will turn into a Vaizard soon. That, or maybe get help from one. I hope I'm right cause the Vaizard look so badass.

[Munsu]

They made a mockery out of Renji's fight... those freaking dolls are a piece of shit, someone kill them already.

And what was fucking wrong with Ururu... I was waiting for her "Genocide Mode", fucking script writers, do the shit right.

[masamuneehs]

wow, i'm super disappointed... I never complain about animation, but it was just downright awful in this episode. Even made Ururu's going berserk lame...

Renji's fight (as said) was an absolute horror. Like an offensive joke that isn't funny, that shitty battle not only failed to entertain (and gtfo with that sonic the hedgehog music!) but seem to have pushed people's buttons... considering that Renji was so pathetic and worthless that even the fucking dolls had to help him out, I'm with you. There should be no way anyone with Bankai is on the same level as dolls.

I did LOL at the weird SFX when the dolls got hit, and when Nova just flat collapses on the pavement.

Best part of the episode was the Arrancar acting cool and the description of the Espada. Worst? The whole episode being inconsequentially lame because the SS reinforcements were just "limited" the whole time... How the fuck are you supposed to fight like that? The idea that a Bankai can be limited to that extent also doesn't sit quite right with me...

.... yeah, it still seems really crappy that they'd send their people out to fight super dangerous enemies like that and not let them go all out...

[Inazuma]

Ururu didn't even have her "Multi Rocket Launcher thing"
Wonder what will happen if she goes in full battle gear.

Hope the dolls are dead.

Damn, now I want to see Kisuke's team in action.

[zangetsu]

You must have not been paying attention to this episode.


As has been mentioned before, Vice-captains and Captains have their powers sealed in the real world so they don't cause too much damage.

Obviously those seals were just broken at the end of the episode.

Ikkaku had the benefit of having the power of a captain, without being sealed because he doesn't have the rank of one.

Now, what was it Renji said, he's 5 times stronger in SS than he is on earth. If the seals all work on that ratio, all 3 of them will get 5 times as powerful now. The fights should be alot more even.



Seriously though...Ururu?...what the hell?!

thanks for clearing that up. seriously though, i thought every shinigami, including ichigo, had their power sealed to some extent. now it makes more sense why Ikkaku looks so much more badass than the rest of the team.

[Kraco]

I have to agree with Masa quite completely. Renji's fight was just painful to watch. Even with his power sealed (for whatever witless bureaucratic reason), he should have been 100 times better than in this episode. It was just a disgrace. And when the dolls suddenly appeared I was about ready to go and shoot my neighbour (the dolls getting cut, hopefully mortally, saved that neighbour. A lucky bastard).

Well, let's hope the next episode will be better, when they don't anymore have to make an artificial point of how the doods have their powers sealed, and they should fight normally again.

[Munsu]

thanks for clearing that up. seriously though, i thought every shinigami, including ichigo, had their power sealed to some extent. now it makes more sense why Ikkaku looks so much more badass than the rest of the team.
I don't know about Ichigo though... I don't think he's limited for some reason. Same reason why Urahara, Yoruichi, and Isshin shouldn't have restrictions.

[RyougaZell]

Only active Captains and Vice-Captains are limited.
Since Urahara and Yorouichi (and probably Isshin) are 'rogue' they aren't limited.

Ichigo is a subtitute. Ikkaku, Yumichika and Rukia are seated shinigami (or level, in Rukia's case), so they aren't limited.

But yeah... the dolls messed up the fight.

[Kraco]

The seals seem to be visible, as well, at least when they are removed. So, in order for Ichigo to have one, they would have needed to tattoo it during the SS arc at some point. It would feel kind of strange if they now, afterwards, suddenly installed such a scene in some flashback, because certainly no scene like that was originally there.

On the other hand, Ichigo being such a loose cannon probably would need one more than some others... Though not during this fight. He'll probably have his hands full anyway fighting against Grimmjaw and trying to keep Rukia protected from further harm.

3000th post! OMG.

[Yukimura]

The Limit Break was cool, but echoing everyone else's points...Renji's bankai was amazingly useless. The way it was animated it revealed that his giant whip was actually a liability against a fast opponent. It makes sense that he couldn't do anything fast enough to hit Illforte when you consider it's size, but then Illforte mentioned that his bankai was pretty fast, which didn't make sense because it looked amazingly slow, go inconsistency!

Back to the limiters and bankai, I think that bankai is more of an ability than something that requires a certain amount of 'power' to use. Thus having less spiritual energy available would probably make using it effectively more difficult, but not activating it, as Shaolon commented.

[itadakimasu]

i didn't like watching renji, toshiro and matsumoto being pwnd because they had their power limited. only good part of the episode was when uryuu was tearing up that arrancar. when are they going to release another double episode!?!

[DB_Hunter]

That limit release at the end made things alot better. At least we know now that the shinigami were getting pwned because of something beyone their control.

I agree with everyone here who thinks Renji's Bankai was made to look useless. I was surprised when the arrancar flicked away his Shikai like it was nothing, especially after Ikkaku's fight with a completely sealed zanpaktou.

I don't think Ichigo is going to be sealed, simply because of not having a tatoo put on his body whilst in SS. I can still see them technically spinning it by saying his Shinigami representitve badge acts as a kind of seal when it gets Ichigo's spirit out of his body.

I really think now that after all this, Kisuke, Yorouchi, Isshin, Isshida and his dad are only going to come out and fight with the Espada. Same goes for Kenpachi. I hope that guy at least has his Shikai out by now.

[JaySee]

I thought it was quite obvious Toshiro and Renji's bankais were limited. When Toshiro used his in SS it was a gigantic dragon that froze everything within an area, not some stupid ice armor. I liked the explanation of the countdown timers. Renji's moving so slowly was a clear indicator he was limited. I wonder if Matsumoto can release bankai.

[V]

I don't understand why everyone is upset chat Renji's fight was weak. That was the entire point. You weren't supposed to like it. It's supposed to show off how powerful the arrancar are so that we can see a contrast. If they all started at full power and the good guys win, we'd just say "Ah, they were a little powerful, but big deal". There'd be nothing to compare it to. With Ikkaku, we had tons of contrast. There was an entire back story showing this, even his reluctance to bring out bankai. And even when he did, the arrancar was narrowly defeated.

So now we have arrancars and one guy who was never limited (Ichigo) will go up against uber-arrancar espada #6 now that the power of regular arrancars have been shown. We can now compare everyone and see how relative everyone's power is. Without any constrast and showing how they deal with less powerful attacks, there can be nothing to base anything on.

I, for one, am happy they did this because my main fear was that it was going to turn into that stupid matrix fight where everyone is uber-powerful, but the fights mean nothing because we lose perspective. I had no clue how they were gonna show the power of any future bad guys when everyone is already so powerful. I like what they've done. Especially starting it off with Ikkaku.

BTW, is the one with the ice a guy or a girl? I still can't tell. And that countdown, for me, feels more like a bomb ticking down. It feels like something super powerfull will release itself when that happens. Dunno, I can't wait to see if it gets there.

[Kraco]

You can't really build such contrast by making established characters suddenly so much weaker. That's just stupid and poor script writing. You can't seriously claim you were happy with Renji fighting more poorly than the three filler dolls, can you? If they wanted to have higher contrast then they should have made the enemies tougher and the good guys remain at their normal level. That would have made sense. Now good guys were suddenly n00bs and enemies really nothing special compared to some opponents we have seen in the past.

[masamuneehs]

regardless of whether or not Renji's weakness from the Limiter and his getting pushed around by a nobody Arrancar pissed people off, I thought the main problem with his entire fight was how it was set up and carried out. I'm talking about the animation and sequencing.

First, I'm never a big fan of jumping back to a fight in the middle of it. The beginning of a fight is the most important, in my eyes, because it reveals the fighting styles and approaches the combatants use. So I didn't like that all of a sudden Renji had his Bankai out and was bloody while this other guy looked like he wasn't breaking a sweat.

Second, purposefully avoiding animated fight segments. They show Renji's Bankai flailing around a lot, and some of Ilforte's dodging and blocking, but I felt like they wanted to save money and animate the fight as little as possible. This is most evident when Ururu steps in, where she's hitting Ilforte but all we see are shots of her grabbing him (arms outstretched way beyond her possible reach...) and supposedly hitting him. The fight is also shown from an angle near Renji, where Ilforte and Ururu are tiny, flailing objects in the background. This seemed like pure laziness to me, and I hate that.

Third, like before, I think the idea of being Limited in such a high stakes mission is bogus bullshit.

Fourth, the goddamn dolls stepped in and they started playing that shitty new music track during that sequence. I hate bad music, especially during fights.

That's all for now.

[animus]

Renji's bankai is lackluster don't you think? It's just an overextended huge, heavier, version of his shikai. All he does is fling it around. It can break apart and re-attach itself, though I don't know if that is a pro or not. You can only do so much with something like that.

[StillAlive]

I think this ep was pretty good. Maybe the animation wasn't at its best but they gave us some interesting informations about the power restriction of the shinigami and what the arrancar numbers stand for. Also there was a wicked Ururu who actually fought better against Ilfort than Renji in (restricted) bankai even if she suddenly was strangly weak after Ilfort released his zanpakuto - I would have loved to see her fighting a bit longer. But this leads me to the question: What are Ururu and this red-haired boy (don't know the name)? Are they artificial souls? They are probably neither humans nor shinigamis. Did I miss the explanation in an earlier ep?

[DB_Hunter]

BTW, is the one with the ice a guy or a girl? I still can't tell. And that countdown, for me, feels more like a bomb ticking down. It feels like something super powerfull will release itself when that happens. Dunno, I can't wait to see if it gets there.

Hitsugaya Toushiro? That's a young guy.

Speaking of Toushiro, I think it was pretty cool how they made Toushiro out to be just at the beginning of using his Bankai. Shawlong said his Bankai was immature... was he possibly referring to the fact the Bankai was restricted, or was it a geniune observation of Toushiro and his current skill level?

[mage]

Renji's bankai is lackluster don't you think? It's just an overextended huge, heavier, version of his shikai. All he does is fling it around. It can break apart and re-attach itself, though I don't know if that is a pro or not. You can only do so much with something like that.
In the preview it's shooting energy out of its mouth, so it probably has more abilities when hes not limited.

[animus]

Hitsugaya Toushiro? That's a young guy.

Speaking of Toushiro, I think it was pretty cool how they made Toushiro out to be just at the beginning of using his Bankai. Shawlong said his Bankai was immature... was he possibly referring to the fact the Bankai was restricted, or was it a geniune observation of Toushiro and his current skill level?

I'd assume that Toushiro has one of the most potentials to become extremely powerful. Probably 2nd to Ichigo in the potential department, but thats cause Ichigo is the main character. He's young, has already achieved bankai, and attained captain. Though, I don't know if that means he'll get stronger.

[iMUSTbeTHEdevil]

I'd assume that Toushiro has one of the most potentials to become extremely powerful. Probably 2nd to Ichigo in the potential department, but thats cause Ichigo is the main character. He's young, has already achieved bankai, and attained captain. Though, I don't know if that means he'll get stronger.

I could have sworn that they said something about him being a genuis or a decendent of someone special, so I will agree that he has room to grow. -dg-

[Necromas]

In the preview it's shooting energy out of its mouth, so it probably has more abilities when hes not limited.

Lets not forget that Renji also just recently learned his bankai, as compared to the usual 10 years of training needed to master most bankai (Ichigo's is an acception because it retains the same exact fighting style of a normal sword and isn't wierd or oversized or anything). So he probably has something more then just an energy attack that he'll learn in future episodes (though for now it's prolly just a generic energy beam and the ability to break up).


I could have sworn that they said something about him being a genuis or a decendent of someone special, so I will agree that he has room to grow. -dg-

From the bleach wiki, Removed link full of spoilers
"During his duel with Gin Ichimaru in the anime, Ichimaru remarks that Hitsugaya is the embodiment of the heavenly guardian that is born into Soul Society every few centuries. This may explain his rapid growth and why he is a respected captain despite his age. Alternatively, Gin may have been speaking sarcastically, saying that Hitsugaya did not seem to live up to his title. His given name is also a homonym for a casual Japanese term meaning "amateur" (藤四郎), possibly referring to Hitsugaya's young age and inexperience relative to the other captains of the Gotei 13."

[Deadfire]

It seems everytime those filler dolls do anything in the anime the show seems to degrade in animation and sequencing. Hell it also seems everything else in the show be it buildings to other characters degrades in style and coolness everytime those fuckers that noone wanted appear.

It looks like everything about Bleach is rejecting their existence and wants no part in being near them, unless they are forced. We all know how we react when we are forced to work with things we hate.

This means only one thing...the animators themselves hate drawing them and are forced to do it, the result is what we have seen.:rolleyes:

Anyways the ep without those fuckers was decent, however those fuckers bought this down to maybe only a bit better then the fillers.

I Want some killer Massive Ownage! after 118 I think my hopes for the rest of these battles went to far...

Time will tell I guess

[DB_Hunter]

I think its pretty obvious Toushiro has room to grow... he's is a kid afterall. I think he will certainly be one of the most powerful shinigami around.

[LobsterMagnet]

I really really didn't like this episode. Mostly because the Ikkaku bankai fight set the expectations so high.

I mean that fight was edited and animated perfectly. It gave me that good'old fashioned bleach feeling that we all shared during the soul society arc and helped make the wait for the end of the naruto fillers just a bit more bearable.

But man were things brought back to earth just in terms of lazy execution. Most of the fights were animated quite sloppily with a good deal of flailing around. No sense of tension what so ever as been mentioned by the rest of you.

Probably what pissed me off the most though was the two Arrancar releases. When they did the first one it was incredible. With the molten magma lava flowing all over the guys arms then solidifying into his armor. It was a sight to behold and held up really nice visually, just a dream to watch, infinitely better then what was shown in the manga.

But here we just get Oh big flash of yellow light and then they get their ghetto hollow armor which really doesn't do much.

My last thing of bitching WTF with the Uru fight. I know how anime people hate it when manga readers bitch but I just feel that you people have been cheated. In the manga when she bounded on illfort he drenched in blood which helped emphasize how much of a beating he was sustaining. As opposed to the toned down version we got here.

Also in the manga uru was pierced by illforts horn with a hole cute clean through her. I really don't see what the point of toning down the violence is especially seeing how blood spurted and flowed so gratuitously before in bleach.

Did the fillers some how attract a younger audience? I know bleach is a shounen series generally aimed at japanese kids ages 5-13 but it just doesn't seem to make sense as to why the violence has been toned down when it flowed so frequently before.

[JaySee]

I suspect the censoring is because it got licensed for U.S. airing. U.S. distributor is probably requesting they censor the first time around so they have less editing to do for Toonami.

I welcome the manga "bitchings." I don't read the manga, so I'd like to know when things have been altered and censored. By all means, keep on bitching.

[RyougaZell]

Oh come on... toned down with this fight? censored because its licensed in USA?
heck... this series has been toned down from the very beginning.

Jidanbou didn't lose an arm. Kukaku didn't walked around without her arm, but with a prothesis (sp?).
You can't think the series just got toned down now.

Bleach, like many other Shounen series (Naruto), get aired at prime time, or at least at hours with a lot of audience. Tv everywhere has censorship. It is not recent, its being around since episode 1.

A bit of blood can be shown freely, but not impalements, lose of limbs etc. They just add it when it is absolutely neccesary.

[Bucket]

What I'm annoyed about is that the writers seem to have taken their sweet time with the story since the fillers, and now I feel like I missed an episode.

[Animeniax]

It's annoying that you forgot why there were fillers in the first place, and sounds like you yearn for another year of fillers when the writers burn through the manga material too fast again.

I thought this was a good episode. I, probably like others, forgot about the power restriction on captains and vice-captains in the real world, so I was really concerned that the Arrancar seemed so much more powerful than the Shinigami. When I realized the reason they were losing so bad, it was uplifting and exciting to see what would happen once the limit was removed.

I appreciated the explanation of the Arrancar hierarchy, but thought it was lame how they used the old "bad guy explains his plans before they come to complete fruition" deal. I think they should have animated more of the fights if they want to drag out the material instead of adding more filler. Surprisingly, I didn't mind the filler dolls getting involved in the fight with Renji. They aren't as weak as everyone is suggesting. Remember they gave Ichigo and Renji a really hard time when they first appeared. The one glitch is, even with Ririn's illusion powers, wouldn't the Arrancar detect Renji's reiatsu and know the illusion isn't him?

[DarthEnderX]

I suspect the censoring is because it got licensed for U.S. airing. U.S. distributor is probably requesting they censor the first time around so they have less editing to do for Toonami.Except that Bleach doesn't air on Toonami. It airs on Adult Swim and they don't edit it at all from the japanese version.

[Kagemane_no_Jutsu]

You guys expected too much after that perfect Ikkaku episode. Not everyone can be as badass as him. And if I remember correcty, Hitsugaya and Renji's fights were just as dull in the manga compared to Ikkaku's.

And yea that was some bullshit with Ururu. I was waiting for the impaling to go down but she just got poked.

[Sporklover]

Heh, This episode somewhat reminded me of the Jupon Gatana in RK.

[itadakimasu]

the series does seem to be moving pretty slow... i want to see ichigo fight!

[Mizuchi]

I wish they would just start making an anime after its manga is either finished or almost finished, so they can pace it normally without fillers.

[Dark Dragon]

well, if they do it like that then we'll have a new shonen to watch once every 5 year.

[DarthEnderX]

Well sure, we'd all love that. But I'm guessing there's no way they'd do that from a business standpoint.