Everything still feels really slow, at first I thought it was just because I already knew the story, but Bleach doesn't feel like it's moving at a lethargic pace so it's not that. If they're going to keep dragging things out like this then the fights will never get back the tension they had pre-fillers, which would probably kill the show for a lot of people.

On a positive note, the part where Diedara thought he'd escaped and Garaa grabbed him with sand and just tossed him back towards his ball of death was very cool. On a negative nove most of the stuff that took place in the Leaf villiage felt unnessecary, out of place, and helped mess up the pacing even more in my opinion.