Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War - The Calamity

Episode 4

When I was 12, all I wanted from my battle shonen anime was cool, hype moments. As I got older, I wanted more: A good story, characters I could root for, and if the whole thing had layers of metaphor to peel through to get to the messaging, all the better. But now, in my 30s, while the latter will make a battle shonen anime better to me every time, I've landed right back at, “If it at least has cool, hype moments, that means it's doing its job, and that's fine.” And while it's not to say Bleach has nothing going on in the story and character departments, it's very obvious where Thousand-Year Blood War is by far the most concerned: If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, and it's spectacle. And episodes like this one really epitomize that.

This feels like the kind of episode that would've altered a generation's brain chemistry if it had come out 20 years sooner. Imagine going back to the 2000s and telling Bleach fans that they were eventually going to be in for a fight involving Kenpachi, Byakuya, and Hitsugaya. Excellent idea on paper, but in practice? It could be a lot better—and certainly the three of them could synergize far, far better—but I'm not mad at the results. I wish Byakuya were doing more, but any time we get to see any of these three powerhouses fight is a treat. And new powers for Kenpachi and Hitsugaya? Yes, please.

Speaking of which, dear Haruhi. When I say, “If this episode had come out 20 years earlier it would've changed brain chemistries,” I'm also referring very much to grown-up Hitsugaya, who's voiced in Japanese by Yūki Kaji (very curious if they'll cast someone else in the dub, and if so, who it will be). I've never been the biggest Hitsugaya fan out there, but I'm no Hitsu-hater, either. And certainly I've been into Bleach long enough to know that especially once upon a time, this was a character with a veritable army of fans. The fujoshi, the fan artists—everyone would've had a field day with grown-up Hitsugaya if he were around during the height of Bleach's popularity. And rightfully so, to be clear; that his power does that to him very obviously feels arbitrary, and like it's something Kubo added for fan service. And especially this late in the game, sure. Nothing wrong with that, and again, it really feeds into the spectacle of it all that this series has been all about.

You may have already guessed it, but to me, Kenpachi was the star of the episode. Always the unkillable badass, obviously he still has more tricks up his sleeve—although this one seems to have a bit more to it than his others do. It's not even entirely clear whether or not Kenpachi himself seems fully aware of what he's doing, though I lean toward believing that he has no idea what precise manner of thing is happening to him. I'm sure next week, or sometime otherwise soon, we're in for a more detailed explanation. But in the meantime, I'm happy to sit back and enjoy the ride. Even just within Thousand-Year Blood War, Kenpachi has had some A+ fights, and this one, if it continues at its current pace, might join its ranks.

Again, I only wish Byakuya would do more. So far he's just been sitting on the sidelines, doing little more than pretty minimal support such as encouraging Rukia and Renji to go help Ichigo. He's not doing anything, but especially considering how much we know he's capable of, one can't help but want to scream, “JUST DO SOMETHING” at him every time he's on screen.

In the midst of all this, we only barely got to see any of the developing fight between Ichigo and Yhwach. But that didn't make me scream any less when the old music kicked in with Ichigo going Hollow-mode. Is the pacing for this fight very obviously being impeded by the series weirdly insisting on only drip-feeding it to us thus far? Yes. Is it frustrating? To a certain extent, also yes. And yet, I can't deny that it gets me hype every time. Still, I'm definitely looking forward to after the series wraps up, and people edit the pieces of the fight together into one continuous fight, rather than the fragments we've been given.

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Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War - The Calamity is currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+.