Bleach 585: The Headless Star 4

Zach Goodier

http://readms.com/r/bleach/585/2413/1

This week, Ichigo hears the voice of Juha Bach, who tells him that because of his arrival, in particular arriving from the Soul Palace with clothes made of the hair and bone of Squad 0, the defenses keeping intruders out of the Soul Palace will be down for 6000 seconds.  This means that Juha Bach means to invade the Soul Palace while those defenses are down, upping the pressure on Ichigo to hurry and face him.  However, Ichigo has 8 Quincy surrounding him, and they have no intention of letting him go.  Still, after a series of attacks, Ichigo is unhurt.  However, will he be able to break away to face Juha Bach, or will he be too late to stop him from invading the Palace of the King of Souls?

I'm hoping this bout between Ichigo and the other Quincy is finally over.  I wasn't minding it, but now that the pace is picking up, I'm hoping it means he'll be able to move on up, if not facing Juha Bach himself, than Hashwald or Uryuu.  Renji and the others arriving to hold off the Quincy was helpful, and it kept this fight from dragging out any longer than necessary, plus it does give us the chance to let the rest of that fight unravel mostly out of sight of the reader, since we've seen most of the abilities each character has.  I'm still waiting for the rest of Ichigo's new "allies" to arrive, like the Fullbring and the mysterious partner of Urahara's, but it is still unclear when or if we'll get a peek at them during this round of fighting.  Until next week, we'll just have to keep grasping at straws, hoping we get there soon.

Bleach 568: Here. Fear. Here 2

Zach Goodier

http://www.mangapanda.com/bleach/568/?ref=email

This week, as you might have expected, As Nodt survived Rukia's initial attack, and releases his full power.  As Rukia reaches the limits of her self-inflicted semi-hibernation, she finds that "The Fear" is not gone yet.  He quickly releases his power, saying that the only fear he knows is the anger of his king and the loss of his body.  As he releases his power Rukia quickly finds herself at a severe disadvantage, but some last minute backup may provide the help she needs, and allow an old score to be settled from the last battle.

Rukia's new power has been interesting, even if it hasn't been visually impressive next to others, like Renji.  However, I'm still holding out for Rukia to finally have attained a bankai, especially after her training.  She obviously doesn't have to have a bankai, but I feel like it would have been an appropriate time to have her gain one in the context of all that is happening and just how intense the training was for both her and Renji; plus is could really boost up on of Bleach's generally weaker characters, seeing as how Rukia hasn't been all that powerful next to her companions or enemies.  However, with a certain someone coming back into the fight at the very end of the chapter, we might get to see a satisfying end to one of the match-ups from the previous set of fights.

And through all of this, I'm still wondering what the endgame is for the Quincy.  So far, we have seen the origin of Juha Bach, as well as why they need to fight, but I wonder how exactly this is all going to end up for the Quincy, if they are successful in destroying the Soul Society.  I mean, what then? Presumably, the entire world will be thrown into turmoil, and its destruction seems more than likely, so how will this benefit the Quincy?  Unless there is more to the balance of the worlds, or the Quincy have some sort of plan to keep at least one of the worlds from being destroyed, I just don't see how plan to walk away from this war with any real victory in either case.  I suppose we'll understand more in the future chapters, so we'll just have to wait and see how everything unfolds.