Break free from darkness.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Tite Kubo
English Adaptation: Lance Caselman
Translation: Joe Yamazaki
What They Say:
Old friends turn against each other as Tosen and Komamura battle it out. Will Tosen’s new powers be too much for the Soul Reapers? And when Hirako reveals his Bankai for the first time, can he turn the tables against Aizen?!
Content:
Ichigo appears on the scene to rescue Rukia and lay the smack down on Yammy. Before he can finish things his mask runs out of steam, but Byakuya and Kenpachi arrive just in time. Together they take over the clean up while Ichigo heads for Karakura with the help of the other captains. Since he hasn’t ever seen Aizen’s power, he may in fact be the Soul Reapers’ only hope in bringing down their monstrous foe.
Back in the real world, Komamura confronts his old friend Tosen. To speed up the battle, Tosen unleashes his hollowfication and quickly strikes down Hisagi. Komamura releases his Bankai, but Tosen simply wounds Komamura by attacking his giant weapon. It quickly becomes clear that Tosen is far more corrupt than previously thought, and he proceeds to use his resurreccion, Grillar Grillo. The former captain becomes a massive fly-like hollow, opening his eyes for the first time ever. Just when it looks like Komamura is about to be struck down, Hisagi pops up from behind and stabs his former captain in the head, proclaiming that his newfound sight blinded him from the attack.
In Summary:
To be perfectly blunt, not much of note seems to happen in this volume. A large chunk of the first part of the volume is spent on a battle involving Yammy, but most of that time is used having two characters bicker to show how cool they are. It’s not a terrible scene, but seeing how much space it uses, it feels like a bit of a waste. Fortunately, the end of the volume has a pretty nice battle with Tosen, which fluctuates between action and character development quite well. It’s a bit of a shame that Tosen doesn’t have more depth to him considering how interesting his setup was, but it still makes for an exciting read. The best moment in the book is probably the final one, concluding the battle in a cool and unique manner. With things heating up, the next volume is sure to be an exciting read, but for now this volume falls a little flat.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B+
Package Rating: B+
Text/Translation Rating: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released by: Viz Media
Release Date: August 7th, 2012
MSRP: $9.99
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