Hello, father…
Creative Staff:
Story/Art: Tite Kubo
What They Say:
Ichigo Kurosaki never asked for the ability to see ghost – he was born with the gift. When his family is attacked by a Hollow- a malevolent lost soul – Ichigo becomes a Soul Reaper, dedicating his life to protecting the innocent and helping tortured spirits themselves find peace.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Bleach continues to bring out moments where it feels like we’re definitely getting to the end of things. While the confrontation with Yhwach doesn’t exactly spell that out in a way, bringing in Ichigo’s father and Ishida’s father here toward the end gives the whole thing a little more of a closed loop feeling as they talk about everything going according to their plan. Those that are heavily invested in the story over the past decade+ or so of the book are likely to see plot threads more clearly at this stage with the meaning of it, but for me it’s just something that has some decent cool factor to it with how they look and present themselves, reinforcing that things are coming to a head here.
The chapter continues to largely work a two story front deal, which is Ichigo and his fight and then everything else. Ichigo continues to be hard to rally behind after all that he’s learned and accomplished because we see him going up against Yhwach here and doing so with just standard blades and almost fueled by anger with straightforward attacks. Perhaps there’s a larger plan afoot here that I’m not seeing, but what we get is fairly lackluster in getting readers to become excited about what he does because it feels like the exact same kind of approach he took during the first couple of years of the manga. Which was acceptable then, of course. But here, as Yhwach says, he’s only alive because Inoue stepped in to help.
The flip side of the chapter gives us time with Byakuya trying to act cool by sending Renji and his sister to go find Ichigo since he’ll need them down the line. He knows he’s just talking without any merit here as even Hitsugaya calls him out on that yet he attempts to deflect it by making it seem important. The pair have their work cut out for them in dealing with Gerard still so there’s definitely some confidence at play here in what they’re up to. We also get a little bit of time with Ishida as he’s getting the snot beaten out of him and getting frustrated with how talkative his opponent is. Standard shonen material with no surprises. Thankfully, Kubo’s art team feels a little more on the ball this time around with better backgrounds and dynamic action sequences, and some fun early visual bleeds for Yhwach.
In Summary:
Progress is being made at the expected pace not only for a shonen book but for a Bleach book. There are some strong visual moments, here, such as the early spread for Yhwach and some of the backgrounds that give it all a little more weight, but it’s mostly the end page that provides for some interesting potential. Most of it is just some of the longtime characters affecting a cool stance while the younger ones race toward each other to help with what’s going on. It’s not bad but not great, resulting in a serviceable chapter that gets us closer to something meaningful – hopefull.y
Grade: C+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media via Weekly Shonen Jump’s ComiXology Release
Release Date: May 23rd, 2016
MSRP: $0.99
