Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War - The Calamity ‒ Episode 9
To recap: Seemingly after defeating everyone standing in his way, Yhwach is now trying to seal the deal on the destruction of the three worlds. Sure, there have been those who have tried to stand up to him, but so far, none have seen any substantial success. And that's the way most of the episode is spent, too. Seeing fruitless attempt after fruitless attempt by our remaining fighters. Nonetheless, together, they're all putting forth a tremendous effort which might yield something yet. Grimmjow, Harribel, Nel—all had great moments this episode.
Speaking of which, I know I've said it all series long, but I seriously can't emphasize enough how gorgeous the visuals were in this episode, watching Yhwach take over everything with his eye-tendril-things, as well as the brief… well, calling them “fights” feels like an overstatement, so attempts at scuffles. The animation is equal parts beautiful, fluid, and stylish, and the direction gave us cool and creative shots. As usual, not to say there's no other wonderfully animated battle shonen anime out there (Chainsaw Man and One Piece in its most recent years certainly spring to mind, for example), but Thousand-Year Blood War really does stand head and shoulders above the rest, visually. Say what you want about the story, which isn't everyone's cup of tea—but visually, Thousand-Year Blood War is as good as battle shonen anime gets.
But back to the episode itself, Uryu and Ichigo still have the arrowhead, which at this point is their last and only hope. And Shinsui seems to be getting in on the action, too—which is good, considering his new role; he could use a big moment to shine in this season. The end of the episode certainly makes it look like it's working, but whether or not that's the case, or if there's more than meets the eye—perhaps if there's a catch, or something going on that they don't know about.
It feels weird knowing that it all ends next week. Bleach was, of course, a generation-defining anime for a lot of anime fans who are now mostly in their early and mid-30s. It hit different—and if I'm being honest, harder—when it was the announcement that the manga was ending, but that doesn't mean the anime ending doesn't nonetheless also feel like the end of an era. At the risk of derailing this, I won't go off on a tangent about whether or not that era is truly over because Naruto is very obviously being kept on life support, and it wouldn't be unprecedented if Bleach were to be treated similarly after next week.
I'll write more about my extended thoughts on the series as a whole next week, but for now I'll just say that finally being at the precipice of Thousand-Year Blood War's ending after all this time is a strange feeling. Still, all good things must come to an end. And even if there were some fights that I think could've (and should've) taken up more time, at this juncture of the story, I'm ready for the long fight to finally be over.
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Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War - The Calamity is currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
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