English Dub Review: Bleach Episode 360

You know, any other time, I would be okay with Orihime getting cut in half by a sword. Too bad Ichigo probably won’t do it. Find out more about Episode 360 after the jump!

Spoilers Below

I know I bitch a lot about this show, but I do it with merit. This time, though, I am pissed off. How is it that a show can be considered new, when a quarter of the episode was a recap of last week’s episode? Episode 360 actually starts about 5:40 into the episode, because of the opening, and the recap from last week. So, that leaves us with 16 or so minutes of the actual episode. This is ridiculous.

Anyway, it took 15 episodes, but how Tsukishima’s Fullbing worked was finally divulged. It actually inserts Tsukishima into the past of others. As such, every time Ichigo attacks Tsukishima, Chad and Orihime think Ichigo is losing it because of Tsukishima’s Fullbring, and go to protect him, while trying to get Ichigo to stop attacking Tsukishima. Of course, everyone in Xcution got tagged by Tsukishima, so they’re attacking Kugo. Shishigawara was actually able to damage Kugo’s sword, using his Fullbring,  Jackpot Knuckle. No matter what he does, he can warp the odds into his favor, almost always. I know I can’t be the only one who felt that Shishigawara was out of place when fighting with the turned Xcution members, right? I think he would have been better suited helping Tsukishima with Ichigo, but hey, I guess Bleach means disappointment in Japanese.

The fight between Ichigo and Tsukishima, with Kugo and Uryu coming in later, was rather long and drawn out. It suffers from pacing issues, again, and it seemed that the plot twist for the sake of plot twisting was rather unwarranted. I can say, however, that I called the twist, but you’re going to have to do some leg work to see what that was. I’m not spoiling that for you. Also, adding Uryu to this was just enough to add more to an already stuffed segment. Anything Uryu did this week could have been done before this fight, and would have added to the intrigue, because Ichigo wouldn’t know who to trust.

Episode 360 just felt like a disappointment. I wanted to like it, because the end two minutes could have been really awesome, but what it was left a lot to be desired. 18 episodes in, and I can’t help but feel like this is going to be the same old Bleach, bringing us nothing but disappointment when we could have something really great on our hands. Even the ending, which I called from a mile away, was something that could have been amazing. This was a lot of fighting, and not a lot of plot. However, when there was plot, it got botched down the way. At least I can hope Episode 361 is better, right?