The spinning tires feeling of this final arc just won’t go away. Just when you think something major happens, Orihime comes away seemingly unscathed. Ichigo is literally doing jack shit about his training, and he brought out his Fullbring on a fluke chance. Luckily, Ichigo makes some progress in this episode.
Spoilers Ahead!
The episode opens up with Jackie having a weird dream, giving her a restless night. At Xcution HQ, Riruka gets the reins back for Ichigo’s training, but Ichigo doesn’t see the point on doing the same training again. Kugo gives him the difference between Ichigo and the rest of Xcution. The other members had it naturally. Ichigo has to do it through sheer will. Ichigo is in a time crunch, and figures that the best way to train is to take on a member of Xcution. They want him to play it safe, but he wants a true crucible of fire. Kugo finally agrees, but takes no responsibility.
At Tsukishima’s house, Shishiguwara and Tsukishima are just sitting around, with Shishiguwara trying to figure out what the next move is. Tsukishima wants Shishiguwara to do him a favor. Back at Xcution, Jackie wants nothing to do with helping Ichigo, same with Giriko. They think rushing it will make it unstable. Ichigo’s soul will get pushed out by the soul of the object. Jackie’s reason is a little more selfish, because she just wants to lose her powers. She lays into Ichigo for wanting his powers back.
Kugo asks Giriko to get Jackie back, and Kugo goes back on his word. Ichigo has to go slow, so he is transported into the cage with the stuffed pig and chicken. Outside, Giriko catches up with Jackie, and he ends up telling Jackie about a man with a bad wound in his leg, who can end up telling when it’s going in the rain. The man never ends up outside when it rains. This was a story to get Jackie to embrace her powers more.
The battle begins, with Ichigo throwing his Fullbring power at the pig. Elsewhere, Chad is walking while dwelling on Orihime said, then decides to talk to Uryu. He feels someone is following him, and he runs off. Everyone feels someone’s spiritual pressure closing in on Chad. Ichigo loses his focus on the fight, and he is pinned by the pig. He tries to get himself out, but Kugo wants him inside the cage to finish this training. Jackie walks in, and lays into Ichigo again, saying Ichigo is too impulsive to be worth helping.
Jackie keeps getting flashbacks to that dream, then gives up on Ichigo again. The timer goes off, and Giriko uses his Fullbring to make both the pig and chicken more powerful. Ichigo is having problems with his attack, and then realizes that he needs to use the attack like Getsuga Tenshō. He is releasing the attack too soon, and the attack is less powerful. So, he adjusts the attack, and uses an attack so powerful that he destroys the cage. They call Chad, who is okay. Chad even wants Ichigo to finish his training. It was Tsukishima and Shishiguwara tailing Chad, but that was it.
Next up for Ichigo, he’s training inside a fish tank. This time, he gets to fight Jackie. Ichigo powers up his Substitute Reaper badge, but he hasn’t seen Jackie’s Fullbring yet. It’s called Dirty Boots, and Jackie is about to kick Ichigo right in the back of his head.
Ichigo fucking sucks as a main character. He has about five people outside his birdcage of pain who can help Chad, yet he wants to get out and help. Jesus Christ, man. He’s there to get your powers back, and help Xcution get rid of theirs. If they cut up the training with scenes of other crap going on, Ichigo being a bitch wouldn’t be so much of a big deal.
But that’s the thing. This entire episode was all on Ichigo, minus the two small scenes with Tsukishima and Shishiguwara and the one scene where Chad drifts off to Lala Land. This was all about Ichigo resisting to train the Xcution way, and most of the Xcution members wanting nothing to do with Ichigo. I don’t blame them, because this the latest Ichigo being Ichigo moment. There are so many other places this show can go. For instance, where the hell is Rukia? Why haven’t any of the Soul Reapers shown up since that Hollow showed up a few episodes back? I give up on this show trying to be consistent.
Dub / Sub Comparison
There are a lot of minor changes between the two versions. However, I think the dub’s version is somewhat superior. For instance, when Ichigo asks Riruka whether he’s going back in the dollhouse, the dub captures Riruka’s more standoffish attitude when she says, “Would that be a problem?” I just found it more fitting than, “What do you mean, ‘again?”‘
It’s the little things that will drive most people nuts. But the changes aren’t that bad. It’s not like the people who wrote the English script just decided to do an abridged version of Bleach. The script is very faithful to the original Japanese script. The writers just made it fit better. Plus, Giriko’s voice doesn’t match the wise, older man character that he is now. Not to mention that Tsukishima sounds very foreboding, but he doesn’t sound very evil in the dub as well, so that’s a wash.