English Dub Review: Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War – The Calamity “The End”

Overview:

The battle between Uryu and Haschwalth intensifies and nears its conclusion.

Our Take(Spoilers):

I don’t think that any of us are surprised that this wasn’t the actual end of Yhwach, despite the name of the episode. If you did think it was the end, then congrats on watching your first anime ever; you picked a good one. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that Orihime is back and okay, but that makes her sacrifice meaningless. If we had been led to believe she was dead for a little longer, at least that would have felt a bit more emotional. This arc of the series feels fairly different from your typical shonen anime.

Uryu beat Haschwalth, which I think we all expected, but the way that it happened was unique. It wasn’t because of Uryu having an ace up his sleeve or anything like that that got him the victory. Instead, it was because Yhwach recently got rocked a little bit, so he had to absorb some power, and he decided to take Haschwalth’s. I would personally be a bit pissed off if my leader decided to take my power and essentially kill me so that he could live on, but that’s one of the differences between us, I suppose.

Reviewing this episode is hard because I don’t think anyone thought that Yhwach was actually defeated, but the way he came back felt like a spit in the face of everything Orihime tried to do. It doesn’t help that Yhwach, to me, is a bit of an enigma. In this particular case, what did he do? He seemingly saw the future and changed it so that it didn’t happen at all. Not only that, but every time Ichigo attacked him, it seemed like Yhwach had the upper hand. It seems like Yhwach has no goals; he just wants to see the world end, and as far as motivations go, that’s a bit meh for me.

I’m still on board with this show, but I was excited to find out how Yhwach was going to come back, and it was about as lackluster as you can get. It feels like his abilities involve one asspull after another. Which is concerning because how do you beat someone like that? It feels like whatever Ichigo figures out to beat him will be similarly hard to believe.