Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War – 15 – Futile Thermos

While Yhwach and Ishida watch from the throne room, the Stern Ritters return to Soul Society to carry out his majesty’s simple directive: eliminate the enemy instantly. Of course, this is a shounen anime, so nothing ever happens “instantly”.

Assuming the Ritters are ranked from A to Z, Haschwalth is up there at rank “B”, so he pays a visit to Squad 1’s Kyouraku and Ise. Rank “D” Askin Nakk Le Vaar infiltrates R&D, Rank “H” Bazz-B takes on Hitsugaya and Matsumoto, and Rank “K” BG9 goes after Omaeda. That’s right; it’s four battles for the price of one.

Squad 10 vs. Bazz-B is fun because it’s an ice-vs.-fire battle. The difference between Hitsugaya’s bankai and shikai is the smallest of all the captains, but with help from Matsumoto (who is elated to be finally able to support her tiny captain) they’re able to encase him in a wall of ice and ash.

Squad 1’s battle is one of words against the top Stern Ritter. Kyouraku is his usual laconic self, while Ise Nanao uses a new anti-Quincy kido she’s developed. The catch is that it’s only a “temporary” barrier. When it drops—and I’m sure it will—they’ll have to face Haschwalth head-on.

When cutting up Lt. Omaeda doesn’t get him to reveal Soi Fon’s location, BG9 turns his blades onto Omaeda’s adorable little sister Mareyo. He shields her with his body, and BG9 whips out a damn minigun. But he doesn’t get to fire it long, as Soi Fon arrives in all her stealthy assassin glory.

While Hitsugaya may be the ice boy, the fact of the matter is Soi Fon is, in my opinion, the coolest captain. Her sleek outfit, imperious smirk, husky voice, and newly improved wind shunko are all points in her favor. Not to mention she’s not so cold-hearted she’d let lil’ Mareyo come to harm.

Finally, there’s Askin, who is laid back like Kyouraku. Kurotsuchi Mayoi and Nemu arrive from seemingly another plane of reality, having adopted and modifed the same technique the Quincy used to infiltrate Soul Society. This also gives them trippy disco outfits. When trying to provoke him doesn’t work, Askin simply gives up trying to fight him and walks away.

The song of ice and fire turns one-sided when Bazz-B takes his game up a notch and uses a single finger to fire a beam of flame that pierces Hitsugaya’s tightly-woved ice wall and goes into his midsection.

Like Bazz-B, BG9 doesn’t stay down long, and like Hitsugaya and Matsumoto, Soi Fon celebrated too quickly. BG9 reveals he’s not alive, but some kind of robot armed to the teeth. He launches an itano circus of missiles, and while Soi Fon evades them all, BG9 still gets a blade in her wrist. BG9’s second volley doesn’t miss.

Kyouraku and Ise watch helplessly as their captains fall one after the other, while Hachwalth says maybe it would have been a better idea to make sure all the captains had this anti-Quincy barrier. Kurotsuchi also feels Soi Fon and Kyouraku’s spiritual pressures disappear, but I won’t believe they’re dead like Yamamoto quite yet.

The Stern Ritter claw and tear away at the soul reapers’ remaining hope this week. But as Urahara reports to Kurotsuchi that he’s found a way to get the bankai back, it’s clear that hope is far from dead. The Vizard have yet to take the stage, while Ichigo is still gearing up for his big return…but first he’ll have to pass his latest test, involving something called irazusando.

P.S. Bleach has had a lot of OPs throughout its run, but I’d definitely rank this one in the Top 5. Like the very first one, it puts our heroes in stylish clothes and has them just hanging out, but also gives us wonderful little scenes like two Quincies fighting over karaoke and Rukia shooting a fire extinguisher at another.

Horimiya: Piece – 03 – Rooting for You

Unfortunately for Sengoku, there isn’t a cloud in the sky on Sports Day. Fortunately for Izumi, it’s cool enough that wearing long sleeves isn’t uncomfortable. But he’s still weary: it’s the last sports day of his high school career, and the previous ones were shit because he wasn’t great at sports and didn’t talk to anyone.

Of course, that’s before he met Kyouko and the others, and the fact that he’s rooting for her and she’s rooting for him—even though they’re on different teams and want to beat each other—he’s not only engaged, but actually having fun. Then Remi makes sure to capitalize on how easily flustered Kyouko gets to beat her in hurdles!

After a brief Honoka sighting, we have Izumi joining Remi and Sakura in cheering for Ishikawa. Kyouko disappoints all the boys by showing up in a boy’s cheer suit, but all the girls love her.

Meanwhile Remi’s cheer squad wins the support of most of the boys. While this is all a little gender-binary, I appreciate the fact that neither method is deemed better than the other. I’m sure Remi and Sakura would have looked just as cute in black suits!

As the day wears on, Izumi continues to marvel at how much fun he’s having on sports day, all thanks to Kyouko and his friends. When a teacher picks him to fill in for an absent student in the scavenger hunt, fate pits him against Kyouko, as she has to find the student council president, and he has to find a skinny guy. The end up compromising by dragging Sengoku across the finish line at the same time for a draw.

Finally we have the mock cavalry battle. Sengoku resents being a rider due to his low weight, but once he’s on top of the world he’s loving every minute of it. He’s pitted against fellow rider Izumi, supported by Ishikawa. The two are pretty evenly matched, until Izumi pulls what Remi pulled to beat Kyouko in the hurdles: he tricks him.

By telling him to basically “look over there” at the girl on his shoulder, Sengoku looks away, allowing Izumi to easily snatch his headband and win the battle. And even though it means Kyouko’s team loses, she can’t conceal how proud of and happy for Izumi she is.

Izumi’s only regret on the day is that he never saw Kyouko in a cheerleading skirt, but he actually gets that when he spots her in the hall, having changed for the class picture. Izumi tells her she looked great in the boy’s suit, but she also looks cute here.

The compliment is too much for Kyouko, who calls him a dummy, then smiles and runs off. The bottom line is, Kyouko is versatile: she can be a tough customer, a blushing cutie, and everything in between. It’s definitely the best sports day ever for Izumi.

Rent-a-Girlfriend – 26 – One More Mug

Ruka’s arrival at Kazuya’s door after dark instantly makes things 100% messier, especialy from his other neighbor Yaemori Mini’s perspective. And considering she is still officially kinda Kazuya’s girlfriend, she demands an explanation for why Chizuru is with him, and why his apartment looked like they were having a grand old time.

This is where Chizuru and Kazuya are of one mind: they need to tell Ruka the truth about their project and even let her in on it. Once she calms down from her initial tears, Ruka proposes that she help out with the production. They’ll get help they’re in dire need of, and she’ll get more time with Kazuya. Her last dig at Chizuru is to get Kazuya to say her curry was better.

When Chizuru wordlessly agrees that’s what’s best and quietly leaves, he admires how mature she’s being. But outside, it’s clear she didn’t like hearing Kazuya say Ruka’s curry was better than her omurice.

The next day, now armed with actual photos of his star (what a concept!), Kazuya gets approval from the crowdfunding site, and they’re off to the races. Meanwhile, Chizuru visits her Granny Sayuri, whose initial reaction to hearing her granddaughter is making a movie about her is laughter…but not to mock.

Rather, Sayuri is happy Chizuru cares so much that she’s willing to make sure her gran gets to see her in a movie. And when Chizuru asks what she initially thought about Kazuya, Sayuri says she was initially worried whether he was a decent guy. But now she’s convinced: no one’s a better match for Chizuru than Kazuya.

This is a serious endorsement from someone Chizuru loves and cares for more than anyone, and she tries to keep her cards close to her vest when she and Kazuya bump into each other and he gives a report on the funding so far. She’s quite right that they can’t be too optimistic too fast, especially with no script yet. But she still flashes him a smile and tells him he really is a good guy before going inside.

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And for all his foibles and maddening choices, Kazuya really is the decent guy Granny Sayuri assesses him to be. Like Chizuru, I trust her judgment implicitly. He just needs to get his fuckin’ shit together. Ruka, as good a kid as she is, and as legit helpful she is with finding a source for scripts, shouldn’t be his girlfriend right now. And yet, she remains so, and now that she’s in on the movie project, she’ll remain so for the time being.

That’s when Kazuya is pulled into Mini’s apartment, in what he initially thinks is some kind of passionate liaison. Instead, Mini shows him video she took of him arguing with Ruka and Chizuru the other night. He tells her everything, and because of the way Mini’s Zoomer Otaku brain is wired, she is absolutely fascinated by his situation, to the point she declares him her shisho.

While her screen time prevents us from seeing Mami or Sumi this week (and let’s be honest, they’re side characters and have been for some time) I’m still loving her frank meta energy as an audience stand-in. While Kazuya is always going on in his head about how much trouble he’s in, the fact is, he’s living a life straight out of an anime that Mini deeply admires and even aspires to.

At the same time, while she has way too many stuffed animals and is way too online, Mini is also an impartial voice of reason in one arena: telling Kazuya that yes, Chizuru most definitely has some feelings for him. Why else would she keep interacting with him, a “problem customer”, for a whole year (or, in our case, two-plus seasons)?

Kazuya is so dense that he never considered for a nanosecond that Chizuru felt anything like this, but Mini gets him to imagine it, and that’s important progress, because the scene she sets of her alone in her apartment thinking about him turns out to be fairly accurate.

She’s clearly enjoying this new opportunity to achieve her dream and spend more time with the boy her grandmother says is the perfect match for her. So much so that she ignores her bedtime alarm for one more cup of tea on the balcony, thinking about how this whole movie thing is going to go.

Reign of the Seven Spellblades – 02 – What Lies Beyond That Moment

The first years’ classes commence, starting with sword arts (the offline kind). I did notice that instead of wands, our wizard analogues are running around with little daggers. Thanks to Pete wanting to show off his knowledge, we learn they’re called athames.

Professor Garland decides the best way for kids to learn is by doing, so he asks for volunteers to have a little friendly duel. Nanao’s hand is the first to go up, followed by Richard Andrews, clearly one of the old money kids who is full of himself.

Oliver takes exception to Andrews dueling Nanao, and makes it known that he helped Nanao bring down the troll while Richard and others stood by and did nothing. Chela does Oliver a solid and volunteers to duel Andrews so Oliver can duel Nanao.

We know two things going into this duel: First, Nanao has fought so many battles she’s covered in scars (and kudos for Oliver’s gaze last week focusing on those scars and not the usual body parts). She killed before, and not just one or two people. Not even one or two dozen.

Second: Oliver is pretty decent with magic, and he’s also secretly a big deal, or his brother wouldn’t be having him tailed. Between his magic and her swordsmanship, the duel ends up being quite a spectacle. The episode does a really cool visual trick of having Oliver see Nanao in full battle regalia as she slashes at him.

When Oliver sees tears in Nanao’s eyes, he suddenly feels awful for even thinking about holding back against her. He decides to commit himself entirely to the battle, as she is. Then Garland stops them, because broke the anti-lethality spell he placed on their blades.

Chela retracts her challenge of Andrews, who is perfectly willing to not have his ass handed to him by an ojou-sama with drill ringlets. Oliver leaves class in a hurry, but Nanao catches up, elated over how exciting and fun their duel was. She just wishes they’d been able to finish.

Nanao wanted to see “what lies beyond that moment” when they were forced to stop, but to her shock, Oliver angrily refuses to ever fight her again. When she asks way, he says he doesn’t owe her a reason, but he doesn’t want to kill her, or be killed by her.

The next day, the gang is together for lunch after spellology (oy) class, whose instructor abhors athames as medieval. Notably, Oliver and Nanao are as physically distant from one another and not facing each other. But classes roll on, like magical biology with the shark-toothed Vanessa Aldiss

Aldiss makes it clear to all the bleeding-heart magical animal lovers in the class that in her class, living things are resources to be exploited to improve their magic. This sucks for Katie. The teacher provides them with live magical silkworms and tells them to create cocoons. If they fail, the cocoons turn black and deadly moths emerge that must be incinerated.

Once again, Chela, who is an ace at this, helps Oliver out by helping Nanao out with her magic, since she can tell there’s something going on that hasn’t been resolved yet. Poor Katie takes extra time to ensure her silkworms don’t suffer, but her final cocoon fails, and the moth bites her.

Oliver and Chela kill the moth for Katie, and their teacher docks points for helping her. Oliver takes Katie to the infirmary to get her wound tended to. While he appreciates that Katie came from a wonderful, caring upbringing that respected creatures great and small, he also gives her a gentle warning that she can’t be an “angel” in a place like Kimberly.

That said, he also makes it clear she’s not alone in her struggle. She has him to lean on, and he then opens the door and all the others spill out into the room. I really appreciate how this show has so quickly endeared me to these characters, all of whom are good kids.

The fact remains, however, that we’re not quite sure what Oliver’s whole deal is. All I know for sure is that when Miss Carste informs him that she’ll be leaving his side temporarily to meet with his brother, it felt like a sign Oliver would end up in trouble with no covert ninja agent to back him up.

That night at dinner, Katie is just mentioning that Nanao seems out of sorts about something when Pete says he needs to go grab a book he left in a classroom. Oliver and Chela decide to go with him and brook no argument: the school, which doubles as a castle, isn’t safe after dark.

Specifically, the giant labyrinth beneath it starts to encroach on the upper levels. I like how subtly and suddenly the once cozy, opulent school halls take on the dark and sinister look of a dungeon. But Chela and Oliver insist that they’ll be okay: faculty and upperclassmen patrol the school at night.

Unfortunately, the trio comes across two of the less savory members of the upperclassmen, starting with fourth-year Ophelie Salvadori. Her body secretes pheromones that can put others in her thrall. Oliver and Chela are magically gifted enough to resist it; Pete can’t.

When they try to make a speedy getaway from Ophelie’s clutches, their path is blocked by a fence of bones summoned by fifth-year Cyrus Rivermore, who is in cahoots with Ophelie. I expected Oliver and Nanao would make up by episode’s end, but we end on a cliffhanger, with Oliver, Chela, and Pete having more pressing issues afoot.