Noblesse Oblige.

So basically the new Bleach filler arc is about the Shinigami's Zanpakutos. This new villain named Muramusa appears and decides that the Zanpakutos should rule over the Shinigami. He sets everyone free from their owners, and the Zanpakutos appear in Soul Society in personified forms. For now, we don't know his motive; which could be defeating all the Shinigami, or turning them into swords, or taking over their bodies (like in Ichigo's case). Anyways, Muramusa is pretty cool minus the super emo-ness. He has makeup, super long nails, and sheds tears as a form of attack.

Regarding the plot of this arc, I know Ichigo will have to jump in to save the day because he is the main character, but what we don't know is if Zangetsu will defect or not. At the beginning of the episode, he was relieved that Ichigo can still hear his voice (unlike Hitsugaya when he tried to speak to Hyourinmaru), but he mentioned that the voice was not his. So this remains to be seen. Also, people have speculated that Muramusa is Kenpachi's Zanpakuto because it fits its personality and can explain motive for revenge. I don't think they can make up something as important as this until the animators are collaborating with Kubo. Furthermore, in Japanese literature and anime, Muramusa tends to be a demon sword or a sword maker (which can explain his power over the Zanpakutos), so I think Muramusa is not under possession by someone from Soul Society. The plot can either become super cool or super predictable. It also runs into the risk of revealing something major (captain's Bankai or Kenpachi's Zanpakuto name) that has not yet happened in the manga. To make a better judgment we'll need to wait and see =]

With that aside, the fact that they managed to do all this with a filler is simply amazing. Usually, with fillers you expect shitty new characters with horrible design that appears out of nowhere or have existing characters do stuff they would never do (like baking cakes...). However, this new filler arc manages to debunk the negative connotations of fillers with awesome character design and relevant plot.

Speaking of character design, that is my favorite aspect of this arc. All the personified forms of Zanpakutos are really cool. For those of you who are interested or confused, here's what we have so far:

Kyoraku's Katen Kyokotsu

Unohana's Minazuki

Ukitake's Sogyo no Kotowari

Komamura's Tenken

Byakuya's Senbonzakura

Hitsugaya's Hyourinmaru

Mayuri's Ashisogi Jizo

Matsumoto's Haineko

Soifon's Suzumebachi, Hinamori's Tobiume, Sasakibe's (1st squad vice captain), Yumechika's, Kira's Wabisuke, and Rukia's Sode no Shirayuki (L to R)

Renji's Zabimaru - 2 people, Ikakku' Hozukimaru, Omaeda's, and Hisagi's Kazeshini (R to L)

So after this chapter, everyone is now at the summit. Sasuke and his group snuck in and are spying on the meeting. Naruto and his sempais are somewhere near them after Naruto failed at pleading the Raikage to give mercy to Sasuke. Sai sent some message to Danzo that might be important (or else why did they include that) and he also needs to speak to Sakura. It seems they are finally having Sai do more stuff now, because he hasn't done anything important since he was a spy for Root on Naruto.

As for Naruto's new ideal on stopping the vengeance's perpetual spiral into despair, ... I'm not a big fan of it. It calls for lots of noob-Naruto preaching and lack of fighting D: I say send all you got at Sasuke, and have him burn everything to dust with Amaretsu! Muhaha =D.

So it ended being Tousen who intercepts Shinji's attack. Oh, and did I mention everyone except Mashiro's mask broke because time ran out? Ya, it seems everyone can only hold it for 3 minutes, while Mashiro can do it for couple hours. Now if we remember back to Ichigo vs Grimmjow fight. Ichigo must have had held his mask for at least 5 minutes, and he kept re-creating it. So I don't know ... the Visoreds had their masks for a century and can hold it for 3 minutes, yet Ichigo had it for like half a year and suddenly can hold it for longer just because he has the main character hack.
Anywho, everyone jumps to battle and greet their opponents.

The match ups are:
Tousen vs Komamura and Hisagi
Halibel vs Hiyori and Lisa (Espada chick vs Visored chicks)
Stark vs Love and Rose
Barragan vs Hachi

Of course Aizen is just chilling again. Wonderweiss is absent-minded all of a sudden. I also think Hitsugaya might face off Ichimaru.
Soifon, Kyoraku, and Yamamoto are still up for combat for Soul Society.
Kensei and Shinji are the Visoreds that can still fight.
We can't neglect the chance that Urahara, Yoruichi, and Tessai will show up to help, since this seem to be one big family reunion.

It appears 4 Arrancars and 3 ex-Captains (assuming Aizen might do something) will be facing off with 8 Visoreds, 5 Captains (assuming Ukitake is down), and several Vice-Captains. No matter how you look at it this is not a even fight. I forsee Aizen's side getting a shounen boost or more reinforcements in the near future.

Yayyyy Bleach and Naruto are out early this week!
The Bleach chapter this week is so visually stunning =D
Look at this sick picture of the Visoreds drawing their swords.


Hiyori kicks it off by cutting a Menos and then blowing it to bits with her Cero. Although all of Kensei's attacks are physical, it seems he always manages to conjure an explosion at the point of impact. Maybe this is his ability, anyways he's cool with his short sword. Mashiro has not revealed a sword yet, so she just Mashiro-kick down all the Menos. Hachi's assualt was by far the coolest: he summoned dimension box around the Menos heads ... and the rips them off. Lisa slices the Menos to shreds. Rose has some sort of telekinetic power that levitates his sword and sheath as well as squish the Menos. Love rips a Menos cleanly in half with his barehands. All that's left is Shinji, he shunpos to Aizen and deals a deadly strike! This is the first time in a long time (since Soul Society arc) that someone has taken an attempt at Aizen's life. I'm excited to see what will happen! Hopefully, they won't have Gin or Kaname intervene, because I really want to see Aizen do something other than sitting or walking.

With the shear awesomeness of this chapter aside, there were some unnecessary elements in this chapter. First, even though they drew their swords, only half of them actually used it. The others just drew their swords to look badass, but then kills the Menos with their bare hands. Also, Shinji put on his mask, but when he confronted Aizen he took it off. I guess the main point of this chapter is to showcase their basic skills and styles and what they look like, which I have no problem with because it was sugoi! =]

Ok, so not only does Danzo still have his right eye, it seems he also has his right arm, which he used to form hand seals. He viciously defeated the assassins, which are revealed to be from the Hanya clan. I disliked how they just made up a random new clan in order to show Danzo's abilities.

Naruto, Kakashi, and Yamamoto are tracking and following Samui's squad to the meeting of the 5 Kages. Root no longer trusts Sai, because he now has emotions and bonds.

It appears that the female Mizukage is a new one, who replaced the nightmarish 4th Mizukage who made their village be called Bloodmist village. This explains how Chojiro is working for them.

The meeting place for the Kages is at a neutral country called the Land of Iron. Instead of ninjas, they employ samurais. Sasuke's group has arrived and this is the obstacle they face. I don't know if I like this whole samurai development because judging from their appearance, they seem to be physical brutes with armor and swords. In short, they are not very interesting, and are probably meant to be killed by cooler, more important people (Sasuke).

Finally, Gaara is the first to arrive!

Not much happened in this week's chapter. We already knew that the Visoreds were here to get revenge on Aizen, and of course they aren't stupid enough to attack the captains. The colossus puked out a bunch of Menos Gillian and the Visoreds decide to show what they're made of by hollowizing. This was the most interesting part of this chapter because we got to see Lisa's, Love's, Hachi's, and Rose's mask =D. Hachi looks pretty creepy and Rose's beak is weird. But Lisa's mask looks potentially awesome.

I personally liked the interaction between the current captains and the Visored former captains, because the older captains like Yamamoto and Kyoraku recognize them, but newbies like Hitsugaya and Soifon were like wtf? haha.

Ok, Naruto got the crap beaten out of him, I think he looks worse from this chick than from Pain. When I saw this picture, I definitely thought he was in sage mode, but its just a black eye. Another thing that I noticed was how they made Naruto look like Danzo, with bandages covering the right side of his face.
Furthermore, the fad these days seems to be Sharingans. Apparently everyone can get them... I don't know if I like this development or not =/

Wow this chapter just reveal a bunch of new characters, and a scenic view of new villages. But now we know the meeting guest list sort of looks like this:

Tsuchikage - Kurozuchi, Akazuchi
Mizukage - Chojiro, Ao
Raikage - Shii, Darui
Kazekage Gaara - Temari, Kankuro
Hokage Danzo - Sai??

Of course, we can also expect Hawk and Samui's team to crash the party too.

As of now, I don't see anything interesting with the Tsuchikage and his company. We know that he used to be a legend and was a fearsome leader. However, old age has finally caught up with him. He suffers from bad hips and is a midget. Kurozuchi is the chick and Akazuchi is the big dude.

Mizukage is revealed to be a beautiful woman, and she is bringing along Chojiro and Ao. Chojiro greatly interests me because he is another Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist (finally). This will surely cheer Suigetsu up, because Chojiro holds one of the 7 swords. Actually his sword seems to be 2 wide swords, connected at the end. One thing that confuses me is that so far all the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist have been Missing-nins yet Chojiro is loyal to Kirigakure.

Raikage is explosive as always, he jumped out of his window haha. He's bringing along Shii and Darui.

We saw last week that Gaara is coming with Temari and Kankuro. Gaara looks cool as hell. Kankuro's got new make-up again, which probably also means he has some new puppets.

As for Danzo, I have to admit he looks pretty cool with the Hokage hat. It also appears that he is trying to get back his right eye and arm, by using with Orochimaru's experiments. Only Kabuto knows where the data is, so he is trying to track down Kabuto before Anko does.

Bleach latest: Episode 226
I love it when Bleach decides to use up its animation budget for important fights, because the result is so fluid and awesome. Recent awesomeness: Grimmjow released fight vs Visored Ichigo and Hisagi vs Vegga.
This week's Bleach 226 amazed me because it had some great animation. I wasn't expecting this because the anime is going into fillers next week to let the manga get some distance. However, Yamamoto's and Hitsugaya's fight was well done and Ichigo vs Ulquiorra was perfect! From what they did this episode, I have very high expectations for the Ichigo vs Ulquiorra fight - hopefully the animators won't disappoint.

Naruto latest: Shippuuden 116
Shippuuden managed to piss me off with its full season of fillers (during its fillers I managed to begin and finish Eden of the East and K-On!). I had almost stopped checking it, but finally in the past few weeks the anime has gone back to canon material. Since its Sasuke's turn to shine, I have begun keeping up with it again. Suigetsu ftw =D

Clannad After Story Completed
Thoughts: Please go watch this now if you're into slice-of-life and love and that kind of stuff. At times it was so moving that I teared up T_T. Also I would suggest watching the first season for the full experience. You can develop an attachment to the characters, and the when you witness the events they are put through you can't help but be moved.

Nodame Cantabile Completed
As a musician myself, this series was a great watch. The music selection was great and there was a lot of comedy. Chiaki's character was great, probably my favorite. After a while you notice that the character never tend to fail at anything. I guess this anime is meant for you to feel inspired and happy haha.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Completed
This show was awesome as well. It's got great animation and fight scenes, but the best part about this anime is how there seems to be no bounds to what the characters can achieve. The shounen-ness of powerups after powerups gets more and more preposterous, but makes the show a lot more exciting.

Ok wow, so last week I speculated that the role of Wonderweiss and the colossus is either to feed the idle fighters or turn the tide of the battle. After this latest chapter, I can definitely say it's the latter.

In a split second, Wonderweiss managed to pierce Ukitake with his hand. Amidst the confusion, Stark also blasted Kyoraku point blank while he was trying to save Ukitake. Wonderweiss proceeded to shatter Hitsugaya's ice pillar on Halibel and the smoke from Barragan with soundwaves. As for the colossus, Komamura recognizes it as the enormous eye eclipsing the Menos as Aizen first ascended to Heuco Mundo. The colossus blew away the fire prison, freeing Aizen and the others. Now the wounded captains have to deal with not only the top three Espadas, but also Aizen's and Wonderweiss's company as well. When all seemed hopeless, Kira got a bit emo here, the Visoreds arrive to save the day!

The one thing I got from this chapter is that Wonderweiss is ridiculously strong. We already know he was Espada class because Soul Society classified him as such during the Grimmjow invasion. In addition, he could fight on par with Urahara's shikai. We should keep in mind that Ukitake is one of the oldest and probably stronger captains (ignoring his health condition) and he had released his shikai. Despite this, Wonderweiss managed to down him barehanded. Furthermore, his yell negated one of Hitsugaya's strongest techniques. Wonderweiss also appeared alongside the colossus, which suggest he might have some kind of control over it. Stark even said that if [Wonderweiss] is here, it means Aizen has gotten tired of waiting. I cannot help but think that Wonderweiss might be a Vasto Lorde. After all, he was one of the last Arrancars that Aizen created, so Aizen probably got the technique down. Also, he maintained a human form, which means he very strong.

Aside from the kid, I'm so happy the Visoreds are here!! Shinjishinjishinji =D