The bleach anime at the moment has nothing short of dire. Oh where, oh where have the those gripping storylines disappeared to? Those ones that used to keep you begging for more, those once where you couldnt get enough of seeing Ichigo rip a hollow in two with his Bankai?

Well, this is the 200th episode of the Bleach saga, and for those that need to catch up — you’ve not missed much. Since the collosal fight between Ichigo and Grimmjow in episode 1xx (need reference!) and the commencement of the filler which featured the lovable Captain Amagai amidst a fairly weak storyline, especially for Bleach filler, known commonly as The New Captain Syūsuke Amagai arc. If you really want to know more about it see here.

Well, returning to the current episode there’s not much new thats exposed to here. I think everyone is waiting to find out more about the Espada, particularly the higher ranked Espada for which (at the present) have only been revealed up to No. 4 which is Ulquiorra [Schiffer].  Instead, we are greated by the closing section of possibly the longest, most boring and tiresome fight in the history of Bleach - Szayel Aporro [Granz] vs others. It seems that Szayel has fought the most people over the most episodes to date with the inital fight being against Uryū Ishida and Renji Abarai which last for a at least two episodes and then continued against the insanely annoying Pesche [Guatiche] and Dondochakka [Bilstin], whos obvious inclusion for light comic relieft is infuriatingly annoying as they seem to serve no purpose other than to delay the progression of the storyline. After that fight, which holds a few surprises, moves onto the arrival of the Captains of the Gotei 13 and in particular Mayuri Kurotsuchi who now battles Szayel.

The closing sequence to this battle is quite sinister and slightly chilling but quite enjoyable.  I’m unsure if the enjoyment is the fact that the fight has finally reached a conclusion or the fact that Mayuri is so utterly weird.

One thing that has to be said is that while the anime appears to be faltering in delivering the goods, for those that follow the manga each week along side the anime, there is some relief there in terms of getting a decent Bleach ‘hit’ like the Bleach addicts you are.

All we can do is hope that the conclusion to the fight between and Nnoitra Jiruga and Kenpachi Zaraki is either swift in its delivery or extremely entertaining as it seems to be building up to be a fantastic episode.

As the Zen Master said, we’ll see.