Well in case you didn’t know or maybe couldn’t tell we are still very much in the filler. For the uninitiated that simply means the current storyline/arc is not manga canon and by that I simply mean, it doesn’t follow the manga and the manga pretty much dictates the direction of approximately 90% (that’s just a guesstimate) of the anime out there.

What normally happens with filler is that they brew up some strange storyline based on a set of villains that will obviously be defeated in a way that ultimately upon returning to canon, can in no way corrupt the direction the manga intends to take things. So don’t expect to learn anything new about any of the characters or for any seemingly new abilities they pick up to be carried through. Nor should you expect to have anything particularly revelatory revealed to about anyone, least of all any of the central characters.

Title/Splash Screen for #234

What you can expect is for pre-existing concepts known to the reader to be extrapolated into fully fledged filler content. That’s a bit like what we have on this occasion and during this arc which is being referred to (by Wikipedia at least) as the ‘Zanpakutō Unknown Tales’. In this arc we are seeing the Zanpakuto rebel against their Shinigami masters. Now we already knew that Zanpakuto have a human form and the Shinigami have to face their Zanpakuto and master them to obtain their Bankai. So not much new there. What we didn’t know is what all these Zanpakuto looked like, particularly for the other Shinigami. Of course we knew Ichigo’s Zanpakuto is Zangetsu (斬月?, literally “cutting moon”) as we watched him gain his Bankai, but we have not had the pleasure of seeing anyone else’s Bankai. Can you see the extrapolation taking place?

Now the concept is still one that can be considered interesting, particularly in the case of some of the more advanced Captains of the Gotei-13 such as Byakuya Kuchiki, Yamamoto-Genryūsai, Shunsui Kyōraku and Kenpachi Zaraki, to name but a few. Most notably, Kenpachi Zaraki – who of course we know is the only Captain without a Bankai as he doesn’t know the name of his Zanpakuto. At the same time, this is where we will be disappointed because we quickly hear that Kenpachi is not around and Yamamoto has been captured because his Zanpakuto would not cooperate, so immediately we see again that nothing new will be revealed in this filler either. With that being said, I would love to be proved wrong.Zabimaru

Zabimaru

This episode picks up after the quite impressive battle between Ichigo, Zangetsu and Muramasa where we see Ichigo seemingly fully release his hollow form. It was something totally different to the Vizard/Visoreds half-masks, instead he was completely hollow and displayed some amazing power. We also see that the Gotei 13 are still recovering from the attack and the Zanpakuto are no where to be found nor is the missing Bayakuya or Yamamoto.

Quite simply, the whole episode really amounts to nothing. The whole 20+ minutes are spent revisiting what happened in the previous episode along with snippets of the start of three seperate encounters, setting the scene for future battles between Renji and his Zanpakuto and Shūhei and his Zanpakuto, Kazeshini. There is plenty of posturing, even some down right time wasting as we see Renji’s Zanpakuto, Zabimaru arguing with itself effectively for a good few seconds on screen. It seems when even filler has filler in it something is seriuosly wrong with anime. It really comes across as a poor attempt to just make up the minutes required for a full episode.

Hollow Ichigo

There really is not much to take away from this episode at all. We also see Muramasa attempt to draw out Ichigo’s hollow doppleganger in an effort to free him from Ichigo as he did with Zangetsu. It is at this point that the episode effectively ends. What we do know is that it seems Ichigo’s hollow self has the ability and strength to oppose Muramasa but we won’t know the full extent of this till subsequent episodes, but there is enough at the end to allude to this fact.

At the end, you can only groan in despair at how painfully disappointing the episode was to watch. I know it’s filler but does it really have to be this bad? Lets hope next week is much better as we are due to see  Shūhei face off against his Zanpakuto, Kazeshini, which I can again only presume will be the first/third (if you include Rukia and Ichigo’s fight) in a long line of Shinigami vs Zanpakuto fights which may no make up the sum total of the arc. Again, I do hope I am very wrong.

Let me know what you thought of the episode. Did you think it was as bad I thought it was. Let us know below.