Hole of Reproach: Apocalypse now ? Eh, I can't be arsed.

It is clear now that Kubo must have some sort of bet going with his editors on how much longer he can tease his readers with the Shinigami, only for them to stay rooted in the exact same spot.

From the moment you read the first page

I am utterly thrilled

You see the tone set for the rest of the chapter. And of course, such heart pounding action can't be contained in a single page, so we spend two more pages establishing that yes, Aizen is tired. Because what else can we expect from Kubo after a week long break for Golden Week, then Aizen acting like a guy who spent five hours partying the night before and can now barely move.

The next three pages are then spent on Aizen blabbering stuff half asleep, until we finally get an update on where Ichigo and company are.

You know, not a doctor or anything but I don't think snapping people's necks round is the most effective way of getting someone on their feet. And yes that ass is nice, thank you Kubo.

Right after a completely necessary shot of Yoruichi's ass and her apparently trying to wake up Ichigo by trying to break his spine. I don't really know what the point is but apparently it's part of this chapter's theme, that being Kubo Fails at Comedy.

We spend, scratch that, waste the next four pages on explaining that Ichigo and company got on this floating island via falling down, which yeah, we totally needed to establish that because otherwise I would be very confused how they got to the floating island right below the Royal Palace from which they fell down a few chapters ago. And the whole reason we do this is just to setup a non funny gag about Kon knocking Ichigo out and him being pissed off about it.

I AM TOTALLY VITAL TO THE STORY GUYS, LOOK AT MY AMAZING COMIC RELIEF

Really. That's it. A quarter of the chapter is devoted to a joke that would get laughed off a terrible Three Stooges homage on the internet.

But wait the chapter ends with Grimmjow showing up, only like two years after Kubo set up him showing up. I bet he's gonna get pissed at Chad and Orihime getting to have panel time while they left him to sit on his ass in Hueco Mundo for two years.

And the amount of people intent on going to confront Bach has gone up to precisely FUCKTON

Overall the chapter feels kind of desperate, like Kubo is trying to fool the audience with Kon and Grimmjow showing up in the same chapter, to disguise the fact the Shinigami are still stuck in: Not doing a shit mode and Ichigo and company have been ignored for several chapters only to not do anything of substance this time despite technically featuring in most of the chapter.

Tune in next week when Ichigo and company will have to sneak into the Palace by winning a pie fight and the shinigami pick out new wallpaper for the lab.

Hole of Reproach: The Shinigami and the quest for the mystical door that is right in front of them

There are a few definite truths in this world. Politicians will lie. Chris Bores will misunderstand how the internet works and Kubo will write himself into a corner.

The man has taken the art of writing himself into the corner and has surpassed all his peers. He gave Aizen not one, but two insanely broken and hax abilities with no limitations. Then he gave insane hax abilities to Quincy Brain in a Jar kid. In both instances Kubo solved the problem like he does best, by ignoring it and making the users sabotage themselves out of nowhere. See Aizen's out of nowhere defeat, not at all caused by Ichigo's final desperation move but because Aizen "always wanted to be weak". Or by having brain jar kid imagine his non physical body be as strong as Kenpachi and then forgetting to make the body actually be able to handle it. And that is somehow enough to take him out for good despite it not really being his body.

The current situation perfectly symbolizes that not only is Kubo still doing his patented "fresh" technique of thinking things up on the fly, he's still just as bad at it. Take for example the Shinigami. The Soul King just got killed and they've been trying to get to the Soul Palace to stop Bach from destroying all of Soul Society since chapter 612.

"I will now sing my cover of the entire Beatless discography"

And yet in chapter 623 the Shinigami have yet to move from the spot. And not because Kubo forgot about them, oh no, he has been almost exclusively showing them in recent weeks, as Ichigo and co. got blown off the Palace and he needs to prolong the "tension" before they get back. But in all that time, the Shinigami have just stood around talking about going up. And more and more people kept gathering to go up. By now there should be someone selling fastfood on the sides and the Shinigami should charge admission. "Revenge quest to the Soul King Dimension for purposes of revenge ? That will be 5000 kan please."

It's sad how useless these guys are. Either they stand around and watch Ukitake's hand demon thing go to the Soul Palace, and then they watch eyeball monsters coming from the palace. There was literally no reason for them not to use the already opened door, but I guess we needed to have impotant scenes like them stading around doing nothing, which don't even convey the amount of people in the room properly. If the guys below actually decide to tag along to the Palace too, then I have no idea what they are going to do. Maybe they will fight Bach's moustache or something.

Oh if only we had gone with that "Do something" plan instead of the "Look really intently at the sky" strategy, you might not be hurt.

You know you'd think that maybe these two new characters from the beginning of the arc would possibly be among the seventy six people lining up to take a trip up into magic "Ruling People is Hard do it for me" land. Well, you might say that my expectations are too high but well, there's just some reason why I thought they would be important. I don't exactly know why that was, I knew before but now I can't seem to remember....

If only I could put my finger on it.

But the best thing is that the they've waited so long the door itself got tired of waiting and closed itself. And what caused them this final delay ? Why none other then the triumphant return of  the mighty Nanana Najakubububuup and his traveling minstrel show. Now Kubo must have remembered he set up his targeting Renji so, good, I'd like to find out what his powers are and plus, I'm ready for a break from the mono...

NEVER MIND

Well, now Quincy Renji backstabs Nanananana because he apparently still wanted to protect "High Majesty" from harm despite well, Bach non ambiguously attempting to cannibalise them to give strength to the four men in his army he actually kinda maybe gives two shits about. But Nanana wanting to protect Bach anyway is fully in line with his character, I mean he did after all.....look at Renji while he was asleep. Yeah I got nothin'.

And so three more join the journey to the Promised Soul King Land. At this point it seems more like a state of mind then an actual location. I can't wait what more diversions and intrusive plot twists Kubo will throw at us to justify why the Shinigami can't leave just yet because he has no idea what to do with so many people once inside the palace. Maybe Pepe will come back from the dead and force everyone to make out with each other which will lead to bursts of random infighting. Or maybe Brain Jar Kid will show up and poof up ice cream. Who knows, Kubo's imagination is so so limited !

We shall sign off in the classic Bleach way:

DUN DUN DUUUUN

See you the week after Golden Week.