Hole of Reproach Announcement ish sorta thing

Just a quick headsup, the summary of the last three chapters will be going up soon, just a lot of irl work related issues got in my way. Yesterday night was certainly nothing to write home about, leaving an apartment that's a total mess due to no fault of your own to go work in the cellars for two hours to come back at half past midnight is not fun.

Sorry for the inconvenience, especially to all the seemingly random viewers we got from Moldova and Iraq and such, because I'm not doing much to keep that audience at the moment XD

Hole of Reproach: Handpun²

We start 637 off where we left off, with Kenpachi being a comatose vegetable cause of his super efficient strategy of "ima gonna run at it".

Apparently Mayuri seems to have intended that to happen as he blabs on about Zaraki's "noble sacrifice".

Sacrifice, human experimentation, potato potahto

Ikkaku objects but at least he wasn't used as a bomb like Mayuri did with his own soldiers against Ichigo way back when. An act he is yet to receive any kind of comeuppance for.

Then Pernida sheds it's cloak and reveals

OF COURSE ! The only thing capable of challenging the power of Kubo's Mystery Foot is a Mystery Hand.

Mayuri's analysis of the situation seems sound

....except

Oh well you can't expect Kubo to remember something he drew earlier this arc. And of course this means another two "surprising" plot twists relating to the Soul King's feet.

Of course during this whole chapter Mayuri's just standing around talking, as in all his fights, which is sure convenient for Kubo, because he's too tired from having his nails done so much.

I will say that Pernida is hands down the best of the remaining Quincies (?) purely because he's not a totally bland dude dressed in stupid looking clothes with poorly defined powers. And the look on "his" "face" when Mayuri's lost in his own little world is priceless.

638 has Mayuri waste even more time mohzting off, until Pernida has enough and just tries to smash him.

You never shut up and you're dressed like a walking sunflower. YOU DIE NOW

A good point to bring up is how Mayuri, who personally commited Genocide against the Quincies in the past for his own amusement, is not apparently not someone the Sternritter specifically care about. I mean I know Bach can't be arsed not to maim his own subordinates for immensely petty reasons, but you'd think the other Quincies would give a shit. Then again that would require them to have a personality.

Pernida uses it's nerves to make giant stone hands to squish Mayuri but he's unharmed cause he's apparently wearing "exploding armour".

Now I'm no doctor or anything but we've already seen that, despite not being alive, these people are still made of bones and have blood they need to survive. Kenpachi almost died as a result of this and was only saved by Urahara Science. And while Mayuri Science is just as bullshit, he's wearing stuff that explodes on his body. No amount of "I rearranged my organs" can justify how that's not a bad thing.

And he then avoids landing on Pernida's net of nerves by using "Hirenkyaku".

Glad he's kept this to himself, so the other shinigami couldn't use it.

Mayuri decides to "take a sample" so he blows off one of Pernida's fingers, but it becomes self aware and attacks him.....

Of course. Cause we couldn't possibly have Mayuri be hurt in any way shape or form by any attack from any enemy, ever.

I mean there's bullshit lolscience and then there's being so impossibly hax that you get to "man in bat suit can beat superpowered alien with heat vision if he prepares enough" levels. Mayuri's never been in trouble during any of his fights in the past, so there's not much reason to care.

Next week, find out how Mayuri previously implanted his hands with anti hand bacteria which will result in him defeating Pernida without having to move another muscle.

Hey it's no more dumb then Hollow Antibodies.

Hole of Reproach: Now on 3 for 1 Discount

Yes I have George Orwelled the previous announcement somewhat, but I've been trying to ward off the very real danger of melting into my constituent particles over here, gimme a break : P So prepare for a once-in-a-lifetime event of me summing up three Bleach chapters in one post.

I accept all types of credit cards.

CHAPTER 634 The One Where Bazz is really really beat this time, Honest.

So Bazboy gets his ass kicked further which forces him to have yet another flashback (insert flashback counter gag) 

We found out that when he did get his sorry ass to join the Sternritter, Hasch was already a captain there. So Bazz tried to provoke him to a fight, with Hasch's retort being

Cause that totally explains why Pepe and Giselle used their powers randomly on the other Sternritter to attack and kill them.

Cause Sternritter never fight each other.

Sounds legit to me.

Also learning that is apparently the only reason for extending the Flashback which no one asked for as Quincie Renji gets his arm ripped off and is beaten effortlessly by Haschwalt.

And here I thought that the guy who'se fingers are on fire can have a shot against the right hand man of God. Who would of guessed ?

Chapter 635 The Oh Crap I Have Too many Characters Chapter

Right off the bat, the effect of Kubo's "I-wrote-myself-into-a-corner-itis" are  on display

I like how the entire female Quincie squad managed to either get beat, mindraped or controlled and then when they get back to the plot, they get treated worse then Bazz B and get offscreened by Bach.

Grimmjow then ups the stupid by running up after Askin and randomly touching a projectile he throws at him instead of just moving either way.

I swear if Askin starts doing "Your Momma" jokes.....

I'm not exactly Grimmjow's biggest fan here but I wonder if people who waited those two years after his Mystery Foot sighting would consider this worth the wait.

And if you thought that was it, then prepare for the exciting action of Hisagi getting shot.

Getting mindcontrolled by Pepe to try and kill Byakuya, getting snipped off a roof, Hisagi is just growing so much as a character.

 Joke's on Gun dude though, cause this is the part where he travells back in time, dyes his hair orange and takes revenge on the dude by eating his hat.

Also I love how these guys still get treated better then Hisagi.

Seriously, who are you ?

We switch over to Mayuri and Kenpachi meeting a new enemy who'se powers are unknown to them. And you'll never guess what Kenpachi decides to do.

And what ends up happening ?

Tune in next time for more of General Kenpachi's briliant tactics.

Which is actually right now but you know what I mean:

Chapter 636: The Kenpachi is Really Dumb Hour

So Kenpachi was never exactly a mental giant. However after last week the situation gets worse, so much so that the inflatable head thing starts to yank at Kenpachi's broken arm so much he has to rip it off. 

If only Orihime was around, they could arbitrarily reject her healing his arm right away and not have to wait until after the fighting like with Yamamoto.

Mayuri proceeds to explain he doesn't have any idea what the thing's powers are (while hammering in that stupid "Are you asking me or talking to yourself" shtick) and then General Patton over here decides

And again I ask, how does that go ?

It's almost like he's a terribly written character or something.

Mayuri having to bail the idiot out of course. You know, Unohana would be rolling in her grave if she got one, since Kenpachi, after she died to awaken his Shikai, only managed to beat one guy because he imagined his imaginary body to be stronger then what it could take (no matter how much time passes that doesn't get any less stupid), then he got beat up by the FemQuincie Squad who otherwise got totally trashed and offpanelled, and then proceeded to lose an arm to avoid getting killed before deciding he's gonna try and get himself killed again not twenty seconds later.

And there you have it folks, the last three weeks of Bleach. I probably would have had to do this earlier anyway, as 634 has practically nothing worth talking about.

Next week, Nanao falls over a discarded bag of chips and Okikiba accidentally chokes on a pickle.

Hole of Reproach Update

Sorry we hit a bit of slump, I intend to focus on last week's chapter on Tuesday and then work on the one for this week after that, it may come out close to the other one but I don't want to combine anything.

Of course watch me not do it and set myself up to look like a total fuckup to all you future people. : P

So yeah, a quick message to say yes, I am still doing HOR, just the heat's set it again and it's really hard to think when you don't have a cooling fan.

Hole of Reproach: Flashback Follies

The heat.....so much.....heat.....must.....complain.....about Japanese comic books....


Well, this week we continue where we left off, namely Bach chosing Jugo Haschtagwald as his protegé. Of course Bazz is not happy about that, but Bach counters saying how Haschwalt is a walking energy amplifier, telling Jugo:

Yes because if there's one phrase that comes to mind in relation to Mr. "You don't need your legs to be able to talk to me" it's "giving and sharing". Are you Santa's bastard son going through his grunge phase or what ?

Nevertheless, it does appear that it was Hasch's proximity which made Bazz such a "genius" (for an all knowing deity you sure know absolute jack about Bazz "I have made fun of his powers so often it's gone old, been beaten to the ground and then bounced back and become popular again via the hipster effect") and this gets ol' Bazbaz good and mad so he goes "fuck this subterfuge crap" and just goes

I've spent literally years of my life to get close to you but I'll just fire at you now when there's tons of people around who can stop me, fool proof plan !

And yet Bach still hires him later. I guess you can't hope to find random comatose brains in a jar with aspirations of moderate mediocrity every day.

Now everyone, I think we can all guess what happens next right ? Yeah, of course Haschwalt catches the arrow, and he does so after a completely natural character progression of:

I love how he just randomly switched sides AND became a lifeless automaton. Cause that's what Kubo thinks kids find "cool".

And before you hope we can learn more about this, nope, flashback over, Haschwaldbrick slashes Bazz, end of chapter.

You know, in hindsight, that was a good flashback. Sure, we didn't find out if there Quincies are alive or not, we don't know what plane of existence it took place on and most of it consisted of people standing around in a village square looking at each other and Bazz's previous reactions to Bach's betrayal seem a bit at odds with how he "always wanted to kill Bach", kind of like "we have always been at war with Eastasia" sort of way but it was still good, because we got to watch Haschwalt and Bazz train for five minutes and see that Sternritter recruitment drives are basically "You want the job, well fuck off you can't have it."

In all seriousness though, it's pretty sad how Haschwalt had more emotion in those few panels the past two weeks then he has had for over three years. Makes you wish Kubo didn't think "stoic arrogant douchebag" was the best possible characterisation ever.

Hole of Reproach: The Confusion Deepens

This week, I've been somewhat at a loss what to say. Because all that really happens is Bazz almost kind of fights one guy and then Bach shows up.

We basically start with how Bazzzz and Hasch spent years training, and how Haschwalt was totaly inept and unable to do anything.

Yeah, he doesn't even raise people from the dead or spouts inane gibberish about emotions,  a total failure.

To be fair, Haschwalt's inability to make bows and arrows doesn't really seem to matter seeing as we've not seen any of the Sternritter even use those abilities at all.

Then all of a sudden some nameless Vandenreich goons show up, wearing those totally period clothes.

Of course the horses being there raises a boatload of other question if this ISN'T the living world.

So the Quincies could invent the modern tie 600 years early, and Soul Society can't get people shoes. You know, you'd almost root for these guys, until you remember the entire organisation is intentionally based on having people intentionally get killed fighting in an endless war just to prolong the life of a single person.

And then we get the following exchange:

Imagine being a regular joe and then someone shows up and tells you the army is going to invade Heaven. How do you even respond to that ?

They came over to announce recruitment for the new Sternritter, and then bugger off without recruiting anyone. Bazz has to step up and push himself into the dude's face in order to even get noticed, so you have to wonder how Bach even gets new soldiers seeing as two times we've seen his recruitment drives, in each the people involved had no intention of actually recruiting anyone.

Either way Bazz tries to beat the uniformed douche up but suddenly Bach appears and uses his reiatsu to squeeze everyone to the ground, saying he wants to find his right hand man and then picks Hashwalt.

The sad thing here is Haschwalt here is showing more emotion then he has literally at any point in the past. Hell, even last chapter he was doing that not at all totally worn out thing of looking at the opponent with a vacant, half disgusted expression and loweverd eyelids cause we sure as hell didn't see every single opponent ever make that face, no sireee.

This chapter wasn't as bad as the last one in terms of being confusing, but still didn't really clear up even the most basic of storytelling principles, such as where this is even taking place, and really, almost nothing happened. It's sad to see Kubo slip back into his catatonic pace.

Hole of Reproach: Space-Time has started to melt

So this week, Kubo has finally delved into some backstory for his Quincies. Problem is he's still Kubo and so he slapped together a sequence of events that warp space time to the point where not even killing Hitler can make things much worse as far as preserving History is concered.

Okay so we start out with Haschwall and Fingerzz B fighting and that prompts Bazz to have a flashback about randomly stalking Haschwalt in the forest as kids.

After several pages of the two arguing, and Bazz saying he'll teach Haschwalt how to handle his powers since he sucks at it, we then get a cut to....the beginning of the madness.

I, and all the other readers and probably Kubo as well for that matter, have no idea what "Northern Lands" Kubo is talking about here. And the following page just makes it so much worse.

This panel has managed to confuse and befuddle me, like Kubo hasn't been able to do in years.

To start off, the "human world" in this series has always been a version of the "real world". We've never gotten any indication of it being something else. And yet here we have Bach apparently having conquered the whole world around a thousand years ago, since this seems to take place before the Quincies hid in the shadows, as Eyepatch dude talking to Bach is still alive, and he was resurrected by Yama's bankai when he fought Not-Actually-Bach, plus Bach was supposed to have been asleep for 999 years.

Now where this gets extra crazy is Quincies are supposed to be humans. But Haschwalt and Bazz are alive back then. And Hashwalt is dressed in modern clothes.

Worse, we don't even know if this may reffer to some other realms in the afterlife beyond Soul Society, because Kubo has never established anything, so we don't even know if the Quincies in the present are alive or are kinda-alive via being made out of spirit particles.

So if it takes place in the human world then the entire world's history has apparently been completely different and we've learned about it 631 chapters after assuming the opposite, or this didn't take place in the human world and Kubo didn't say anything, and apparently people had clothes made about nine hundred years in advance of human technology, but now everyone still wears impractical feudal clothes and uniforms.

Kubo has successfully screwed up his timeline to the point where it's beyond repair, and all because he couldn't be arsed to remember what he himself wrote before, all for the sake of the story being "fresh".

Hole of Reproach: The Pacing Improves. It only took 150 chapters.

Sorry for the delay this week, I've been feeling a bit under the weather these past few days, as my sinuses have moved on to execute their dastardly plan of suffocating me by cutting off my supply of air. So I've not really gotten round to it yesterday.

Then again I do this for free. So take that as you will : P

So we finally found out the reason for Askin's random explosion last week. Grimmjow attacked him. Good except the way it happened made it seem both totally mysterious and unaknowledged by the main cast, so it still is Kubo failing at sequential storytelling.

"That was last week guys. Last week. C'mon."

Then we move onto a scene of Askin running away. I will grant Kubo this, he is giving the guy at least some character, though that may be because he ran out of emotions for people to blabber on about inanely. Still. Though you have to wonder how Grimmjow doesn't see that Askin is obviously running away because he has some kind of obvious evil plan.

"I wanna go fall into this very obvious setup on my own !"

I do hope Grimmjow has practised his shocked face, he's gonna need it soon.

We then switch over to the Quincy palace, where Haschwalt is receiving a report from a random quincie about the "Really-should-have-thought-of-a-different-name" Schutzstaffel and how they and Uryuu went out to fight the Shinigami one on one out on the streets. And you gotta hope they can still fly because otherwise that's gonna be a disadvantage considering the setup of this new Quincie Realm isn't exactly making out Bach to be the champion of work safety.

This guy still had more screentime then Okikiba, just fyi.

So apparently there's still other quincies around, but Bach only slurped up all the ones who can actually fight. Regardless, Moustachio gets killed off by Bazz "I only have one move" B, who then confronts Haschwalt over the whole "murdering all of their own soldiers" thing.

Well your powers are literally "stick a finger into things" so I am kinda shocked you made it this far.

To be fair, the whole "join an organisation perpetuating an endless cycle of war to result in the deaths of everyone that joins it for the personal benefit of the guy who leads it" plan sounded a lot better on paper. Also Bazz and "The Clinically somehow still alive man" were bffs before. I really want there to be a fullbringer as obssessed with friendship as Pepe with Love, As Nodt with fear and Bach with "winning".

Bazz is the new Rainbow Dash.

Also apparently at night Bach and Hashbrickwalt swap powers and Bazz thinks it's a great idea to kill Haschwalt when his powers are "invincible cause reasons".

Next chapter promises some kind of flashback. Not really sure that I look forward to spending more time on Quincie Renji but then again, beats watching Dollar Store Thor or Token black guy fight the shinigami.

Hole of Reproach: Things Happen for Some Reason

This week in Bleach, we start off our adventures with: Bach sitting on his ass not doing anything. Then we transition into an entire page of Urahara and Shunsui looking at stuff before Shunsui notices Mayuri's not there. Quite why you'd let a guy who commited genocide and mass murder on a semi-regular basis out of your sights is beyond me, good thing you are handling things so well Captain Commander.

We switch over to Mayuri's location where apparently he ditched the group for the sake of his "research".

"I must discover the secret behind Bach's clever use of the palister to create a retro 19th century look while retaining a modernist finish !"

No, really, he's standing on a floating rock at the mercy of an allpowerful murderous demi-god who can make shit blow up with his mind without getting off his ass, and apparently Mayuri really, really needs to instead research a random corner of this star structure thing instead.

Don't worry though, because now him and Kenpachi, who stayed behind cause one guy in his squad, who keeps complaining that he had to go take a leek, are arguing and threatening each other, while the world can get destroyed any minute by the God Monster that's controling Bach's brain, his moustache. And of course some more of Kubo's humour.

It's almost avantguarde how unfunny this is.

Then we get another scene where Ichigo's group are running around, and what do you know, they argue and split for no reason. Maybe it wouldn't have been such a huge issue if the entire first half of the chapter wasn't about the exact same thing.

Askin sees Ichigo and company, and....blows up for some reason ?

Look I'm not leaving anything out. He stands there, whines about having to fight Ichigo and then just....explodes or something. If this had anything to do with what Bazz and Liloto (?) are doing in the next scene, the framing is so awkward I still have no fucking clue, and if it's not then I have literally no idea what happened, which is always a great sign of competence on the creator's part. Unless this is Aizen's bankai, randomly blowing up people who complain too much.


...OH SHI-

Speaking of Fingenji and Loligirl, they and Zombie Girl are at the "Gate of the Sun"....apparently.

Quincie Architecture: It looks like a giant just jizzed all over everything.

I still don't know, do those two bent curvey pillar things outside of Bach's palace work as a teleporter ? What IS the "Gate of the Sun" ? I may sound impatient but there's a difference between having something mysterious happen and just having random shots of random things happening without any evident or even hinted cause and then just going along with business as usual.

We then end with the stinger of Bazzzzzz wanting to kill Bach and Haschwalt. Because we're supposed to consider the Most Boring Living Male Clothes Mannequin as an actual threat. Dully noted Mr. I Finger Things for a living.

Join us next time when the Shinigami will stop and argue some more while Nel and Grimmjow will split off from Ichigo vie Nel chasing Grimmjow's to stop him from screwing things up so then Kubo will have to keep track of five things at once. Oh boy.

AfB: Mysterious Men Who Like to Sit

Hi, readers. It's been a while, mostly because I've been lazy. But also because the mysterious men of Bleach have also been a bit lazy. They haven't really gotten around to doing much besides be mysterious, you see.

Things'll change, after just forty or so of the fights he hates! He won't be sitting anymore, he won't be sitting in a blank featureless room! He's looking to advance his station in life!

Oh sure, Yhwach slurped up the Soul King and became even more omnipotent, but only after dozens and dozens of chapters of truly heady stalling.

"Now, uhhh... Hmm. You wanna go out, Haschwaldt? Maybe, I dunno, grab a bite? Long day. Yeeeep."

 What happened to the boots, Bach my man? They were fetching!

Can you blame them for wanting to take it a bit easy? A solid ninety percent of this whole war saga has been about commuting between various planes of existence. Bopping between heaven, hell and three or four other goddamn pocket dimensions a dozen times in a day has got to be an exhausting itinerary. Besides, the whole of reality is about to receive a fresh new paint job; any sightseeing they might have been able to do on their wild Chutes and Ladders ride through space has been rendered thoroughly un-Tripadvisor-able!

So there's only one thing left for us. Let's all take a page from the clear vital moral this series is trying to tell us, sit down with a , and ramble about inconsequential filler fluff in a disorganized fashion!

Hole of Reproach: We have arrived ! Now let us continue standing in place !

Is this true ? Has the prophecy day come at last ?

Yes. The Shinigami have officialy walked through a door, after a volume and a half. Now that they are here and see just how powerfull Bach is surely they're gonna kick into high gear an-

Sorry sorry, I couldn't keep that going with a straight face. No, of course the Shinigami stand in place for four pages, so we can then get a whole page panel of the reconstructed royal realm.

It doesn't look bad, but really it's just the same thing as it was before with something in the middle and something to actually connect these because, as the Shinigami discover later, you can't fly here anymore. Not that Kubo ever established any rules for that. Also, taking bets on how long before he forgets. Also also kinda shocked Bach even cared enough to put this here since all he cares about is killing off his Quincies so he can suck their life force but whatever.

Yoruichi suddenly notices her brothers Reiatsu and Ichigo, being on his recent "Why is no one telling me stuff" kick asks why she never brought up she has a brother. Yoruichi wonders why she should tell people she spends ages around anything about herself and we then get a joke where Kubo remembers she used to go around as a cat. No explanation for why she ever did that, but hey, it's something I guess.

It's funny cause it's a thing that happened

We then spend four and a half pages with Yourichi's brother nearly killing himself by falling because if there's more reishi around, it's harder to use for a foothold apparently. During this time, the Shinigami never move their asses, but at least we can be sure the most important people made it to the Royal Realm.

 We are the perfect assassination duo. Nobody remembers us, mostly because we're so unmemorable, still Bach will never see it coming !

Well, that's good I thought for a second the Shinigami were in trouble. Still, that doesn't explain where Okikiba is ! What the hell Kubo, don't you know your own priorities ?

After they come to realise the Soul King is probably dead, Shunsui tries to rally everyone up by posing the oldest question, the question that must never be answered, the one they've been running from all their lives:

Well, you've already shown you have the response time of a glacier so I'd say it's about fucking time.

Then Bach's own palace, which we never really got a good lock at or inside except that it has empty rooms with nothing in it, pops up on a huge pillar of stuff.

I give credit that it has a lot of detail, but Kubo's probably spent all his creativity points on this one page, so the inside will probably just be a lot of stairs.

The true final battle aproaches: Bach's Chair vs Aizen's Chair !

We end with a shot of Bach, sitting atop his latest chair. Bach seems be quite the connoiseur of sitting accomodations, as he's had at least two other chair thrones he's menacingly sat on since this arc began. Still isn't so keen on the whole "have any other type of furniture around" thing though.

Stay tuned for next week, when the Shinigami will maybe spend a whole chapter chatting with Ichigo and company and end up looking at Bach's Palace with all kinds of determination before the chapter ends.