Hole of Reproach: What was the point of that ?

So, I come to you all this week utterfly dumbfounded. Because this, well....

Most of the chapter is dedicated to Yukio whinning about not doing anything, even though if the world gets destroyed that includes him too. The little fucker still refuses to budge and I really wish someone would punch him.

And then Ichigo tell Riruka she should stay behind too.

.....Huh ?

Look I know Gliblord is probably doing cartwheels in celebration but what the actual fuck ? Not only is Ichigo saying he don't need the help against Mr. "I can make every power not affect me because I say so" and I'd argue you probably need all the help you can get. And further more, what was the point to bring this character back for one chapter to then put her on a bus literally the week after ? Is this Kubo finally realising he has too many characters set up to go fight Bach ? Cause even so, you could drop someone like Bazz B, I don't need Renji and his clone bumming around being pathetic. And Riruka was kinda the only fullbringer to beat one of your Shinigami allies ya know, maybe use her miniaturisation abilities or something, seems a lot more usefull then Quincie Renji's "I can finger stuff" ability.

Then we follow this up with another "joke".

I...uh. I can't really say anything about the level of "humour" on display as I've already established in the past weeks how Kubo's recent kick of trying to include "humorous" moments is unfunny filler at best so rather then repeating myself, I'd like to focus on that editorial line. Cause that is the funniest shit in a Bleach chapter in ages.

Ganju is probably hands down the most insignificant character here. Dude has literally been a complete no show since the Soul Society Arc, and even there he's not only a minor support character. He's literally done less then Chad in the past half decade and that is saying something. I mean I know Ichigo is the most lifeless protagonist ever but how can Ganju know that much about Ichigo if he spent maybe ten minutes in the guy's company tops ?

In the next scene we see shit is still flying around after Bach randomly decided to demolish everything and then we ge.....

No

No

You cannot possibly be serious.

THE SHINIGAMI HAVEN'T LEFT YET !!!

I.....I.....W-what.....is this real life ? Have I fallen into some sort of endless time loop ? Is this hell ?

Okay, the Shinigami are negligent assholes who sit on their asses all day, let people live in destitution, squalor and the constant threat of murder when they could end all the fighting easily with their superpowers, and the only reason any Hollows exist is because they are late to send a person's soul for literally months, and the sheer amount of hollows that exist is proof that they are absolutely above caring about anything.

But

All of that

All of that takes second place to them literraly spending FIFTEEN CHAPTERS to go through a door, WHEN THE WORLD IS ABOUT TO END.

I have no words to describe this. They have lost all meaning.

The chapter ends with Ichigo's group ariving at the Palace, not recognising it and then turning around to see this.

Uhm, how did you not notice the huge frickin building right in front of you ? And he's not really reshaped anything, more like just wrecked the place. Unless he's into living on a pile of rubble.

Well, next week we'll probably have a rock fall on Urahara and the door closes again or something.

I feel emotionally spent.

Hole of Reproach: Bach is still Bach

This week, we actually have more focus on Bach and the rest of the...well most people use "SS" as an abbrevariation of "Soul Society", but now Kubo actually has a "Schutzstaffel" in the story, which is all kinds of awkward given the recent 70th anniversary of end of WW II.

We do have a few scenes devoted to Ichigo and co. talking about nothing. It does feature Riruka snapping at Orihime.

RANDOM SCREAMING IS FUNNY RIGHT ?

I appreciate the sentiment of her not appreciating the negativity, but look, I'm one of the few critics of Bleach who doesn't seem to hate your guts (unlike my blog colleague Gliblord who was literally doing a mid air spit-take when he saw your return) but don't think you get a free pass on being a bitch. We clear ? The scene ends with Grimmjow saying he's helping them take down Bach because otherwise Hueco Mundo gets destroyed and where will Grimmjow kill Ichigo if that happens ?

Uhm, anywhere ? You tried killing him in the human world before. What's changed ? Also you gotta wonder if the dude has any affinity to the blasted desert nightmare scape he calls home, it makes you wonder about how Hollows live when not attacking people, at least the humanoid ones, which are practically the only ones we ever see anymore, are clearly shown being on the same level of intelligence as humans, have emotions and all that stuff. I'm so glad Kubo never explored it but has instead spent time on his incredibly boring version of "wacky nazies" getting their asses kicked until their moustachioed leader activates God Mode and beats everyone cause He's Bach.

I am so gonna miss that mischevious comatose torso.

Speaking of The Most Groomed One, he's apparently done slurping up the Soul King. Boy I sure love how we had to wait like six years to see the guy after Aizen's entire quest was to get up to 'em, and he might as well have been a chair they put a crown on for all the impact he had on the readers. Hell, I'm calling it now, make Aizen's chair the new Soul King, at least we know it has a strict "no Aizen fucking around" policy.

When the.....SS goes to check on Bach they find he's well

I think that's a definite improvement

I wish this meant he was losing control over this power and was just becoming a vessel unable to do anything, which would be a fitting end for the guy. But nope, of course The "I Win cause Everything-Proof-Shield" Bach can't not be in control at all times.

They proceed to stare at Bach intently, and I really have to adress this

The fuck are you wearing dude ? It looks like you stole the reproductive organs of a zebra and are wearing them as a hat.

Regardless, to prove he is still the same Bach who ordered the execution of soldiers with battle experience because they lost using a power they were unfamiliar with, the use of which blocked them using their far superior ability and which he ordered them to use, knowing the Shinigami would get it back somehow eventually, he proceeds to blow up the Palace for no reason and nearly kills his entire elite force.

Remember, these are literally the last soldiers he has, as far as we know. Boy does he sure care about the future of the Quincies.

Wouldn't it be funny if the twenty something people gearing up to go fight Bach would show up, and all of Bach's men would be dead cause he knocked them off because of random destructo rage ?

No more shinigami this week either. It may look promising because people in Bleach are like Weeping Angels, they only move when you're not looking. Let's just hope he doesn't just forget.

Kubology: The Study of Kubo?

Greetings to everyone at Applied Logic.  Like many of you here, I too was a Bleach fan and was excited for each new volume to be released in english (later chapters as I was reading it online).  However, like many of you, I came to a point in the series where is wanted to bash my face in.

Wait, wait.  I'm getting ahead of myself.  Let's take a trip down memory lane:

September of 2007, after the incredible magazine Anime Insider had featured Bleach a few times, I decided to give it a chance.  What could go wrong?  So i started borrowing volumes from the library one at a time.  I mean it was so cool.  A series that combined horror and action?  With a good splash of comedy?  Sign me up.  Watching Ichigo and Rukia tackle hollows, seeing the chemistry between the characters.  Man that first arc was great.  I think it was because Kubo kept the cast to a minimum and the lore of the world simple.

Does anyone even remember these characters anymore?

Sigh.  So Rukia gets captured, the shady Urahara helps Ichigo and company become strong enough to invade Soul Society and save the day.  And this is where shit starts to get crazy.  The cast increases from twenty to a hundred twenty.  GAH! So many new characters.  Most were just exposition characters too.  Well Ichigo and friends are blazing through Soul Society, dishing out heaping helpings of pain, and we get a taste of the consequences of the method Ichigo used to re-aquire his shinigami juice.

Hey, Ichigo?  I have a secret.  But we'll both won't know what it is for another five hundred chapters.  Tee hee

Yep, the menacing "Shirosaki".  This was actually a cool concept on Kubo's part.  Due to the unorthodox method Urahara had Ichigo go through to become a shinigami again created this pesky monster.  As such, Ichigo now had to keep its murderous will at bay while fighting.  It's a pity Kubo just fucked this up so much.

As all the fights are going on we get a look at Rukia's past, and the guilt she has felt for killing Kaien Shiba.  Now here's where things start to become problematic.  Ichigo and Kaien supposedly look alike.

Maybe it's because of Kubo's "Only Six Character Faces" style of drawing, but I honestly did not see it.  I still don't know of Kubo did this intentionally or it worked out that way.  And then the whole reveal that Isshin is Kukaku's, Ganju's, and Kaien's uncle much later?  Sorry, that's a later rant.
So we get to the point when Aizen betrays Soul Society, and I'll admit it, it blew my mind.
Anyway, I'm still with Bleach during the Arrancar Arc, the LOOONG Hueco Mundo Arc, and the Las Noches Arc.  We learned about the "true" nature of Ichigo's hollow, get introduced to the Visored and the Espada.  And we get more fights.  YAY!  Pitting the forces of good against the forces of evil.  Then Aizen reveals his bait and switch, and Orihime becomes useless.
And then we get to the part where I want to bash my face in:

God I hated this so much

Gimme a sec, I need to lobotomize myself. sigh.  Then things just start going to shit.  I don't need to tell you how.

Good night everyone.  I'll be doing analysis in the future.  Stay tuned.

Hole of Reproach: I've Officially lost count

So another week rolled by Kubo (better known as マニキュアした爪のサングラス変人), what have you got.

(A quick read later)

Okay ladies and gentlemen, I am officially calling it now, Kubo is gonna bring back every single solitary character for this shit. Get ready to see Ichigo's boss and those random punks he beat in his flashbacks.

Maybe Ichigo's classmates are gonna actually show up too.

Or maybe his family members considering we used to care about them at one point.

Anyways the chapter proper begins with a repetition of last week and it takes five pages of half page spreads and inane bickering for us to move past the "Grimmjow is here" aspect of the story.

You know, you gotta give it to Kubo, he could have totally had her knock him out with her tits....Which may be what happened, but the shot is so poorly framed I don't rightly know and that's sort of positive....I think.

It takes Nel comedically knocking down Grimmjow for us to finally change scene. Kubo, please stop trying to use comedy, you're not good at it.

Nel explains to Ichigo Urahara made her an armband thing which can make her not mentally regressed to a toddler and also allow for her to change form, and for some reason....Chad has to explain this to Orihime who seems to act like it's a bad thing.

Uhm, this is the healer character right ? Kinda assumed that entailed wanting for people to get better.

Cause leaving people practically lobotomised even when you can cure them is totally a cool thing to do.

Then out of nowhere a huge box appears in the sky and Riruka and Totally Not Hitsugaya show up ! (Christ what are we up to....25 ?!)

Naturally Ichigo gets pissed and wants to know what's going on and when Yoruichi offers to once again only tell him part of the plan, he seems to finally have had enough of Soul Society leading him along a trail of breadcrumbs.

In the words of the Mysterious Mr Enter: What I'm doing is stupid, I know I'm stupid and I'm gonna do it anyway.

Yoruichi still doesn't care.

She finally explains that Urahara whipped up something to basically steal a reiatsu outlet pipe from between Soul Society and the human world, but he needed Riruka and Shota Boy to get it to move. Not sure why a guy who purposefully ruined his own family out of spite went along with this but okay.

We get a scene of the "I Really should have named them something different" Schutzstaffel chilling in the Royal Palace (well sitting on chairs because anything else would give them too much character) and Ishida looks noticeably not happy about Bach becoming all powerfull. The chapter then ends with a silhouete of Bach slurping up the Soul King.

This time we didn't even get to see the Shinigami do nothing. So maybe they've already le....who am I kidding they probably ordered takeout while we weren't looking.

Okay my strategy is, get myself butchered by the Elite Quincies an the all seing God Beard until their swords are dull, then you take over.

Ya know, I keep thinking, what exactly is the point of Ganju here ? I mean, dude's been absent since the Soul Society arc and his role in that one was rather underwhelming and now he's in the same team as Shinigami captains, Arrancar and Quincies and Orihime with her god like reality rejection powers. What the balls is he gonna even do ? And why should we care ? If Kubo at least tried to tie this into him forcing his way into this clearly out of his league mission to try and restore his family's honour, that could be an explanation. But of course Kubo's already forgotten the Shiba being looked down upon was ever even a thing.

And nope, still no new additions to Bach's side. And I know Kubo doesn't do anything else then one on ones so is he just gonna find a way to keep everyone stuck on a bus so ichigo, Yoruichi and maybe Chad and Orihime (and Byakuya of course because fangirls) can be the only ones doing anything ?

He's Kubo after all.

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.

Hole of Reproach: Three Year Bachiversary

It has been a while. Bleach has still been it's usual self quote table inscribing self (BRAIN IN A JAR Quincie says hello), but I figured the other people on the blog were doing a good enough job summing things up on their own and I felt I'd be sort of cramping their style to repeat basically the same complaints.

This week however (chaper 619 for future refference), the sheer volume of brain dead idiocy coming from Seňor El Moustachio has driven me to finally adress a question that has been left unanswered for so long. Mainly, Bach's goal.

As unbelieavable as it is, this month marks three years since Ol' Buckbeard first appeared in the series. This same arc has been going on since early 2012.

Let us walk down memory lane and reminesce about that moment shall we. We had just gotten over the arc that was so bad that even Kubo suddenly found it in him to not have everything move at the speed of a celestial body and actually shifted into high gear to blitz through everything. There, we got what basically amounted to Ginjo being pissy as fuck because he was given a job by Soul Society and the people who did so actually, gasp, supervised him ! Which was enough to try and kill Ichigo for his powers in a scheme that made no sense and which resulted in the character assasination of Chad and Orihime which felt like a direct insult after Kubo's line about it being Chad's arc. We cut back to Ichigo getting his powers back via Magical Spine Puncture and everything was okay.

We then spend some times on rookie shinigami who seem to have actual importance given one of them shows up on the cover of Chapter 483, only to disappear forever with no warning. We get Ichigo and company going to Hueco Mundo to save a guy from Nel's posse, and in the meanwhile we have the introduction of He Who Grooms His Nose Hairs Into a Moustache, Bach.

For someone who doesn't like fights you sure seem to be doing it a lot, Buckface.

Now let's move back to the present. Three years from then, Bach has killed the Soul King which will, as he knows, destroy the afterlife and human world (and also Hueco Mundo because Kubo thinks people still care about that despite it being a wilderness full of giant soul eating monsters). He is fighting Ichigo inside the palace and is trying to blabber out some nonsense along the lines of "we are the same you and I". Implying some sort of bond between them as Quincies, despite the fact that the only reason Bach is walking around is because he sucked countless Quincies dry of their life essence to the point where they died. And he's just recently begun to suck the life force from his remaining troops in the Seireitei. So yeah, you're full of shit dude.

And then when Ichigo tries confronting him, he utters the following line:

Gee, I dunno, maybe because what you are doing will literally destroy all of reality, killing everyone Ichigo has ever known in this world and the next, along with every human who is alive and every human that has ever lived.

And Bach not only knows this, he's seemingly known all along, and yet we still have absolutely no idea why he is doing it, nor why anyone would be willing to help him once they've learned that fact. Even if the Shinigami commited genocide against your people, what the hell do the billions of people on Earth and in the whole of Soul Society have to do with that ? Worse yet, the entire point of Bach, as revealed to Uryuu by Haschwalt is to lead the Quincies in a never ending war where they would constantly get killed so they can give their life energy to Bach. And apparently both Haschwalt and Uryuu still go along with this whole plan KNOWING THAT, but if that is literally the whole purpose for you existing, what does it matter what Soul Society did ? We saw earlier the Quincies on the battlefield don't want to get sacrificed to Bach either so again, this raises even more questions about this.

Once again, Kubo's vaguebooking and intent on making the bad guys seem mysterious has resulted in a seemingly unbeatable all knowing Bad guy, whose actual motivation and goals make absolutely no sense if you actually piece together the breadcrumbs Kubo randomly tosses out along the way. There is no stated reason why Bach or any of his followers would want to destroy all of creation, especially if their purpose as Quincies is to hunt Hollows and thus protect humans from them. That's like the Pope suddenly pulling out a missile launcher and blasting the congregation at the Urbi et Orbi because now the Catholic Churches' mission is to destroy all of creation, including themselves.

The rest of the chapter basically just has Bach prattling on, even trying to blame Ichigo's mother's death on the kid by stating "his weakness killed her". Uh no asshole, it was you deliberately draining your powers to awaken from your Odinsleep that left her defenseless against that Hollow AND YOU KNOW THIS. Then Uryuu jumps in to kill the Soul King again and says how no one should get in Bach's way. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if Uryuu is doing this to legitimately help Bach, the man who directly murdered his mother, when he knows that Bach just wants to Keffka shit up. I don't know, we saw how Chad's development was handled when he was supposed to be in the spotlight.

Of course the problem now is, Kubo has set up like 20 + people to go to the palace to fight Bach. That plus Aizen screwing about, will probably result in us not knowing what the hell Bach is even trying to achieve for even longer. And if he and Bach get into a meaningless philisophy dick measuring contest....good lord.