New Bleach chapter out.
Ugh, just goddamnit.
It's actually getting to the point where it's hard for me to read these chapters. Seriously, it's shitting all over my day.
Renji made my heart explode. And at first, with these panels, I thought it would be okay. For all that talk about wanting to be first and to be a leader and to surpass Byakuya, Renji can't keep his heart in check. For once I think it's sensible, on his part, and his line about Byakuya being the only to wield Senbonzakura felt protective and appropriate and so Renji. That he got taken out without even a chance to use his bankai felt so brutal.
Rukia broke my heart, too. I suspect she'd run to Byakuya, but I didn't think she'd go down before she got there.
As for Byakuya, well, I cried the whole chapter, and...I don't know. I just don't know.
I'm having a hard time judging what I think about this chapter is delusion and what's not. Byakuya's zanpakuto is falling apart and it looks like he's dead - the Quincy captains have acknowledged as much - but, well, it's shounen. And I guess I have a hard time believing - and if it's true I'm going to be disappointed - that Kubo would let Byakuya die in that particular way. No honor? A sacrifice that's essentially meaningless? It seems so antithetical to the nature of Byakuya's character. If he'd gone out protecting Rukia or Renji, if he'd died to save one of them, then I would buy it absolutely. But the completely annihilation by As Nodt, plus the brutal takedown of both Renji and Rukia, also just makes me wonder if Kubo isn't tightening the emotional screws until the breaking point. If he is, it's working and I'd like a little hope in these chapters; I'm going to need a brief break from Bleach if Byakuya really is gone.
There are still a lot of possibilities in play that keep me from despairing, not the least of which is the amount of horrible ways in which people have been wounded in this series - dismemberment, holes blown through them, and etc. - and survived. Unohana is still at large, and hopefully with a useful (healing) bankai. Anonymous Swordsmight might be helping get Ichigo out elsewhere (maybe?) - though I feel like if it is Grimmjow, Kubo may have built the anticipation for that return a little overmuch now. Yoruichi has to be somewhere.
(P.S. Those of you familiar with the series since the SS arc; notice how those Byakuya "eye" panels above and the "I apologize" mirror the eye panels from the end of the SS arc when he's apologizing to Rukia for the truth about Hisana? In that case, the apology was a prelude to a shift in his character and a realization of what mattered most; first he apologized to Rukia, and in this arc he apologizes to Renji and Rukia. Also: no color page for Byakuya left me hopeful, too.)
Another edit: In the line where they noted that Byakuya seems dead, the transliteration is "shinda you desu," which does indeed mean seems - so that's not a mistranslation.
Oh, and Kubo did manage to get a painful little laugh out of me at the end:
Of course Zaraki would roll in carrying corpses - and right up to the Big Bad's door, no less. I always thought he'd have en edge over the Quincy because he lacks a bankai, so this might be interesting - or, more likely, he'll get annihilated along with everyone else.
Keep in mind, Ichigo's hearing all of this...
It's actually getting to the point where it's hard for me to read these chapters. Seriously, it's shitting all over my day.
Renji made my heart explode. And at first, with these panels, I thought it would be okay. For all that talk about wanting to be first and to be a leader and to surpass Byakuya, Renji can't keep his heart in check. For once I think it's sensible, on his part, and his line about Byakuya being the only to wield Senbonzakura felt protective and appropriate and so Renji. That he got taken out without even a chance to use his bankai felt so brutal.
Rukia broke my heart, too. I suspect she'd run to Byakuya, but I didn't think she'd go down before she got there.
As for Byakuya, well, I cried the whole chapter, and...I don't know. I just don't know.
I'm having a hard time judging what I think about this chapter is delusion and what's not. Byakuya's zanpakuto is falling apart and it looks like he's dead - the Quincy captains have acknowledged as much - but, well, it's shounen. And I guess I have a hard time believing - and if it's true I'm going to be disappointed - that Kubo would let Byakuya die in that particular way. No honor? A sacrifice that's essentially meaningless? It seems so antithetical to the nature of Byakuya's character. If he'd gone out protecting Rukia or Renji, if he'd died to save one of them, then I would buy it absolutely. But the completely annihilation by As Nodt, plus the brutal takedown of both Renji and Rukia, also just makes me wonder if Kubo isn't tightening the emotional screws until the breaking point. If he is, it's working and I'd like a little hope in these chapters; I'm going to need a brief break from Bleach if Byakuya really is gone.
There are still a lot of possibilities in play that keep me from despairing, not the least of which is the amount of horrible ways in which people have been wounded in this series - dismemberment, holes blown through them, and etc. - and survived. Unohana is still at large, and hopefully with a useful (healing) bankai. Anonymous Swordsmight might be helping get Ichigo out elsewhere (maybe?) - though I feel like if it is Grimmjow, Kubo may have built the anticipation for that return a little overmuch now. Yoruichi has to be somewhere.
(P.S. Those of you familiar with the series since the SS arc; notice how those Byakuya "eye" panels above and the "I apologize" mirror the eye panels from the end of the SS arc when he's apologizing to Rukia for the truth about Hisana? In that case, the apology was a prelude to a shift in his character and a realization of what mattered most; first he apologized to Rukia, and in this arc he apologizes to Renji and Rukia. Also: no color page for Byakuya left me hopeful, too.)
Another edit: In the line where they noted that Byakuya seems dead, the transliteration is "shinda you desu," which does indeed mean seems - so that's not a mistranslation.
Oh, and Kubo did manage to get a painful little laugh out of me at the end:
Of course Zaraki would roll in carrying corpses - and right up to the Big Bad's door, no less. I always thought he'd have en edge over the Quincy because he lacks a bankai, so this might be interesting - or, more likely, he'll get annihilated along with everyone else.
Keep in mind, Ichigo's hearing all of this...