Bleach 578 Review – “THE UNDEAD 5”

Bleach 578 Review – “THE UNDEAD 5”

Written by: ClayDragon

Well, that was…underwhelming.

After Kenpachi destroys the asteroid with his new Shikai, the chunks of burning rock fall to the ground and begin to smash into the battlefield. Guremi realises that he broke it into pieces with one swing of his sword, and loses his cool, calling Kenpachi a monster. As Kenpachi stands above Guremi he says that it’s simple – there’s nothing that his sword can’t cut.

I wonder how many people were killed by the falling rocks?

Remarking that he now understands Kenpachi’s abilities, Guremi creates a whole gang of clones that surround Kenpachi. As he attacks them, saying that the number of clones makes no difference, Guremi disagrees as he plans to kill Kenpachi with something that has no shape. Suddenly, an area of darkness envelopes Kenpachi as Guremi claims that he’ll kill him in the void of space.

'...Rush him!'

Before he can react, Kenpachi’s eye begins to boil, and Guremi explains in great detail how the vacuum of space will kill him. Long story short, it sounds painful. However, despite his best attempts Kenpachi manages to cut into one of the Guremis, and he notes that Guremi forgot to stiffen his body. Bursting out of the vacuum, Kenpachi finishes the slice, but notices that the Guremi now has a glowing spot on his chest.

Sounds delightful.

Immediately, almost every copy of Guremi latches onto Kenpachi, who barely has any time to react before they glow with a bright light and explode. As the original Guremi (presumably) watches from the arena, he sees the smoke clear to reveal Kenpachi – missing his cloak and badly burnt, but still very much alive. Upon realising that his latest plan has failed, Guremi asks if Kenpachi is a real monster and, for want of a better phrase, loses his shit.

Isn't that what you've been trying to do for the entire fight?

Deciding that the only way to defeat Kenpachi is to become stronger than him, Guremi thinks to himself that he wants to win, and continues to repeat this thought as the veins on his body begin to stand out. He then shouts that he’ll crush Kenpachi in order to prove his power, and just as he’s getting really psyched up…

"It's going to take, like, a million mummy kisses to make this better."

His body tears itself apart. As Guremi realises what’s happened, Kenpachi notes that Guremi imagined him as a monster, and that monster ended up killing him. At this point, Guremi’s body falls to the ground as Kenpachi disdainfully watches.

Can you say 'irony'?

I really hope that this isn’t the end of the fight, and there’s one or two things that make me wonder if Guremi really is dead. The first is that when Guremi created the clones in order to kill Kenpachi, there were seven iterations of Guremi on-panel. But during the course of the battle, seven Guremis were shown to die – one was cut by Kenpachi and six exploded. In total, there were actually eight Guremis including the original, so what’s to say that he hasn’t created another clone somewhere?

Johann Liebert would disagree with your analysis.

Also, we have yet to see Guremi’s Vollständig (if he actually has one). Given how every other Sternritter has been shown to have one, it would be a bit strange if the self-proclaimed strongest Sternritter didn’t have one. Besides, this sort of thing has happened before – the villain has been defeated, only to go into one-winged angel mode and beat the stuffing out of their opponent.

Now, see... you coulda done this at the start of the fight.

At the moment, I’m still not entirely sure how Guremi actually ‘died’. I’ve seen a few theories, but they don’t all agree with each other. One theory is that he physically couldn’t become stronger than Kenpachi, and his body tore itself apart when confronted with the impossibility of such a task. Another theory states that because Guremi simply imagined himself as being stronger, the lack of a specific directive caused his muscles to expand so fast that they ripped his skin apart. Alternatively, in his hysteria he imagined himself dying again, and this time it became a reality.

"Oh God they're hugging me get them off get them off get them off."

Whatever the method, I’m quite annoyed with the conclusion of this fight. Over the course of this battle, Kenpachi has never really taken any initiative, as he’s only really reacted to Guremi’s attacks. I had hoped that this would change during the final moments of the battle, but it seems as though Guremi did Kenpachi’s work for him. I’d also expected that Kenpachi’s new Shikai would have been used to end the battle, but sadly it looks as if that might not be the case.

Why are you exhausted? Can't you just imagine yourself being in peak condition again?

Good Things:     Guremi using more variety in his attacks.

                            A rough explanation of the ability of Kenpachi’s Shikai.

Bad Things:        Guremi’s ‘death’ was incredibly underwhelming.

                            Kenpachi only used his Shikai once in the entire battle.

                                    

Manga Rating:   2.5/5

ClayDragon:









ClayDragon is currently studying Physics at university, and is constantly bewildered by it. The main method of contacting him is his Gmail account at kyleroulston1993@gmail.com. The alternative is his Skype account at kyleroulston1993. When not playing games or reading, he can be found with his head in his hands whilst trying in vain to understand quantum physics. He very much enjoys watching Warehouse 13.