Bleach 562 Review – “The Villain 2”

Bleach 562 Review – “The Villain 2”

Written by: ClayDragon

Well that was…surprisingly quick.

After Renji’s surprise entrance last week, Rukia lands beside him and he tells her to look after Rose and Kensei whilst he fights Mask. Agreeing, Rukia picks up the two wounded Captains and moves away, leaving Renji on his own. Confused, Mask asks why Renji and Rukia aren’t ganging up on him, and states that all villains use dirty tricks to win. Renji’s only response to this is to claim that he’ll be cowardly enough to win.

"But don't bother about Ikkaku, Yumichika or Hisagi, just leave them to die. Also, why are you wearing ski goggles?"

Sadly, this cool statement goes unheard by Mask, who seems to have forgotten the fact that he crushed his own eardrums in order to defend himself against Rose’s Bankai. Realising this, he calls on James (who still. Isn’t. Dead.) and asks him to cheer for him so his eardrums will be healed. Despite being chopped in half, James is still able to cheer for Mask, and his eardrums are promptly restored to normal.

Why are you still alive?! Yamamoto gets bisected and he dies, but you get cut in half and you can still jump around!

In order to test them, he asks Renji to say something, but all he gets is an insult. Mask then launches an attack at Renji, who simply sidesteps and proceeds to hammer Mask into the ground with his Zanpakuto. Picking himself up from the rubble, he tells Renji that he made a mistake, and that when he gets angry the power of his attacks increases by a factor of ten. He launches a punch at Renji, only for it to be casually blocked.

Seriously, how can you forget doing that? Wouldn't your ears still be sore from when you rammed your fingers into them?

Getting a tiny bit enraged, Mask decides to just attempt to kill Renji with a barrage of punches, whilst constantly chanting a rather unnerving mantra. However, he doesn’t seem to pay too much attention, and Renji used the opportunity to pretty much eviscerate James by slicing him into little pieces.

Now that Mask can’t recover from any more injuries, he really begins to lose it. As he calls Renji a coward, Renji replies that all villains are cowards, and slices Mask in half. At least, I’m assuming that’s what happened. It may very well turn out that he’s fine in the next chapter.

You had goddam better stay dead this time.

To be honest, there isn’t really a lot to say about this chapter. I had expected Rukia to go somewhere else and help in another battle, but I guess healing two Captains would kind of take priority. It also just occurred to me that we never saw who wounded her in the last battle. We saw her run away from her opponent, but the identity of the Quicy who attacked her was never revealed. Given that Renji is currently fighting the Quincy who landed him in hospital, I’m hoping that we’ll get to see Rukia fight her attacker soon.

And you won't like me when I'm angry...

I’m a bit surprised that Renji won this fight with so little effort, as he’s lost almost every fight he’s been in. In order, he’s fought against: Ichigo, Ichigo (again), Byakuya, Aizen, Yylfordt, Szayelaporro, Yammy, Jackie, As Nodt and Mask. Out of those fights, he’s won three (and even then he had backup for two of them). Whilst it was kind of obvious that Renji would win the fight against Mask, I did think it would take more than one chapter.

"Wait, that's how bad he is at fighting? And he still beat me?"

Finally, since I’ve pretty much said all I can about this week’s chapter, I’m just going to speculate on future events now. Next week’s chapter will most likely focus on the aftereffects of Renji’s fight with Mask, and then we’ll get to see some more fights, maybe involving Askin, As Nodt or Nanana. Hopefully we’ll see what’s going on with some of the Soul Reapers like Ukitake, Kenpachi or Mayuri. After this, I imagine that Byakuya will return, and Ichigo shortly after. Presumably the rest of the Hueco Mundo Squad will appear at some time around this point and help Ichigo as he fights Yhwach. And then Aizen will appear and claim to have been behind everything all along (you think I’m joking, but I’m not).

Good Things:          A few funny moments from Mask.

                                Renji winning a fight without help.

                                James is gone now. Forever. Doubly so this time.

Bad Things:           James was still alive.

                               Not much actually happened.

                                    

Manga Rating:      3/5

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 has recently obtained Final Fantasy XIII. So much for studying over Christmas...