Bleach 592 Review – “Marching Out the ZOMBIES 3”

Bleach 592 Review – “Marching Out the ZOMBIES 3”

Written by: ClayDragon

Wow. Funny to horrifying in the space of one chapter.

As he arrives on the battlefield, Zombie Hitsugaya draws the attention of everyone present, including Ikkaku and Yumichika, who can’t believe what they are seeing. Upon noticing him draw his sword, Yumichika prepares a binding spell, only to be knocked away almost instantly. Zombie Hitsugaya creates a huge wave of ice which washes over them and destroys the surrounding area (but oddly, not freezing anything).

"I wonder what wine I should have for dinner tonight?"

Yumichika gets up from the ground and is about to make a comment about Ikkaku’s recklessness when he notices that his comrade’s lower leg is now encased in ice. As Ikkaku says that the loss of his leg is a small price to pay for surviving that attack, he’s impaled through the back by Zombie Hitsugaya. Before Yumichika can react, Ikkaku is stabbed again. Just before Zombie Hitsugaya strikes the final blow, Yumichika blocks the attack and begins to call the true name of his Shikai.

Awesome moment in 3.....2.....nope.

However, before he can get past the fourth syllable, Zombie Hitsugaya knees him in the stomach, head-butts him, and then cuts him across the shoulder for good measure. It’s then revealed that his knee had a sharp coating of ice over it, meaning that Yumichika has now been stabbed in two different places. Kurotsuchi then decides to step in, and comments that although he’s now a corpse, Zombie Hitsugaya still fights and moves the same way he did when he was alive.

"You bitch!"

Zombie Hitsugaya aims a slash at Kurotsuchi, but he manages to flash-step away before the strike can land. He then compares Zombie Hitsugaya and Zombie Bambietta, and comes to the conclusion that Zombie Hitsugaya was zombified whilst he was still alive. Giselle pops up to confirm his suspicions, saying that the cells of people who are turned into zombies before they die are fresher, meaning that they have better reactions. This also makes them easier to control (somehow).

So then why do Quincy zombies need to be dead? 

Kurotsuchi takes the information on board, and then asks Giselle where the fun is in controlling someone with no free will. Giselle responds with possibly the biggest lie in the series and claims that she doesn’t have an answer for him. Before they can continue their conversation, Kurotsuchi notices that Charlotte has approached Zombie Hitsugaya, and is about to attack him.

"I need an adult!"
"I am an adult..."

Even though Kurotsuchi warns him to get away from Zombie Hitsugaya, it comes too late as Charlotte almost gets bisected (and loses his hand as well). Before he can kill his target, Zombie Hitsugaya’s attack is once again blocked, this time by a forcefield that Kurotsuchi has erected around him and Charlotte. After calling Charlotte out for not realising Zombie Hitsugaya’s strength, Kurotsuchi decides to leave him there to die. Conversely, he seems quite taken with the idea of experimenting on Zombie Hitsugaya, and asks him to become a test subject.

Wait, if you could create a forcefield, then why didn't you use it earlier? You could easily have saved Ikkaku and Yumichika!

To be honest, I found this chapter somewhat underwhelming. I understand that it would be hard to top the last two chapters, but after the hilarity and awesomeness of the last fortnight this chapter just didn’t really seem to go anywhere. Sure, we’ve lost three fighters – which I’ll touch on in a minute – but the last page of the chapter was pretty much the same as that of last week – with Kurotsuchi talking to Hitsugaya. I suppose it’s good that those two are going to fight now, but I can’t help but feel that the fight could easily have started this week.

"That's going to hurt when I regain consciousness..."

The fact that Yumichika was about to unleash his ‘real’ Shikai was interesting, as he’s previously claimed that he wouldn’t use it even if he was on the brink of death, for fear of others finding out about its true nature. On a related note, it was pointed out to me in the comments section of last week’s review that it’s possible that Yumichika could use the power of his Shikai to drain the zombie…ness out of infected people. The fact that Kubo’s teasing the release of Yumichika’s Shikai does seem to support this theory, although now that he’s been stabbed twice, we’ll need to wait and see what happens.

How can you have lost your leg? Can't you just...I don't know...melt the ice?

Following on from that, I’m not too pleased with the way Charlotte was treated this chapter. For a start, let’s look at how powerful he is. He was the strongest of Barragan’s Fraccion (admittedly, it was self-proclaimed) and he was able to almost kill Yumichika in a fight. On the other hand, Bambietta was strong enough to knock Shinji out of the game with one attack, and had it not been for the amount of bombs she fired at Dangai Joue, she would have beaten Komamura due to his immortality running out. As such, it’s fair to assume that Bambietta’s a Captain-level fighter.

I was going to use a 'disarmed' pun here, but then I remembered that I already used one a few chapters ago, so feel free to come up with your own caption for this image.

…And then she gets one-shotted by Charlotte. I know that since she’s a zombie, she wouldn’t be at full strength, but even so that implies that Charlotte is at least on par with a Lieutenant in terms of power, if not a Captain. So how come he was taken out so easily by Zombie Hitsugaya? I know it was meant to establish how powerful Zombie Hitsugaya is, but it doesn’t make much sense considering how powerful Charlotte was last chapter.

Really? Because it seems like every fight in this series is at least 33% conversation.

Finally, there’s a few things about Zombie Hitsugaya that I’d like to talk about. Firstly, it would seem that I was sort of right last week – namely, about the fact that Hitsugaya wasn’t dead when he got zombified. Of course, now that this information has come to light, the chances of Hitsugaya surviving this fight have skyrocketed. It’s likely that he’ll be defeated, and either Yumichika or Kurotsuchi will be able to de-zombify him and bring him back to normal.

How can you have 'eyes filled with emptiness'? Isn't that an oxymoron?

Another point of interest is that he can still use his Shikai (and presumably his Bankai). It’s been established that a Zanpakuto is independent of its wielder, and can choose whether or not to work with them (as seen when Zabimaru chose not to tell Renji its true name). Given that a Zanpakuto doesn’t share a soul with its Soul Reaper, it seems strange that Zombie Hitsugaya can still use his. Furthermore, he had his Zanpakuto hollowfied by Urahara, so shouldn’t that mean that Giselle’s blood would be ineffective?

Really? Because there is overwhelming evidence that you're at least a little bit sadistic.

Good Things:      Zombie Hitsugaya is a major threat.

                            Kurotsuchi’s talks with Charlotte and Giselle.

    Possibility of Yumichika unleashing his Shikai.

Bad Things:        Yumichika and Ikkaku were defeated without a fight…again.

                            No major plot progression.

                                    

Manga Rating:   3/5

I just noticed how similar Hitsugaya looks to Hope Estheim....except Hitsugaya has much less angst.

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, but he doesn’t use it that much. When not playing games or reading, he can be found with his head in his hands whilst trying in vain to understand quantum physics. I will master you if it's the last thing I do, thermodynamics! *shakes fist*.