Gentlemen, this was the first Bleach fight that I not only immensely enjoyed but actually couldn’t stop reading. This fight gave me hope that Titty is actually capable of entertaining me and telling a good story.
First off, Captain 12 was a great antagonist. He was so weird, sadistic, and intimidating in all the right ways. The reveal that he experimented on Uryu’s grandfather, I was like “oh shit this fight is going to get real lol”, and indeed it did. Plus the first actual Bankai I’ve seen used by Captain 12, I feel was a great reveal to the power itself. I was like “the fuck is that???!!” Lol, and even though it got one shot I still feel that Kubo got the message across: that Bankai are overwhelmingly powerful abilities.
Second, Uryu as a POV character >>>>>> Ichigod, dear lord I can’t express how much better Uryu was for me. Firstly, Uryu actually had a relateable motive in this fight, fighting for his grandfather’s honor. Whereas in Ichigod vs Kenpachi, Ichigod’s motive was simply getting a bit weirdly attached to his weapon lol. Second, Uryu gained explosive power but I feel this worked much better than with Ichigod. For one, Uryu actually trains and has been a Quincy for longer than a damn week, in fact he seems to have received Quincy training for pretty much all of his life. Second, Uryu gaining explosive power at the cost of his Quincy powers (although I doubt he’ll lose his powers for good) works much better than simply Ichigod gaining unlimited powa for no fucking reason at all, because with Uryu there was a very real and very severe plot effecting consequence to this power.
Uryu vs Captain 12 completely and utterly took an epic shit on Ichigod vs Kenpachi in just about every way for me.
Some other thoughts: RUkia being the one who killed Ganju’s brother was a superb twist, I genuinely did not see that coming at all and felt like an idiot when it was revealed. Rare giga-writing moment from the same guy who wrote a fight about Ichigod getting emotionally attached to a sword.
And finally, Bankai. I think my eyes rolled a full circle in the back of my head when I read that Ichigo was going to unlock a power up that takes even talented soul reapers a decade to obtain, in 3 damn days lmfaooo, I was like “fucking Titty man, this guy can’t get anything with Ichigod right…” but at this point Ichigod is just a complete meme so fuck it, why not I guess.
Finally Bleach got actually good. Onto the next one.