Bleach episode 167 review

This is it. Ichigo vs. Grimmjow for all the marbles in the Wako Mundo arc. Oh, speaking of that arc...

"In order to save Orihime, who was kidnapped by Sosuke Aizen, Ichigo and his friends snuck into Wako Mundo, infiltrated Aizen's fortress, known as Las Noches." Seems like an "and" was missing there, but that may be because of the herky-jerk broadcast of this episode, with more freezes than a Windows operating system. It's that stupid digital TV crap. Before we switched over to digital, this crap never happened. Now it happens all the time. The TV freezes in the middle of a play in a football game. The TV freezes in the middle of a fight. It's nutty. I hate it. Let's go back to analog if it's going to be like this.

After another obnoxiously long recap, Ichigo goes back to fighting Grimmjow, but Grimmjow's got him beat. He slices and dices his way to a big hit, which causes blood to fill the screen. Honestly, if there's that much blood, either Ichigo's had dozens of people donate blood to him and he's got plenty to spare, or... oh, I was about to say something about it not being realistic. I guess I'm just repeating the fact that Bleach is fiction in that case.

But we interrupt this episode for an important announcement from the absolutely grating narrator: Hollows are nasty. They eat each other and become bigger, and then they eat bigger Hollows. I felt like I was watching a National Geographic special when this part of the episode came on. In fact, I was ready to write off this part as being one of the stupidest things in the history of Bleach (and there are a lot), but at the end, it turned out that this was a biography of Grimmjow. Now, I'm pretty used to Survivor, where when a player is going to get voted off, they tend to get a lot of attention in the episode, sometimes having a flashback of all their moments. Survivor used to do that when it was painfully obvious that someone was being voted out; now they're a little more subtle, but not really for us long-time watchers. So if you don't realize Grimmjow's going to lose this battle by now, you need to go to another medium. I don't know, books? Or are they as predictable as TV, too?

Anyway, back to the battle, where Grimmjow's beaten up on Ichigo a lot, and it looks bad for Ichigo. Then, on cue, it's the "Rocky" moment. Just call him Rocky Kurosaki. His theme music comes on (a "Number One" instrumental remix), and all of a sudden he's got all the power in Wako Mundo. He takes out his zanpakuto and just slices right through Grimmjow's attack, all the while saying the reason he came here. To fight Grimmjow... wait, also to fight Ulquiorra... oh, also to fight Sosuke Aizen... and also to bring back Rukia... not to mention Chad... also Uryu... don't forget Renji... and Orihime. So basically the reason he came here was eight reasons. Make up your mind, Ichigo.

Then in easily predictable fashion, Ichigo stabs Grimmjow, and that's it. Battle over. Grimmjow goes down with no resistance. Maybe he used all his strength trying to wipe out Ichigo that he had none left at this point. Whatever the reason, he goes down, and Ichigo has won.

Before we get to the good stuff, let's pick this apart. First of all, Ichigo just lets Grimmjow go. Why would you do that, if you supposedly came here to beat him so bad? If you're willing to slice someone with a sword, you better be ready to kill them. But like Obi-Wan Kenobi in Episode III, he just lets his prey go. That led to Obi-Wan's death in Episode IV, not killing Anakin when he had the chance. Of course since no good guy ever dies in Bleach, we know that won't happen to Ichigo.

Second, if Grimmjow isn't fully dead, he isn't dead at all. Back to the "no one ever dies in Bleach" rule, because apparently it looks like they just fought this battle for nothing. How much do you want to bet that in the future, they battle each other? That's actually a real question for once, not a rhetorical one which I already know the answer to thanks to spoilers.

Third, while this battle was probably the best in Wako Mundo, that's not saying much. It also was not as good as any battle back in the Soul Society. It was rather pathetic by comparison; Grimmjow goes all-out on Ichigo, Ichigo bleeds, then Ichigo gets serious and the music plays and he wipes out Grimmjow. There was a little more to it, but the previous episode was clearly inconsequential. Not really that great, really.

Finally, why the heck is Grimmjow so popular? He's ranked 4th among Bleach characters? You've got to be kidding. This guy is nothing but a cheap rip-off of Kenpachi, and he didn't even last that long. He didn't even have any backstory until this episode, and even it was pretty dull. What did he do besides fight Ichigo? Lose his arm, then get it back, and quickly kill Luppi. That was it. There was nothing else interesting about him. For crying out loud, even stupid Kaien Shiba was a more developed character than Grimmjow. Grimmjow may very well be the most overrated character in Bleach. Yes, he's got a war for that position, because there are a lot of contenders for it, but he's certainly in the running for it.

Okay, so time for the episode to redeem itself. Ichigo asks if Orihime is okay, in a pretty romantic scene. And after Nel celebrates, Ichigo takes Orihime's hand, and they look off into the sunset... wait a minute, aren't we in Wako Mundo? As in, Dark Land? I forgot to mention this a while back, but the reason it's sunny has nothing to do with Aizen, it has to do with lazy illustrators. Nice IchiHime to finish the arc.

And what an arc it was. From a caricature of Spanish people to Rukia's cheap win over Arroniero to Nel's pals reaching modsoul quality to an obvious Grimmjow loss, it was the arc that broke the camel's back. No more can I count on Bleach for captivating television - and yes, at one time, it was a truly good anime. Now it's run out of gas. I really hate to see where this series is going to be 100 episodes from now, it may very well be a caricature of itself, sort of like Pokemon. But I'll be along for the ride, as dull as it may be.
Episode rating (out of four stars): *1/2