Bleach Episode 199 Review

The Resurrected Szayel Aporro

Bleach returns this week with Szayel Aporro being eaten by Mayuri’s Bankai. Elsewhere, Rukia regains consciousness, but is told to rest and regain her strength for the battles ahead. On the other hand, Kenpachi and Nnoitra’s battle gets intense when they are level-headed in terms of combat skill.  As Kenpachi is able to effortlessly keep up with Nnoitra, it begins to anger him. Orihime proceeds to heal Ichigo, but is requested by him to heal Nel before him.  Chad has also regained conciousness, thanks to Unohana.

Mayuri’s bankai is then seen chewing on Szayel Aporro.  The poison affects Renji and Ishida as well, even though Ishida has been affected before. Mayuri’s vice-captain, Nemu, is put under stress by Szayel Aporro’s tentacle-like feature. A pink-coloured smoke is extracted from her body, which helps resurrect Szayel Aporro. This is the ability of Gabriel. By absorbing Nemu’s spiritual particles, he is able to resurrect himself. Szayel then states that this is the closest to immortality, and because he cannot be killed, he will defeat Mayuri. Mayuri’s bankai suddenly advances to attack him. When Szayel had been eaten by Mayuri’s bankai, he had fused with its form and taken over its central nervous system. His bankai was now under his control.

Mayuri self-destructs his bankai, which suprises Szayel. Suddenly, Szayel is unable to understand the words that are coming out of Mayuri’s mouth. Everything around him had become slow. Mayuri had kept several drugs inside Nemu, which was ingested into anybody who entered her body. He ingested a “super-human” drug into Szayel’s body. The drug increases all of his senses to the point where his body cannot keep up, immobilizing him. Mayuri then stabs him through the hand before stabbing him in the heart, saying that “he won’t feel the pain for another 100 years.”

Summarizing the review, Bleach continues on its spree of delivering badly presented, boring episodes. This was yet another fight that felt dragged out over 2 episodes when it could have easily ended in one. Where as Bleach is on a low recently, Naruto Shippuuden is raising the bar of Shounen anime. Even though everybody is eagerly waiting to watch what happens with the Nnoitra and Kenpachi fight, the other 2 fights could have at least been a tad bit interesting. But sadly, that’s not how things went and the episodes feel very lacklusture. On a bright note, this episode marks the end of the Mayuri-Szayel fight, so tune in next week to witness the fight of Nnoitra and Kenpachi.

Animation quality was decent, nothing extraordinary. It was nice to see that they had used a lot of music from the first OST, which was pretty kick-ass. The opening theme was lame, presenting clips from the upcoming Bleach movie.

And on that note,

See you next deculture!