Bleach 421 is out

[qwirky.livejournal.com]

Bleach 421 is out at Mangastream.

As always: Don't go tweeting to Kubo about this chapter until Monday, and if you want to tweet him 'bout something else, then don't use art from this chapter in your icon.





The color spread is pretty but... but... Ichigooooooo. ;_; ;_; ;_; ;_; ;_; Waaaaaah. Ichigooooo. T_T T_T T_T *cries for him*

"Farewell, Ichigo" <-- The ;_; began at that point. (Oh, and Zangetsu has blue eyes behind the shades.)

Ichigo's faces during this chapter. ;_; ;_; Someone needs to give him a hug. Someone other than Aizen, anyway.

Aizen's frothing at the mouth, even at the end of the line. 'I'm a winner, you're a loser, blah blah, let me say more things that are totally wrong and that I made up.' Okay. At least he loses some of his freaky features and goes back to relatively normal-looking.

Uraharaaaaaa. So he outplayed Aizen this round. Not that it was hard, what with Aizen becoming unhinged, both due to his super annoying arrogance and his eroding humanity/sanity/intelligence due to the hougyoku. But as others said in the spoiler thread, sealing a villain is never a good thing - they tend to become unsealed at a future point.

Apparently Urahara did know much more about the hougyoku than he let on, if he was able to predict that the hougyoku would no longer think of Aizen as his master once Aizen weakened. It's okay, hobaby, go back to mama Rukia. But it looks like the hougyoku is being sealed WITH Aizen? I wonder how that'll work out. (My Feeling: Not well.)

So the Spirit King keeps the spirit world together? Hmmmmm. Guess we'll learn more about that in the next arc. Aizen: 'Graaah, why do you listen to that "thing"!' <-- Why the venom, Aizen?

Ichigo looks away at the end as Aizen's being sealed. I wonder if it was because Aizen's rantings became too embarrassing or difficult to handle, coupled with Ichigo's exhaustion; or if Aizen's words that winners think not of how the world is, but how it should be, reminded Ichigo that he's lost his shinigami powers. We saw in the prequel chapters that Ichigo longed for the power to crush destiny; now he no longer possesses that power. Ichigo... ;_;

Comments

[lennan.livejournal.com]

Wow, so Urahara looked both pitying as well as wore the same sort of expression that he had when talking to Mayuri about giving him everything after he died. That was...odd. Well, actually this entire chapter has left me with an odd feeling, mostly of wonder at what's going to happen next and dread. Which is, I'm basically at square one with Urahara, I'm really not sure what he wants or where he stands really.

Honestly, I'm not so sure that Aizen had great moral motives for this, I'm with qwirky that the dude's basically out for himself. It strikes me more as pride than anything, he thinks he's better than the Spirit King, and if it's nothing more than an insane monster...well, of course someone with supreme confidence in his abilities and intellect would believe himself better than the spirit king. But seeing as he's been behaving as a monster for years on end, I really can't say that, whatever horror the king might be, that Aizen would be any better. So yeah, I can't say I pity Aizen. Plus, his motives can't erase over 100 hundred years of deliberately hurting people and laughing at them to achieve his ends.

But poor Ichigo. Even in all your pain, you're still such a sweet boy. Looking away from Aizen like that...you're a much kinder person than me.

[secila80.livejournal.com]

I am with you on Urahara's expressions being unsettling. The only thing I feel certain about him is that he has absolutely no ambition (or at least I thought I felt certain about that).

[(Anonymous)]

Well, Urahara's character was fleshed out more in terms of his apparent resignation to the spirit king and his passive attitude toward challenging the status quo. I mean when he was banished for creating the hogyoku in the first place (false charges aside) he practically created an alternative means for hollowfication a la the shattered shaft, and forever altered ichigo's life when he threw him down there during the second 'test'. Now that I've seen this chapter Ichigo's entire training session with him was like a series of lab tests, just like Aizen conducted 'tests' for his hollowfication research. As I recall he wore an indifferent expression the entire time except when Ichigo miraculously escaped from the shaft.

However, I do like the idea of Aizen attempting to better the SS by killing the Spirit King even though he applied horrific methods for doing so. The fact Kubo hasn't revealed his background, raises more questions like where he really came from , who was his family, etc. His question to Urahara allowing that 'thing' control him was ominous and I've got a feeling we haven't seen the last of him yet.

As for Ichigo the psychological and physical breakdown's are gonna be rough to watch but he needs to reevaluate his priorities and eventually gain his powers back but that's going to take a while and hopefully his friends get the opportunity for their characters and abilities to grow.

Whew, long post is long!