Well I'm finally feeling like I'm ready to rejoin normal society again. 70 hours are killing my ability to be able to post things. But anyway, I don't know why I haven't been posting my Bleach recaps like I always did. So I'm going to try to restart that previous tradition that I had. The quick check up is that we are in the Bount Arc on Adult Swim and are starting to see things really start to heat up.

This episode picks up where they left off from the last episode. Ichigo and Renji exit out of the hospital only to find that it is raining outside making it a little difficult to get Uryu away from the Bounts hunting them down. The dolls that they use seem to be fairly powerful to be making fools of Ichigo. But I find their straight forward approach to everything in the episode and last episode a little annoying. I know Uryu is the brains, but you have Rukia and Renji, alright Rukia. She has to come up with something better than firing kido spells at it endlessly. And why isn't she doing her Shinigami thing like Renji.

Anyway, they are obviously cornered by the Bounts and the water dolls that have them blocked. Ichigo, Renji and Rukia do the brave thing and try to hold off the Bounts long enough for Uryu to escape with Chad and Orihime. Ichigo's group is caught really quickly in a manner that seemed so obvious that they should have done it the last episode to everyone and ended. They did it to like one person at a time. But I guess I understand that they were just playing with them and now they were serious. Still seems like they were just needless dragging out the fight.

Once the Bounts realize that Uryu is too far away now Ichigo's group is released and able to breath again. And now we finally get to see Chad do something other run around. I've been feeling like he has been pretty useless especially after he was unfortunately put up against a captain shinigami that so completely defeated him that Chad never stood a chance. Chad actually seems like he has an even fight with these two if it was not for the fact of their water always reforming. He even ends up knocking them down. The Bounts themselves seem pretty weak leaving everything up to their dolls to do the work.

Chad manages to knock down the Bount long enough to give them the time to escape again. Now we flash back to Ichigo where he suddenly has the plot necessary realization of the two Bounts weakness so that they can end the fight this episode. Seeing that they continue to make out Ichigo as been an idiot in strategy and tactics this seems like a strange thing to be coming from him. I would have expected it from Renji or Rukia rather than Ichigo.

They all finally met back up with everyone in a building for the final showdown between the twins and Ichigo's very large group of apparently weak individuals. Oh well, teamwork is not really their strong point, as Urahara made a point to them at the beginning of this arc. Anyway, Uryu is caught and they are holding him hostage to keep the others back. This seems a little strange since they should already know that they can't afford to have him killed since a Quincy is important to their plans. And seeing as he is the "last" Quincy they can't exactly kill him. But they don't see that as a point and are caught in a way that was finally cool to watch and different.

They push water into all of their bodies allowing them to control the water inside their bodies and thus building up the pressure or whatever inside them until it kills them. It was actually a pretty intelligent use of their powers and the first thing that I really got behind from these last two episodes. At that point things went better with the guy that can make portals separating the twins from the other knocking him unconscious leaving the other to fight alone.

At this point Ichigo and company are freed from the hold that was on them and they start fighting pointlessly again. For a moment I thought that Rukia missing was going to serve some purpose since she was always an intelligent and smart fighter. But it ends up being nothing as Ganju and Hanataro appear to save the day. Ganju pretty much accidentally wins, though they make it seem like it was done on purpose. His fireworks explode the water and conveniently burn up the caps that were the real dolls. At which point the Bounts die as Rukia reveals to the audience and everyone that once the dolls die the Bounts die as well since they are all well past their normal lifespan.

And yet none of them realize to the very end that the caps were the real target that they should have been going after the entire time. It was just by sheer cinematic chance/luck that Ganju killed them. If Ichigo or Rukia was thinking they could have killed them quickly.

And now Uryu is walking on his own away from the others. The Bounts are all gathered now as well apparently. So the storm is coming and everything is coming to a head I guess. I'm hoping for some better fights as it has been a little disappointing so far.

On another note, I've finally caught up with the manga that has been released in the US. Which is at volume 23 with the arrival of the Arrancar to Karakura Town and everyone having to fight their own Arrancar. I can't wait to see it in motion on TV. The fights that I have read so far are looking pretty amazing and I got to see more of Rukia's Zanpukto in action. It was also hilarious to see the shinigami showing up at Ichigo's school like that.

I also got the first season of Bleach as they are calling it. I don't really think it is the full season, but it is the first 20 episodes covering the Karakura Arc of Bleach and Ichigo becoming a true shinigami without the powers of Rukia inside him.

On the note of Rukia, she almost immediately goes into her shinigami form in the Arrancar Arc when she arrives, but in the Bount Arc all she has been doing is kido attacks. They were fighting a water doll, her Ice Zanpukto would have stopped them so fast they would have not had anything that they could do against them. But she does nothing and just sits on their hands letting them all almost get killed a couple of times. Rukia really could have saved them in that fight, but refused and played the idiot.