Bleach Episode 5: Beat the Invisible Enemy!

Mix a possessed parakeet and ridiculous feats of strength with a vicious monster and you should get your standard fun action episode, right?  But this spotlight on Chad and Rukia turns into something a little more poignant before it ends.

After a quick recap that condenses Rukia’s fight with the Hollow…

I should warn that Bleach suffers from recaps at the beginning of most episodes and eventually became notorious for eating up minutes of time on them. At this point in the series it isn’t a big problem, but be warned. Fortunately, DVD players have fast forward buttons!

Err, back to the episode itself. Rukia is still fighting the Hollow pursuing the parakeet that houses the soul of a little boy, Shibata. Hoping that her Soul Reaper powers have recovered enough turns out to be a mistake. Luckily for her, Ichigo’s overgrown friend, Chad, is around to punch the monster out. Unluckily, he can’t see or hear the Hollow and is punching air more than anything solid.

Meanwhile, Ichigo is racing back to the scene after taking his sister Karin back home. He’s deeply rattled by her crying over the parakeet because she hasn’t done that since their mother died. It is clear the wounds from that death are still very deep. The focus on the Kurosaki family lends surprising depth to what should be just a hack and slash fighting cartoon.

Last episode, Chad showed superhuman strength and an ability to take insane damage when a steel girder fell on him. That was no fluke as he rips out a telephone pole to swat the now flying Hollow!  Just what is he?

The Hollow is just as surprised, exclaiming, “T-this is crazy!” It is an amusing moment in a fight that is darkly comedic before turning very dark indeed.

Moments later, we see a nod to the X-Men as Chad stands in for Colossus throwing a “fastball special” with Rukia subbing for Wolverine. I don’t know if this was a deliberate homage, but it is suspicious given some comments in an upcoming episode.

The heroes don’t fare too well and it takes Ichigo to save the day which is pretty much standard anime fare. The substitute Soul Reaper is acting oddly though. Instead of killing the sadistic Hollow, he angrily interrogates him at sword point demanding to know if he killed the boy’s mother.

The answers given take Bleach into much darker territory than it has explored previously. It also raises questions about the afterlife in this fictional universe and Ichigo shows signs of being a much more complicated young man than we thought. Both brutality and compassion follow, leading to another bittersweet ending.

Thoughts

Watching these older episodes has caused me to notice how young the characters look. Three hundred plus episodes later they look older, which isn’t a bad thing at all. It gives a sense that time does pass and in real life I can’t believe how fast kids grow, especially the teenagers.

One thing Kubo Tite, the creator of Bleach, doesn’t get credit for is how well he weaves themes through the story arcs. While he’s on record saying he makes it all up as he goes, I’m beginning to think he’s dissembling. Too many plot developments have hints or setups dropped in that don’t pay off until much farther down the road.

A strong sense of justice and compassion pervades these early episodes. The characters all have very human moments amidst all the violence and comedy. Consequently, I found myself expecting character development to come whenever a new one popped up.

The theme of Ichigo being good with kids and a natural big brother to them is reinforced in this episode.

Technical

Since this is the first episode on Disc 2 of the first box set, I’ll go into the differences from the first disc. Other than the episodes and title screen, there aren’t any. Even the extras are the same.

The English dub is even more annoying compared to the subtitled Japanese than I’d realized. Chibata, the parakeet, suffers the most from the change in voice actors. I’m also noticing the dialogue changes are bigger than I’d like.

While I’d hoped to be able to review two episodes at a time, it isn’t working out due to how elements of the plot are carried over week to week. Back to one episode at a time.

BEWARE! HERE BE SPOILERS!

 

 

 

Ichigo’s reaction to finding out that the Hollow was the murderer of the little boy’s mother is more than normal outrage. He’s as sadistic in brutalizing the monster as the former serial killer was to his victims. Knowing what happens in the next few episodes, this parakeet two-parter was really about Ichigo and his family. A lot of clues are being dropped about the tragedy that shaped the teen.

Previously, we’d been shown that Hollows aren’t necessarily truly evil and that slicing their mask will purify them so they can go to Soul Society. Here we find out that isn’t the case for those who were evil in mortality. They are taken violently and painfully through the Gates to the Underworld, or Hell. This idea won’t be revisited until the fourth Bleach movie.

Chibata’s departure to Soul Society is a touching scene, with him behaving like a little child would. Both Chad and Ichigo score big brother points in handling the traumatized boy. Each makes a promise to him that helps him move on, but Ichigo’s is unknowingly a lie. We’ll see Chibata again.