Bleach Episode 6: Fight to the Death! Ichigo vs. Ichigo

Comedy ensues when Ichigo is introduced to a strange item from Soul Society and consequently finds his reputation at school endangered because of it. There is no greater conflict than a man at war with himself. Or something like that…

A disquieting tone is set in the beginning with Rukia having problems with her artificial body, or gigai. That quickly evaporates as we have yet another scene of domestic bliss violence at the Kurosaki home.  Rukia isn’t there and that has Ichigo concerned while acting strangely to cover up she lives in his closet. This in turn causes Suzu and Karin to worry over the change of behavior in their older brother and their father starts rhapsodizing on adolescence being the cause. Fortunately for all of us, the afore mentioned violence cuts him short.

Nice to see that the family isn’t written as being oblivious to that something is going on with Ichigo. That’s a trope I despise.

Meanwhile, Rukia shows up at a run down shop where two kids are fighting with each other while doing chores. A glimpse of her big sister tendencies in reaction to bullying by the boy is something that won’t be touched on again for a long time. But the biggest thing to note here is the introduction of the shady owner of the shop. Lazy and unkempt, he appears wearing a hat and traditional wooden shoes.

Rukia knows him and is there to pick up fuel for her gigai.  Their conversation hints at much bigger problems for the wounded Soul Reaper.  A black market shop for items from Soul Society is an intriguing concept and makes Soul Society all the more mysterious. The visit concludes when a special item is retrieved by the bullied little girl for Rukia.

All of this is setup for Rukia introducing Ichigo to “soul candy” at the high school later on. Sounds like drugs, doesn’t it?

So what is soul candy? It is an artificial soul to put in an empty gigai when a Soul Reaper departs it to fight Hollows. This way Ichigo’s body will be occupied and cover for him while he is outside of it. The fact that it is a pill that comes in a disturbingly cutesy PEZ dispenser should be a warning that things won’t work out well.

It seems Rukia has a soft spot for all things cute bunny and the duck is not to her satisfaction, but hey it is black market goods after all. A Hollow attack summons the duo to another fight, leaving the substitute in Ichigo’s body to cover for him. Yeah, that look on his face doesn’t bode well.

Instead of keeping Ichigo out of trouble, the artificial soul starts getting into mischief of all kinds. But it is his discovery of pretty girls, especially busty ones, that causes the biggest trouble. He dares to go where the hero refuses to and macks on Orihime and Tatsuki to the horror of the girls in Ichigo’s class. Pure manic comedy follows.

And so we finally get to the events of the title for the episode. It is an amusing fight because we get to see it from the class’ point of view. All they see is Ichigo’s body kicking empty air and it is played to great effect. But there is a moment at the end of the skirmish that turned it slightly serious as the fear on the kids faces showed when an invisible Ichigo is kicked through the desks to the wall.

A stunned Rukia figures out what is going on and reveals a scandal from Soul Society’s research into creating artificial warriors called “mod souls.” Somehow, one had survived being destroyed and now has control of Ichigo’s body. But more worrying for Ichigo is how his carefully cultivated image has been destroyed. I’m with Rukia in how she reacts to that particular tidbit.

The mod soul is on the loose, happy to be free, and has very, very dangerous anger issues.

Thoughts

Episode 6 of Bleach has a lot going on, but it all feels like setup for more to come. From the introduction of the strange shop owner and his employees to Orihime somehow knowing it wasn’t Ichigo who kissed her, hints about the future storylines are being dropped all over the place. Normally that clutters up a television series episode, but here it works because most of it is played for laughs.

Again I have issues with the English dub. The shop keeper comes off as playful but sinister in the original Japanese performance, but is played as a surfer dude in the dub. It just doesn’t convey the character the same way at all.