Bleach ch398

That's some tough lovin'

「 398 – Back From Blind 」Isshin appears out of nowhere to save the day (and Ichigo’s head). With his dad now in the mix, seemingly out of the blue, how will Ichigo react? His mental strength must be wavering at this point and the news of his dad being a shinigami might have negative repercussions. How will he cope?

Bleach「 ブリーチ 」

Obviously Isshin failed to teach Ichigo some manners as a child

Chapter 398 – Back From Blind
Read Online @ MANGASTREAM

Summary: In Ichigo’s mind, he starts to mull over what Aizen had revealed. He was thinking what the rest of his sentence was. Aizen started to say that he was a human and something else but he didn’t get to finish his sentence. Deep down however it seems like he knows the answer to the question but before his mind wanders further, he snaps back into reality as he is puzzled by how his father had suddenly appeared out of thin air to enter the battle. As he starts to blurt out a question, Isshin promptly headbutts his son in typical fashion and instantly teleports away to provide distance between them and Aizen.

With the two a safe distance away from Aizen, they start to discuss what had happened although Ichigo is still confused over the whole thing. He doesn’t ask any questions however, as he knows from past experience that there will be an appropriate time when the facts will be revealed. He doesn’t need any answers now and he is willing to wait until that time comes when his father is ready to reveal it to him. He then promptly thanks his dad for giving him that hit, since it managed to shake off his bad joojoo and is now calmer than ever.

Back with Aizen, Gin finally reveals himself as Aizen asks why he’s been freely staying by the sidelines lately. Gin answers that he just didn’t find a decent enough opening for him to intrude but before he manages to talk further, Ichigo appears from behind and attacks him. At the same time, Isshin too appears behind Aizen and strikes him, although both attacks were easily blocked. Isshin manages to get a further hit in however, as with a flick of a finger he successfully blasts Aizen away from Gin and Ichigo to provide space for the two battles. The chapter ends with Gin revealing to Ichigo that he has no intentions of holding back in the fight, as he immediately calls out his bankai to quickly finish the battle.

Bass’ Thoughts: Lol it seemed like last week I made my review with a key page missing, the page where Aizen started to talk about how Ichigo was both a shinigami and a ____. That would have explained a lot of things since the chapter I downloaded was missing the page. Now everything makes sense especially given how this chapter started. Anyways, I love how Isshin managed to cut the tension of the whole situation. His whole comedic routine was very timely and probably very much needed for Ichigo. Like Ichigo himself said, it managed to pull his head together and god knows how much he will need it in the upcoming fights.

Anyways, since Isshin stopped short of explaining how his powers came to be, we will probably not see an explanation until we cut back to his fight with Aizen. With Ichigo now face to face with Gin, it might be a while still. I really want to know the story behind all this but I think at the moment Gin’s bankai will probably take center stage. I wonder what it looks like. I’m not the biggest of Bleach fans so I can’t remember all the minute little details. I can’t even remember what his shikai was. Either way, I hope it’s nothing as stupid as Tosen’s was, since that was just borderline batshit. I’m hoping for a cool weapon or something, and not a ridiculous mutation transformation (which I doubt unless Gin was stupid enough to hollofy himself too).

As for the big reveal, I hope Gin will somehow blurt something to Ichigo about Isshin, since it seems like the right tactic in order to get into his head. Who knows, maybe the revelation of his birth (you can check out my ridiculous theories in last week’s bleach) will forever screw up his head. He tries to act all mature and all and channel Rukia during his little speech to his dad but inside that head of his, he is probably still trying to guess what Aizen meant (he’s half hollow!)

I can’t help but think though that Aizen will SLAUGHTER Isshin and we will either get the secrets spilled by Aizen once Isshin is dead, or when Isshin reveals the secrets on his deathbed. I think Isshin is not that weak though so we’ll see what happens. Who knows, maybe Gin will wipe the floor with Ichigo and force Isshin to lower his guard enough for Aizen to take the final hit. I hope this doesn’t happen (although it would be AWESOME) and I hope the Gin fight will be the stage where Ichigo masters his Super Vaizard 2 transformation.

2Shea’s Thoughts: Well, this chapter went almost exactly how I expected it. Not to say that it is a bad thing that it did, but it was fairly predictable in that sense. But besides that, it was a nice chapter to have. Seeing things continuing to move is great, and I really hope that we keep up this pace. Isshin and Ichigo in battle together…. I’m sure this really makes some fans happy. Ichigo showed a bit of…mature-ness? in not going on about his dad. I sort of expected a bit more, and I honestly wonder if Kubo just did this as to not have to explain the whole situation right now.

While this chapter was good, and it is good to see things moving forward, hardly anything happened at all. If this had been an anime episode, it would have taken up the equivalent of 3-5 minutes; minus long drawn out pauses and extremely slow panning to character’s faces. This has been my major gripe with Bleach as of late, and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. I hope that we continue to get new developments in the coming chapters, but please god let things speed up a bit!

/ 6 Commentsleave a comment /

• Kabitzin says:

  April 4, 2010

  I kinda liked the Isshin-Ichigo conversation, since Ichigo didn't get all emo or anything. I'm sure we'll get a flashback chapter when appropriate.
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  • Bass says:

    April 4, 2010

    Yea, I'm surprised he was even able to remember that far back when Rukia gave him the same treatment.

    I'm just intrigued to see what Gin's bankai looks like :D
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• blindability says:

  April 8, 2010

  Oooh I'm excited to see Gin's bankai. He's definitely one of my favourite characters and considering how strong of a fighter he is I'm interested in seeing what more of an edge he'll gain. (I'm also wondering if he's going to have a Hollow form, considering what happened to Tousen…)

  Reply
  • Bass says:

    April 8, 2010

    Funny you should say that, since the bankai just got revealed in the new release literally 5 minutes ago XD
    http://mangastream.com/read/bleach/399-100/1

    I'll post up my thoughts on it soon :P
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• blindability says:

  April 8, 2010

  Yeah I was noticing that you had Naruto up already and normally I use onemanga and not mangastream, but I might just switch now, haha.
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  • Bass says:

    April 8, 2010

    They're really fast with their Bleach, DGM and Naruto scans. They're also looking to add Bakuman to their list, so it covers all my bases lol.

    And oh, just released the latest thoughts on Bleach. It went faster than I thought :P
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