Bleach ch401

A play-by-play of my brain during Aizen's lecture

「 401 – Deicide 3 」Aizen’s now claiming that the hougyoku and he are now beginning to understand each other, which means more trouble for Isshin, Ichigo and the rest of the heroes. What sort of problems or transformations will we be seeing now that Aizen is about to use his trump card?

Bleach「 ブリーチ 」

And my reaction to Aizen's plot device

Chapter 401 – Deicide 3
Read Online @ MANGASTREAM

Summary: Aizen continues to ramble on about how the hougyoku embedded into his chest is now finally beginning to understand his will. Isshin doesn’t understand so Aizen explains that the hougyoku actually has a will of its own. Isshin still thinks Aizen’s talking out of his ass but Aizen understands how one without any knowledge of the hougyoku would ever understand it. He asks Isshin whether he knows what its true power is. Seeing as Isshin didn’t respond, Aizen reveals that the hougyoku has the ability to capture and materialize the hearts of everything in its vicinity.

Isshin is obviously shocked by this as Aizen continues to talk about how every single miracle revolving around Ichigo, Rukia and Urahara were directly due to their deepest wishes being granted by the hougyoku. He then explains each of the miracle that occurred around the individual, and how it went about being materialized. The reason Urahara thought that the hougyoku had the ability to blur the boundary between hollow and shinigami is because the hougyoku materialized his desire. He continues to add that Orihime and Chad only gained their abnormal abilities due to the helplessness they felt deep within their hearts.

Aizen is the only one who understood its true power as he discovered it for himself through experimentations with Shinji and the Vaizards. Due to this, he knows that the blurring of the boundary was not its true ability and with this theory in hand, he sent Rukia to Ichigo on that fateful night to test out its powers once more. There were still limitations to the stones power however, as it will only work if the subject its working its magic on has a strong enough desire in their heart. As Isshin gets enraged further, in comes Ichigo flying into a nearby building as he somehow manages to block against Gin’s superspeed bankai. Gin asks if he had accidentally interrupted Aizen’s speech but he denies it, saying that he is done as the hougyoku releases streams of light from Aizen’s chest. As this happens, Isshin and Ichigo are again busy arguing over what the hell is happening but Aizen interrupts by remarking how appropriate the hougyoku’s name is, given how it has the ability to destroy the horizon where the divine and earthly meet. Shockingly though, a single beam of light pierces through Aizen’s chest, although he himself is not all that surprised as he realizes that Urahara had finally shown himself.

My Thoughts: Waaaaaa finally! Urahara has finally arrived after god knows how long and where there is Urahara, Yoruichi is not far behind. Thank god for his arrival too, as I was getting really tired of all this gibberish nonsense that Aizen was spouting off. All these long-winded speeches may be cool in villain school, but it doesn’t really make me all giddy and excited for the chapter. Thank god Urahara came over to spoil the party (or to a lesser extent, Ichigo flying in and providing this chapter with a more upbeat and comedic vibe). As for the stone itself, it is definitely a very nifty little plot device that Kubo has come up with. Not only does it manage to explain all the miraculous coincidences in the series and wrap it neatly in a small package, it also manages to make Aizen even more snot-nosed and arrogant than ever before. As a villain, having a moment where everything falls into place (ie the hougyoku finally understanding his black heart) is a momentous occasion and kudos to him for milking the moment up with a lecture worthy of my building econ lecturer. That said, it did seem a bit long and I was as confused during the whole thing as Isshin was. Honestly, I had to reread his lecture over and over again just to get the gist of it (and reading it again and again does not help my enthusiasm for this chapter).

Anywho, rants aside this whole wish-granting thing does raise some interesting thoughts. For one, this means that Aizen can pretty much do anything he wants. For example, take his already insanely overpowered genjutsu/shikai. If one were to be caught up in it, they would have their brains and thoughts manipulated into thinking it were real. Well, think about this. What if the hougyoku manages to materialize whatever Aizen wants in his illusions to be reality. What we have here is pretty much the evolution of Bleach’s own sharingan (shikai) into it’s own take on the Tsukuyomi mangekyou (illusion = reality). This is Aizen’s world, we’re all just living in it. While this does seem to make him pretty much invincible, if there’s one person who will be able to one-up him in a battle of wits, it would be Urahara. With his introduction, we will be getting plenty more cunning little moments (not to mention more comedic fodder for the Kurosaki duo to work off). Worse comes to worse, Yoruichi will intrude to help buy more time.

Bah, I’m tired of thinking up possible theories that Kubo may or may not use. No matter what I think, it’s never really close to reality anyways (as Aizen would want it). To end this post on a lighter note, I’d like to bring up the fact that Aizen had initially said that the hougyoku had a will of its own. This got me thinking of the possibilities of the hougyoku being the final boss in Bleach. What if huh? It will grow self aware and takeover Aizen’s body and become it’s own sentient being. HAH! This is not out of Kubo’s realm of thought and knowing how much he loves his plot twists (Kubo = M.Night Shyamalan), it’s a possibility. I can totally see Ichigo fighting a giant rock with Aizen’s head sticking up from the top, giving even more long-winded lectures about how awesome it is to finally become evolved. That would probably improve Bleach as a whole…..

/ 7 Commentsleave a comment /

• Mint says:

  April 25, 2010

  Ahaha I have no idea what is going on in Bleach either. The hougyoku as a final boss would be awesome, though! And Aizen's powers are just way too overpowered to be normal. Perhaps there is an explanation for it, along with all the other crazy revelations Tite's throwing at us. Maybe the hougyoku has been controlling Aizen all along *still hasn't gotten over that SS arc plot twist* ;A;

  Urahara's entrance kind of reminded me of Isshin's a few chapters back. Hopefully some more exciting stuff will happen now that he's back, eh?

  Reply
• XTJ says:

  April 25, 2010

  I'm thinking Ichigo might be able to use the Hougyoku against Aizen, since the Hougyoku doesn't necessarily follow the wishes of one person but of the people around it (supposedly). Maybe if Ichigo wishes hard enough, he can turn Aizen into a kitten or something lol.
  My recent post Bleach 401

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• Mint says:

  April 25, 2010

  Ahaha I have no idea what is going on in Bleach either. The hougyoku as a final boss would be awesome, though! And Aizen's powers are just way too overpowered to be normal. Perhaps there is an explanation for it, along with all the other crazy revelations Tite's throwing at us. Maybe the hougyoku has been controlling Aizen all along *still hasn't gotten over that SS arc plot twist* ;A;

  Urahara's entrance kind of reminded me of Isshin's a few chapters back. Hopefully some more exciting stuff will happen now that he's back, eh?

  Reply
• Flags says:

  April 25, 2010

  I wonder if Ishida's dead yet……………I hope so……………..

  Reply
• Benny says:

  April 25, 2010

  Gin was pretty close to hitting Aizen there eh?….

  Nevermind Yoruichi, the introduction of Urahara means we might get Tatsuki, Keigo and…….the other one, within the next year!

  Reply
• Hellomotto says:

  April 27, 2010

  I like bleach through and through (aside from some boring arcs), but this is getting a bit ridiculous. It's as though Tite Kuboi is running out of things to surprise the reader and has to forcefully pull these surprises out of his ass.

  On the other hand, I'm liking that Kisuke's finally shown up. Man, he's such a…man.
  My recent post Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood 54

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• Velore says:

  May 2, 2010

  It's getting so incredibly dumb that I can't believe it.

  And thinking of new theories is indeed hopeless, who knows, maybe Bleach is Aizen's illusion and we're reading Naruto Shippuuden and Aizen is truly Madara.

  Wait .. Uh..

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