Manga – The Other White Meat

I’m working under a tight schedule this week so lets get right into it shall we? Last week we left off with the suspected end to the fight with Killer Bee and Kisame, unless he used some weird cheating death ninjitsu in Naruto. In Bleach Ichigo is on his way back to the real world to assist in the fight and a couple of new battles seem to be underway. Shinji is fighting with Aizen while former captain Tosen goes up against his former vice captain Hisagi and former friend Captain Komamura. What will happen in these fights? Read on to see the reviewcap… BLEACH In Chapter 384 we open with Tosen facing off against his former mentee and his former friend. Tosen turns into a Vizard and has apparently permitted himself to undergo the hollowfication process. His outfit is one of a full mask covering his whole face, appropriate from a captain that is blind and has no need to see. He is dressed almost completely in white and actually looks pretty badass. As the fight begins Tosen completely overpowers Hisagi and Komamura. At one point when Tosen lets his guard down while fighting Komamura, Hisagi manages to land a hit on him, but in the middle of some righteous speech Tosen pretty much rips him apart. We get some flashback information about the past and how Tosen mentored Hisagi into being the fighter he wants to be, but in the end it doesn’t matter. After Hisagi goes down Komamura is enraged and uses his bankai to fight back. This fight is interesting but it encompassed the entire chapter so not much else happened. Hisagi had a few cool moments, but for the most part is severely outmatched by Tosen. We’ve already seen a few captains handle pretty effectively the resurrection form of the espada, so we’ll have to see if the captain’s bankai can battle with a former captain’s vizard form. I really hope the answer is no, not because I want the “bad guys” to win, but because from a consistency standpoint it would seem ridiculous for a captain with new powers to lose to a captain without new powers. Oh well…we’ll see what happens. NARUTO In Chapter 474 the fight between Killer Bee and Kisame has ended, and Sai has gone to Naruto to tell him the truth. After a lot of discussion and feelings and other crap that Sakura always brings to the table, Sai says that Sakura is probably going to attempt to kill Sasuke. We won’t discuss how stupid that sounds given how powerful he has become, but there you go, that’s the plan. She loves Sasuke, so she feels that she needs to kill him herself. She feels that she has put too much of the burden on Naruto for her whole life (true story), blah blah blah. Lots of setup here but honestly nothing exciting. After that discussion Gaara shows up to discuss the alliance. He lets Naruto know that if he truly wants to be Hokage he has to make this decision. Standing against the alliance is wrong, and the time to defend Sasuke has past. Attacking the Kage at the summit sealed his face. Gaara will destroy Sasuke if they meet, and he respects Naruto as a former jinchuuriki himself, but it is the only way. Meanwhile far away, a battle between Madara and the Hokage has broken out. It appears that Danzo, the Hokage, has a metal arm of some kind that he is about to release in the fight. The second paragraph was the lesser part of this chapter, but definitely the more interesting. Whenever Sakura and her feelings get involved I start to fall asleep. Oh well…next chapter looks like it’ll be awesome. Danzo and Madara fighting should be a truly epic battle. See you then!

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