Manga - The Other White Meat

Another week in paradise and we have two exciting chapters of Naruto and Bleach this week. In Bleach the results of Gin’s betrayal of Aizen are fully concluded and what seems to be the beginning of the end of this arc is starting. In Naruto the fight to prevent the escape of Kisame, who has been spying on Naruto and Killer Bee for some time, is on. While not new to the series by any stretch, a character who is always good for comedic relief and who hasn’t really played a major role since the beginning of Omnicomic’s manga posts is in the fight.

Both of these chapters make for a good read and rather than delay the recaps what do you say we just hop right in? Next week I’ll have a recommendation for you for another series. I’m actually shocked I’ve been able to come up with as many as I have so far, and I still have several that I enjoyed right off the top of my head.

I guess I watch more anime and read more manga then I thought…

BLEACH

Chapter 416 opens with Gin and Aizen facing off. Gin thought he had won with his surprise betrayal in the last couple of chapters, but Aizen’s power seems to have given him the upperhand. Even the cover of this issue seems to indicate we may finally be entering the last fight of the arc, as some really awesome art of all the iterations of Ichigo’s forms and power increases is shown. In order we see him as: a regular high school kid, a shinigami not knowing the name of his sword, him holding his sword in shikai form, him in bankai form, him in vizard form having mastered (we thought!) his hollow side and finally him as a fully transformed hollow used to defeat Ulquiorra. All we see at the edge of the fame is his foot and a little of his clothing.

The page is maybe one of my favorite pieces of artwork since I’ve been reading the manga.

Oh yeah, the story. This was a great chapter but not much happened. Does that make sense? Matsumoto awakens to start the issue, showing that Gin did not kill her. Unfortunately she can already tell that Gin is in trouble. There is a good reason for that as the next scene shows Aizen pretty much cutting him in half. We get a little more history about the creation of the Hougyoku and its history with Aizen and Urahara Kisuke. In the end Aizen thanks Gin for attacking him because it was the final piece he needed to ascend to a final form. He pretty much looks like an all white butterfly with a hole in his chest and the Hougyoku suspended in the middle. Gin continues to try to fight even though he is beaten leading to the loss of an arm and a sword through the chest. Have you been following our coverage of Berserker? Aizen removes the arm in a way that would make those guys proud.

Gin falls, a building explodes and we find him lying in the rubble. At this point Matsumoto arrives and is in tears over the presumed death of her friend. While we never get a good look at the extent of her and Gin’s relationship, if I had to guess I’d say she loved him. Aizen appears behind her but just before he can crush her to paste with his foot, Ichigo finally arrives. He has a slightly new look but it is hard to tell from the one frame we get in this chapter. Needless to say…he is unhappy with Aizen.

NARUTO

Chapter 506 of Naruto is actually a pretty simple one as well. Simply stated, EVERYONE is trying to fight Kisame to prevent his escape. One of the funniest moments occurs after Lee still thinks that Kisame is his evil side and Bee is hugging the sword Samehada that has betrayed him and is now eating his chakra. The ninja trying to assist are frustrated and ask why all the strong people around are so stupid. Captain Guy specializes in hand to hand combat and opening up internal limiters known as life gates. This allows him to have HUGE surges of power to fight, but also heavily damages his body.

Kisame makes a run for it after absorbing a ton of chakra from Bee, but through a new team effort and another comedic moment involving Guy abusing a summoned turtle (amusing, trust me), the Konoha team leader catches up to the escaping Akatsuki member. Kisame is trying to store information inside a summoned shark to relay his intel to Madara and Guy is forced to try massive area attacks to take out all the sharks. He doesn’t know which one carries the message you see, so he just has to kill them all. After a series of techniques both ninja unleash massive end game jutsu and presumably only one will escape with their life.

Oh yeah, Naruto, after his epic attack last week, apparently broke his ankle kicking a wall too hard. He still has to really get used to using his new speed and power. Once he figures out how to combine the power of the nine-tails fox with his sage power, he’ll pretty much be invincible. Hopefully we’ll get to see that someday.

It was a good week with two good chapters containing lots of action. Let’s hope the trend continues!