English Dub Review: Bleach Episode 350

I know I can’t be the only one who is hoping Orihime wins the Death Lottery.

Spoilers below!

I will never get why Kubo decides to put the last 3 minutes of the last episode as the intro for this episode. After our last episode recap, Chad and Ichigo are racing to where they think Orihime is. Chad’s spiritual GPS (it’s not the right name, but let’s call a spade a spade here) can’t get an exact read on where she is, but they’re going the right direction. Ichigo goes to call Orihime, but Chad stops him, saying it could be a distraction. Tsukishima tells Orihime that her kindness is overused and will never make it into any book.

Orihime does her best badass impression, and stands up to Tsukishima. Tsukishima then turns around to leave, but Orihime uses her Santen Keshun. All that gets is a slash from Tsukishima from behind. Chad and Ichigo show up and find Orihime kneeling on the ground, trying to comprehend what was going on. The attack didn’t cut, or make her bleed, so she’s confused. She lies to them, but Chad calls her out on it. She has no idea why she is calling Tsukishima her friend, since he killed Uryu.

Chad and Ichigo has no idea how to take this, but Chad believes that it was because Orihime doesn’t want Ichigo in a fight. At Xcution HQ, Kugo is getting silly drunk. So much so, that Giriko cuts him off. Kugo’s phone rings, and it’s Ichigo. Kugo let Ichigo in, and he wants to know what Chad and Orihime aren’t telling him. Xcution tells Ichigo it may be Tsukishima, who used to be a member of Xcution.

Ichigo ends up going to Ikumi’s, who gets the door opened on his face. She lets him in, and Ichigo asks for even more time off, and Ikumi goes off on him. He apologizes, and tries to walk off, but Ikumi doesn’t want to hear any of it. She wants to know what is troubling Ichigo. We go back to Xcution’s meeting with Ichigo, and he tells him that Tsukishima used to be the leader. Tsukishima changed his mind, and killed the substitute Soul Reaver, as well as the members that had given him their powers. It boils down to no one knows anything about Tsukishima’s plan, except that it revolves around getting his hands on Ichigo. The training schedule has moved up because of this, so Ichigo goes home to rest. Ichigo is close to home, and finds his dad outside. Kisuke walks up for a meeting, but Isshin wants to go somewhere else. Ichigo is trying to figure out whether Kisuke is an enemy or not, but can’t do anything until he gets his powers back.

Elsewhere, Chad calls Orihime, and she comes clean with what happened. Orihime tells Chad that she is confused as to why she keeps referring to Tsukishima as a friend. It was like she had a strange feeling he was a friend, but had no idea how to put it. She tells Chad to be careful, because his powers seem more terrifying than they look. Meanwhile, Tsukishima tells Shshigawara that no further contact will be necessary when it comes to Orihime. Tsukishima then decides to go after Ichigo directly.

This episode deals with a lot of reaction to one simple action: Tsukishima’s confrontation of Orihime. For someone as useless as her, a lot of shit revolves around her. What I don’t get is why. Since this is the last arc of the series, Tsukishima’s plan of attack is rather weird. He goes for the new substitute Soul Reaver, goes for Orihime, then Ichigo? And, with all of this going on, where the hell is the rest of the Soul Society?  You would think that since Uryu is near death, and Ichigo under attack (not to mention on his way to regaining his Soul Reaper powers) someone there would make an appearance. Instead, it’s turned into Lord of the Flies.

I think Kugo hit it right on the head when it came to Tsukishima, because the guy seems very off kilter at times, but at others he’s on point. It makes me think that something even worse is on the way when it comes to Tsukishima. To be honest, I don’t know where to go with him, myself.

This episode is a hit or miss, because nothing happens that advances the story. Ichigo still doesn’t have a grasp on powers, nothing happened to Orihime, and Chad still doesn’t know how to work his Spirit GPS. I can see why the show was stopped early, because Tite Kubo just keeps the wheels spinning for episodes at a time. Then people get disinterested, that’s where I am at now.