BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War Episode 20 Recap: Kenpachi Arrives

Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War, referred to as TYBW hereafter, is the anime adaptation of Bleach‘s final arc. It began airing in October, 2020 as a simulcast from Japan and is available for streaming on Hulu. It follows Ichigo and the other soul reapers as they struggle to survive an attack from an enemy long-thought defeated. It is shaping up to be a well-written and animated series that both longtime fans as well as newcomers are enjoying. With Episode 20 in Part 2 of Bleach: TYBW, we see the return of a familiar face.

Editor’s Note: There rest of the article contains spoilers for Bleach TYBW, up through Part 2 Episode 20

Image via Pierrot

In TYBW, Soul Society is facing the threat of annihilation at the hands of the Quincys, a clan of humans who can control Reishi and use it to hunt hollows. They were destroyed by the Soul Reapers long ago for throwing the realms out of balance due to their over-hunting of hollows. But, the Quincys have come back with their purpose being revenge and the complete destruction of Soul Society and all Soul Reapers.

Episode 20 starts off with our favorite mini-Soul Reaper, Yachiru Kusajishi, who is working with Isane Kotetsu to guard over the fallen Kensei and Rojuro from episode 18. We’re quickly introduced to the villain of the episode: Gremmy Thoumeaux, Steinritter “V”, or “The Visionary”. V, as I’ll call him going forward, has the unique (and arguably overpowered) ability to turn his imagination into reality.

While we get a nice little appetizer of Yachiru deftly dealing with Guenael Lee, a figmentary member of the Quincy clan imagined by V, we quickly see that Yachiru is no match for this new opponent. Despite being a formidable member of Soul Society, Yachiru doesn’t stand a chance against V, who turns her bones into… cookies. Fitting with how this arc has been going thus far, saying that things appear “bleak” for the Soul Reapers would be an understatement. That is until our favorite crazy man arrives: Kenpachi Zaraki.

Aside from his moment in the opening where we see him throwing a bouquet of flowers into the river mourning Unohana, we haven’t seen him since episode 10, which that part of the opening is referring to.

Image via Pierrot

I am the Edge.

Kenpachi and V start their battle as V raises up a large stage for them to fight on. During their first opening attacks, it becomes clear to V that Kenpachi will require his full attention and thus Yachiru’s bones are returned to normal and she is able to return to Kotetsu for healing. While V begins to truly enjoy the fight, Kenpachi is having trouble enjoying it due to it not being much of a challenge. After nearly dying, Kenpachi gives V the idea of being unkillable

Things do get a bit more interesting for Kenpachi when V pulls out his trump card, which is to duplicate himself and thus give him double the imagination. (Yeah, I’m not quite sure how that works either.) He decides to use this double-imagination power to call down a large meteor to destroy everyone in Seireitei aside from himself, since he has imagined that he is unkillable and he doesn’t imagine that Kenpachi can cut through a meteor. Of course, this being Kenpachi we’re talking about here, he is of course able to destroy the meteor and finish off V.

This episode focused solely on Kenpachi’s return after defeating Unohana and felt a little rushed especially after the last episode. It is nice though to finally see the Soul Reapers coming out ahead of the Quincy’s after part 1 of TYBW.

Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War is streaming on Hulu. The manga was localized by Viz Media.