sahugani's Bleach Review 305-306

sahugani · Jan 21, 2008

Sahugani’s Bleach Review 305-306

there are no words to describe my joyous reaction to this piece

Hi everybody!!! It’s been a while huh? I’m trying to use this three day weekend to catch up on some things and it’d just be wrong if I didn’t include Bleach in that list. In other news, I’m currently in a search for more stand-up comedy so if you have any you’d like to recommend, tell me in my meet the mods thread. The pics in this week’s review come from the M7 Edited Manga for 305 and the Binktopia Edited Manga for 306. The title pic is a masterpiece made by shiroifushicho, so be sure to check out the rest of his gallery later.

305: The Rising Phoenix

Perfect Being

i don't think phoenix wings have those drippy parts like yours

At the end of the last chapter, we saw one more gruesome reason why Fornicarus got its name as with its power, Szayel actually impregnated himself within Nemu and used her life energy to rebirth himself. Now he is once again standing at full health while she lies on the ground withered and near death. Szayel describes this as a cycle of life that is in essence a form of immortality and likens himself to a phoenix. In many ways this symbolic reference is quite accurate. A phoenix will die and be reduced to ash only to later rise once again from his ashes in his full glory. Similarly, Szayel’s ability allows him to rebirth himself to his exact form at peak condition. This also gives some explanation as to why his released form bears wing shaped extensions as they are part of a weak attempt to mimic this symbolic reference. He believes so strongly in his likeness to the firebird of mythology that he believes himself to be immortal and untouchable. By simply letting a piece of himself infect his opponent secretly, he can not only live again, but take out the enemy in the process. However, as I do so deeply love the mythology surrounding the phoenix, I must poke some holes in his claim. First of all, the phoenix rises from its own ashes and uses its own magic to do so. It was no mere parasite that used another’s strength to remake itself. The biggest difference though (that kind of foreshadows what will happen) is that a true phoenix will build its own funeral pyre and burns itself to ashes when it dies of old age. It does not use resurrection as a way to cheat an untimely death but a way to rekindle a flame that had faded out naturally. If he does not live out a full life, he does not deserve the right to true resurrection.

False Prophet

he might be a tiny bit cocky here

On another note, there is one more obvious reference to his resurrection on the cover page that Christians can identify pretty clearly. Szayel is mimicking Jesus on the crucifix and the lines Kubo provides on the cover clearly show the intention of this mimicry. He compares Szayel’s vices to Jesus’s virtues and points out that even without God’s blessing Szayel has performed resurrection. I doubt this has any intention of mocking the Christian faith but is instead used as a tool to showcase Szayel’s immense arrogance and to show his basic outlook that becomes critical during the course of this chapter. Basically, this is a way to show that he believes he has surpassed the powers of God with his science. Resurrection is without a doubt one of the greatest miracles of Christian mythology and is something that up until now has been considered a power wielded by Him alone. As Szayel has created a way to rebirth himself every time he dies, he believes he has mastered an art that was supposed to be impossible for lower beings. The basic gist of Kubo’s notes are that Szayel, a being of pure vice, has no need of the virtues Jesus embodied in order to obtain the powers of God.

Curiosity

there's that winning smile

After a bit of staring, Mayuri goes to Nemu’s side. If one didn’t know Mayuri well like Szayel, it would be easy to assume he is showing compassion for his injured subordinate. She is clearly still alive and offers her apology to Mayuri for her being in this now useless state. Szayel wrongly assumes Mayuri is feeling guilty that she is in her current state and continues to mock the two of them in an effort to antagonize the shinigami captain. Unfortunately for him, Mayuri’s only reason for going to Nemu was to inspect the ability Szayel just showed off. His interest is now piqued and he asks to see more. Up until now all of Szayel’s abilities have been seen through quite quickly by Mayuri and were easily countered, making them instantly boring. Mayuri is always looking for new projects to analyze and figure out, so when Szayel finally pulls out an ability that Mayuri didn’t expect, it is like Christmas day for the creepy scientist. He asks like a greedy child if his opponent has any more unique abilities to show off. This talk is half serious and half mocking as he is indeed trying to pull more techniques out of Szayel, but doesn’t really expect much out of a scientist who is arrogant enough to claim perfection. Szayel on the other hand is thoroughly irked by the fact that Mayuri is having so much fun. His entire purpose in perfecting his abilities is to make others realize his superiority over them and enjoys the look of despair they get when faced with his control over them and his apparent immortality. The fact that Mayuri is enjoying himself is an insult to that superiority.

Discarded

eew!!! baby made a mess

Though still pissed at Mayuri, Szayel decides to give in to the shinigami’s request and takes control of Konjiki Ashisogi Jizo. Apparently after anything eats his body, the cells of his corpse will take control of the thing’s nervous system, allowing him to control it completely. He makes a point of mentioning that he has successfully obtained full control of Mayuri’s bankai without even obtaining data from it. While this is intended to prove his own scientific superiority over Mayuri (basically “I can infer more with less information”), the shinigami quickly shows the flaw in that manner of thinking. He has already modified his bankai to self destruct if it ever became victim to mind control. Once again Mayuri has proven himself to be one step ahead of every technique Szayel has in his arsenal. The only thing the Espada has going for him is his “immortality,” which is the one thing Mayuri had apparently not been able to counter. Still, he believes that alone will be enough to pull him through to win this match, so he is still rather calm.

The New Drug

haha!!! you fail at life

Unfortunately for Szayel, it seems Mayuri had indeed been able to counter the “resurrection” as well. Mayuri had already implanted Nemu with a large number of drugs so that if she was ever eaten or invaded, the opponent would obtain large doses of the drugs to which their body is not accustomed. The one that Mayuri figures has been applied to Szayel is a drug that induces the hypersensory feeling of warriors that are clashing swords. This increase in the person’s sensory speeds creates a sense of slowed time. In the natural experiences of this sensation, the feeling is momentary and simply allows the person to experience slowed time so they can take in their surroundings more effectively, making it easier to see incoming attacks and in general being a good thing for battle. However, this drug multiples the effect many times over. It causes this sensation to remain for an extended time and makes the sensation extremely powerful. For Szayel, one second in real time feels like 100 years to him. Unfortunately, his body cannot keep up with this sensory speed and is actually slowed down as his brain is overloaded and finds difficulty in processing motor skills. In reality, Mayuri piercing Szayel’s heart does mark the Espada’s death. I don’t think Mayuri explained things very clearly as it is easy to misinterpret his words as meaning that Szayel will remain standing there on the verge of death for 100 years. What really occurs is that Szayel is dying in real time, but experiences the few seconds of Mayuri piercing his heart over the span of a hundred years from his own slowed down perspective.

306: Not Perfect is Good

Szayel’s Agony

i don't envy him

We backtrack slightly to Szayel’s thoughts in the instants before he dies, which to him seem like decades. Although we see his face withered, it is important to note that that is just a mental image of himself and not reality. In reality, he dies in his youthful form right in front of Mayuri. However, as the simple act of moving his eyes would take years from his perspective, he cannot see what he truly looks like. All he feels is the slow passing of time and the pain of Mayuri’s blade piercing him. Due to this, he feels like centuries have passed and so imagines himself as an old man. This is the flaw with his phoenix symbolism. As I said, a true phoenix lives out its life fully and then chooses the time of his own death and rebirth. Szayel is now forced to live through what seems like centuries lacking the power to end his own suffering and with no hope of resurrecting himself at his life’s end.

Perfection’s Flaws

parents shouldn't claim their kid is perfect. the kid will only be disappointed later

With Szayel standing still and unable to save himself from his own final moments of life, Mayuri explains to him the error in claiming a perfect existence. Perfection is an impossible concept because there is always something that can be changed for the better and always some flaw that can be exploited. People seek it out because it offers them a chance to make them feel superior to their presently imperfect lives. If perfection was ever indeed reached, there would be no need for curiosity and this life would have no meaning. This is especially true for scientists. Mayuri points out that perfection would render men like Szayel and himself obsolete as with no mysteries left to question, there is no need for the men whose purpose is to question them. The entire purpose of a scientist is to explore the endless number of unanswerable questions and try to answer them. A new question is simply a new opportunity for a scientist to utilize his craft. This explanation from Mayuri perfectly explains his philosophy on science. I have said many times over that the process of experimentation and not the result is the part of the scientific process that he really enjoys the most. This is because once the result is obtained, the question is answered and there is no mystery left. Once that is the case, to expand one’s knowledge, a new mystery must be explored and the old one has no more use.

Loose Ends

the fact that she's blushing doesn't help

Mayuri leaves Szayel standing up in death and breaks off his sword rather than removing it. While it could be seen as leaving Szayel to rot with the blade still piercing his heart, in all actuality, this is simply Mayuri punishing his sword for attacking him. After leaving the standing corpse, he notices something and calls Nemu over, but soon realizes that she is still suffering from Szayel’s technique. With some off camera sights and sounds that completely disgust Ishida and Renji, Nemu is restored to her former self. While we are not told exactly what happened, the nature of the sounds and Ishida’s reaction to what he thinks happened seems to imply some very dark and disturbing deeds that are wrong in so many ways that I’d rather not get into it. The really bad thing is that I actually start to think about it and given the fact that she is cloned from his genetic material, her recovery actually starts to make a tiny bit of sense. I can handle yaoi, but this is just a new level of creepy. That said, even after the battle is over, Mayuri has proven that he is not only the better scientist of the two, but he is also the creepiest by far.

Ignored

they weren't all that useful were they

Moving on from that episode of icky, the newly revived Nemu summons immense strength to obliterate the rubble covering Mayuri’s discovery. In the process of clearing it, they come across Pessche and Dondo Chakka, who are still as energetic as ever. However, before Pesshe can finish talking, he is interrupted by Nemu apparently trying to strike him. He assumes that they are being mistaken for enemies due to the fact that they are hollows. In reality, they are simply standing amongst the rubble that must be cleared and so Nemu is instructed to clear them along with it. They are of little interest to Mayuri as they are failures amongst the hollow specimens to begin with. What he is searching for at the moment is of much greater interest to him.

Mayuri’s Treasure

only he'd get giddy at corpses in a storage room

As the rubble is finally cleared, it is revealed that Mayuri’s true goal was a room that has remained standing even after the immense destruction. He explains to Ishida that even an inferior scientist like Szayel is smart enough to make a room for storage of his specimens strong enough to withstand any amount of force. After all, the specimens are the most critical instruments a scientist possesses. The general tools of the trade can always be rebuilt or replaced, but the specimen is different. It is what houses the knowledge that must be extracted and is the possessor of the variables that must be tested. If a specimen is allowed to be damaged, it ruins the integrity of the scientific process and nullifies the use of experimenting on it. The real interest Mayuri had in defeating Szayel was so that he could gain access to this room and pirate all the specimens the Espada had collected. Upon opening the doors, he instantly notices two bodies hanging from the ceiling that he takes immediate interest in. The first thought is that they are Ciruuchi and Doldorni as their bodies were indeed collected from the exequias. However, Mayuri already has a current Espada corpse outside, so those two would be less useful to him. Also, Doldorni wasn’t that short and Ciruuchi had a skirt. I guess we’ll find out who and what these are eventually, but it won’t be for a while.

No Fun

Yachiru-chan!!! Ken-chan is sad!!! ...fix it

Finally, the scene shifts over to the duel between Nnoitra and Kenpachi. For the first time, we see Kenpachi fighting without a smile on his face while Nnoitra laughs hysterically. Just like Zomari had specialized in sonido and Nel had in cero, Nnoitra apparently has specialized in hierro, the tough skin of an arrancar. His is unsurpassed by any member of the current or former Espada. This explains why Kenpachi isn’t smiling. He has been denied the ability to cut, which is usually his main reason for joy. This is clearly not the end though as he still has yet to remove his eyepatch. On the flip side, Nnoitra has also yet to release, so all in all, this battle definitely seems to be in Nnoitra’s favor. I guess there is always the option of Kenpachi actually releasing, but I don’t think it’s such a good idea. Mayuri won in his battle because he kept his intelligence and creepiness one step ahead of Szayel at every point and in the end he was the same mad scientist as before except we found out he’s crazier than we previously thought. Similarly, Zaraki’s personality that we have all grown accustomed to is that he is a battle hungry berserker that relies on his own strength alone. For him to actually release would diminish that quality as it means he’s putting faith in another’s (his sword’s) strength. In addition, if he had indeed come to terms with his sword, I doubt it would still maintain its jagged appearance, which is a result of the disharmony between the sword and wielder.

Overall

Well the Szayel battle is over and the Nnoitra battle is now at the forefront, which makes me very happy. The 8th Espada’s presence in the story spanned way too long a period, but at least he got a rather fitting end. The most apparent thing in the chapters was the development of Mayuri’s intelligence and creepiness. I think the effect of the drug on Szayel definitely could have been explained better than it was, but the premise of it was at least intriguing. Also, that one scene is hell for people like me who can easily over-think things and it will haunt me for a little while. :iik