Ichigo makes his way to the Soul Society but his stay isn’t pleasant – or long!

What They Say:
Ichigo leaves for the Soul Society to join the battle, only to be ambushed by Kageroza, who intends to erase Ichigo’s existence. Back in the Soul Society, the wounded captains find themselves facing new Reigai to battle, while Hitsugaya is reunited with Hinamori.

The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With Urahara opening the way to the Soul Society, his journey isn’t going to be quite as easy as it was before, not that it was all that easy then either. The events unfolding in the Soul Society itself are pretty brutal before he even gets there as we see the small force that arrived engaged in various battles. Byakuya’s continues to be a lot of fun as he goes up against a Reigai version of Hitsugaya and Kenpachi has plenty to face himself, which he dearly loves since it’s a great challenge. The one battle that’s raising up in its level though is that of Yamamoto as he deals with the trio that are going after him and forcing him to start unleashing a lot more of his power. We don’t see him all too often in this mode so I rather like getting him onto the field of battle for a bit while the others are racing towards Kagezora.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of this episode deals with a few leaps around to the different groups that are moving about with the battles that they’re facing. Kenpachi’s has a lot of great action to it that plays well since there’s essentially a lot of faceless men fighting against him and he just enjoys it, though he knows it’s not really a challenge. But like times past, the more he fights, the more he wants to fight and that gives him a real thrill. He continues to be one of the few members of the Soul Society I really enjoy watching fight because of his personality, so seeing him go up against Soi Fon just adds to the fun of it all. His fight even has a neat little twist to it with someone we haven’t seen in a bit returning to the fight.

A surprising sequence involves Hitsugaya as he makes his way towards where he believes Kagezora is and he ends up running across Hinamori. Because of their relationship, even knowing what she really is, he can’t help but to fall sway to her and her attacks. It’s a pretty bloody seen for for him as Hinamori gets several deep cuts into him and he’s unable to really fight back and to barely be able to defend himself from her. What makes it worse is when the real one arrives and he’s faced with the problem of two of them that are identical and he’s unable to tell who is who. While it starts off as a fairly weak sequence overall with a fair bit of predictability to it, it turns into a great piece that’s a whole lot of fun. I’m not a huge fan of either of these characters but this one has a great feel to it.

In Summary:
While this episode continues to be more about placement than actual progress when it comes to the story, there’s a lot to like here with the battles that take place. Putting its focus on a couple of battles works well though the teases of information we get between Ichigo and Kagezora is just that when you want more substance. Kenpachi steals the show in general for me with his ways and his cute sidekick, but what won me over was the fight between Hitsugaya and Hinamori which didn’t play out in the way that I expected it to. Sometimes the show can sneak in a surprise still and that’s a very good thing. What the show needs to start doing soon though is to push forward with more meaty story substance pieces as the novelty of friend against friend is definitely wearing off.

Grade: B

Simulcast By: Crunchyroll

Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.