Now it is time for another review that I promised to do in my earlier review and that is the recent Mask De Masculine fight that was shown. The reason I am reviewing it is because besides from being a really great fight, I want to review the all fights that are coming up in Bleach but only after they have finished.
It starts off with Mask De Masculine defeating Ikkaku Madarame, Yumichika Ayasegawa and Shuhei Hisagi (along side his cheering fan James), however before he can land the finishing blow he is stopped by the Soul Reaper captains Kensei Mugruma and Rojuro ‘Rose’ Otoribashi. Kensei steps up to fight first and activities his Bankai, Tekken Tachikaze, which controls the power of wind and focuses all of the power of his Shikai in to his knuckle blades. This explosive power makes his assault seem endless and he uses it to get the upper hand on Mask, however it his then revealed that Mask’s S stands for The Superstar and the cheering from his fan James grants Mask even greater power and strength. Kensei fights back but the constant cheering from James powers up Mask too much and he is defeated.
Next Rose steps up to fight and starts by cutting James in half before activating his own Bankai, Kinshara Butodan, a music type Bankai. Acting as a conductor to direct several giants that have numerous techniques such as Sea Drift (Water) and Prometheus (Fire) and seems to overwhelm Mask. However before he can activate another technique called Ein Heldenleben, Mask figures out the weakness in Rose’s Bankai by destroying his own eardrums and thereby blocking out the music, he then blasts a star shaped hole through Rose’s chest, critically injuring him.
But all is not lost because Mask is interrupted once again by the arrival of Renji, who has just come back from his training in the Royal Realm. Mask starts off by having his eardrums healed by James, who still turns out to be alive, before charging at Renji. However Renji’s training has made him more powerful than he thought, so even after Mask changes form, enters Vollstandig and unleashes a wide array of star based moves; Renji survives them and enters Bankai. His Bankai has changed to it’s ‘true form’ has a result of his training; the head of the snake engulfs his sword arm and looks like a shield while he can control massive bone arm of the baboon, this new Bankai his called Soo Zabimaru. After overpowering Mask, Renji actives a move called Orochio, cutting Mask in half and burning him to ashes.
Now this was one exciting fight and I thought it was very well done and there was few stand out moments for me. First was that Mask was shown to be a really powerful Sternritter, when he first appeared many thought he was just a simple minded Yammy copy but no this guy took out five Soul Reapers and was hard to kill. Mask really did grow on me during this fight and I really thought he was going to survive it so that was a shame.
Next was that Kensei and Rose got in on the spotlight and kicked some ass, sure they where defeated but they went down swinging. I think Kensei being in this repaired a lot of the damage Kubo did when he completely skipped his fight with Wonderwiess and he was missing for the rest of the Fake Karakura Arc; that was one of the biggest disappointments in Bleach. Then there was Rose, who is one of my favourite characters and we finally got to see his Bankai and it was soooo creative, one of the best Kubo has done, I really hope we see more of it.
Lastly was the reveal of Renji’s new Bankai and it is way better than his last one that was just a massive bone whip. This was looks cooler and gives Renji a ton of new abilities while the last one was just really straight forward and predictable.
However I felt that this chapter was not without and few flaws, he first being Kensei and Rose getting defeated. I know I said they still kicked ass but they are two of my favourites and since it’s been ages since we saw them last fight I thought they deserved a few victories, especially Rose who just revealed his Bankai. I really like the Vizards in Bleach but I think Kubo is just wasting them; first there was Shinji in the Komamura fight and now these two, all three seem to go down too quick for my liking and they did not even use their Hollow powers.
Next is another contradiction of the highlights I picked but I just have to say it; Renji. I admit his Bankai is awesome but it and he are now so overpowered. The Vandenreich are supposed to be the Soul Reaper’s ultimate enemy, Mask took out five Soul Reapers and he did not even break a sweat but Renji stepped in and dealt with him straight away, I just did not like that.
Lastly speaking about Mask, I did say he was growing on me but the latter half of the fight did not help. When he fought Kensei and Rose he kept calling them villains which made me think that Mask truly believed he was the good guy saving the world from the Soul Reapers, it added a bit of depth to his character. However when Renji his personality seemed to change, he flies in to a rage and even says that he is just going to kill Renji just for the sake of it. It made him out just to be mindless and cruel when I really thought he was a good person who truly viewed Soul Reapers as evil.
In conclusion this was a really great fight, one of my favourite of the Thousand War Arc so far, we got some cool Bankai action, a Sternritter with some cool abilities and Kensei and Rose got in on the fight too. But it was let down by Renji’s massive amount of over powering, the fact that Kensei and Rose are probably not going to be fighting again soon and Mask just turning in to some kind of berserker near the end.
SCORE: 7/10
