Bleach: Episode 166
Rating: 9/10
Impressions:
Wow. I’m impressed. I knew that, being the major fight of this arc (equivalent to Ichigo vs Byakuya), this battle would be animated at a higher standard, though the animation has impressed me even more so. I do have to complain about how overpowered all the characters are now…seriously. Despite this being a large factor in determining how entertaining the fight is, it’s just become too far fetched. A good thing is that they didn’t screw up the episode by cutting from scene to scene with different characters (namely Ishida and Renji). Inoue’s little spotlight at the end is quite sweet, though highly shounen-ish. Anyway, let’s hope the next episode follows up nicely.
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Well, I came here to see the review and was to a great extend annoyed by the rating. I was one of the people who complained last year about your very high scores for almost every anime episodes. We complained and you listened. You changed your scoring system but it seems you went little too far in the other direction. If this episode doesn’t deserve a 10 then what does? If no episode in any anime, regardless of their gender, story or animation gets a 10 then why even bother having a perfect 10 score?
I remember having a literature teacher who used to say a perfect 100 is for god, the rest should get 95 and bellow. That argument makes sense if you are a religious fanatic otherwise it is utter nonsense. I’m feeling you have the same mentality regarding your scores. Why people don’t appreciate all the effort that is being put together to make an anime? Have you ever seen movie reviews? I’m sure you have. What do you think would happen is the critics decided to withdraw their “A” scores because no movie in the history of mankind is created perfect?
The whole notion of making an A, 100, a perfect score was developed to give compliment to an individual or a group effort that despite being flawed, (remember we are all humans), were able to show their potentials, their understanding of the subject and their talent to bring about entertainment to people. What makes them so perfect is not their flawless work but the effort they made to make it and the beauty that their work present; a magnificence which has eventually resulted in having great entertainment values. I am strictly talking about movies here because that’s what I think you misunderstood or better say, underlined when you created your evaluation system. Perhaps “you” can tell me what is perfect in you book.
Furthermore, you complained about things that made this show what it is. Forgive me for being perhaps “too picky” if that is the word to describe it but did you stop for a second before wring this review to look back and see what anime you are writing this for? You complained that this shounen anime and this specific episode had failed to deliver because it tried to utilized materials that we expect from a shounen anime/manga. In other words it is flawed because it tried to be itself?! In what universe does that make sense?
Now this is not a big deal, this is an AnimeBlog for Christ sake but seeing you have the same mentality that I object strongly and disagree with the most, I couldn’t help but writing this.
Best of luck with your work
A reader
KICKED ASS!!!
I think you meant shoujo-ish. Anyway… great episode. The one thing which impressed me the most was this new Split-Screen Style they used.
Great IchiHime moments.
this episode is awesome ichigo kept his mask for like the whole fightO_O
patapon quite right anyway this episode of bleach kick ass animation will return to normal next episode but i hope the plot and the flow of series continue onward. BLLLEEEAAACCCHHH!!!!
Hehe! GOOD SPEECH patapon! XD
actually… I agreed with most of what you said, but i dont really think this ep. deserves a plain 10. I mean, i did LOVED it!!! more than what I thought i was going to, but a 9.5 is ok… taking in consideration that a rate like that is very high.
I also thought 9 was a poor rating based in the inmese joy that I gained from this ep. In my opinion, Bleach (anime) has been decaying in almost all aspects… fundamentally in QUALITY, animation, the moods they`re suppose to pull out of the viewer, the level of excitement and even in the music aspect… but this doesnt mean that the manga has failed too… that`s the exact problem for me… the anime has stopped being equal of exciting than the manga (in my opinion)sadly! T_T
But with this episode, i believe it regained most of that quality that bleach anime have lost long time ago… (the only ep. I think was equal to this is the one in which ichigo and byakuya fought in karakura town ^^U)and the fight, i think it has been one of the best battles the anime has shown to us, without any interruption by stupid jokes of stupid characters (dondochakka and pesche x_x)and with dynamic movements, a real getsuga tenshou that actually do seems like a strong technique and a level of excitement i never thought I was going to feel with bleach (at least not since the soul society arc… btw, i thought this fight was more entertaining than byakuya vs ichigo…) x_x i mean, i didnt stopped similing at a single moment!
So, I respect Danny`s opinion but I believe Bleach 166 deserves a higher rating! n_nU
//Sorry for my english again danny… ! x_x I know you say its not that bad, but this post is kinda long and I`m expecting several mistakes! n_nU!//
sorry…
” … (the only ep. I think was equal to this is the one in which ichigo and GRIMMJOW fought in karakura town ^^U)
sorry… T_T
You still gotta admit that everything with the animation, and the flow of the episode was just terrific.
I didn’t find anything that I didn’t like but just that it was amazing! ^_^
Aw, come on!!!! this episode deserves a 10, the battle, the dialog, the feeeeeeeeling, my god, i cried with nels speach to inoue!!!!!!!!!!! i’m still having the chivers!!!!!!
2 weeks, they did paid off!!!!
Next chapter will be back on the normal standars of animation and else, but if we get from time to time a chapter like, man, i’m willing to buy a blue ray version of the anime!!!!!!!
And really, there hasn’t been a episode that can compare to this, this episodes makes karakura town fight like nothing, this one, had the quality of a movie, i thought I was looking at a boss fight of a movie. Man, i’m still having shivering over my spine, this will be one of my all time anime episodes favorite!!!!!
Guys, how could I possibly give the episode a 10 when the character animation was bullshit at times? Think about that. I think I’ve seen enough of these ‘awesome’ battles to not give anything I see that impresses me a 10/10.
I think Orihime’s face was weirdly drawn. Much shorter than usual.
And yeah, this episode of Bleach was certainly not the epitome of anime. Compared to the best episodes of anime like Black Lagoon, NGE, or Rozen Maiden this barely deserves a 5/10.
The fighting wasn’t terribly inventive (getsuga tensho and cero spamming mostly) and the character development was (albeit better done, than in the manga) negligible.
If you think this deserves a 10/10 you should consider watching other anime besides just Naruto and Bleach.
And when did Ichigo learn to fly anyway? Did I miss that?
Add another transformation and it’ll be DBZ with swords.
@Ben: Ichigo can fly because of his powers as vizard, seeing how Shinji and Hiyori could fly as well. but it’s true that that doesn’t explain why some of the captains can fly all of the sudden. take Hitsugaya for example. i know he can fly with his bankai, but why was he able to fly without it during the attack on karakura town? i can’t remember if it was the same in the manga, but it surely makes no sense. also note that people who weren’t supposed to fly could only during the time between the soul society arc and the hueco mundo arc(not counting the bount arc).
anyway, this episode was pretty good, but it’s far away from perfect. if you think it deserves a 10 then you’ve probably become a bleachtard.
although it was a nicely drawn fight - especially when compared to previous ones - it still has flaws, and the animation quality is still fluctuating as always. the soul society arc was the last to be drawn and executed more or less smoothly.
Ben speaks my mind. I agree with the rating of 5/10, and with the statement that you people should seriously watch some “proper” anime to get a vague idea of just what is worth a 10/10.
Also, nice wall of text, Patapon. I wonder if perhaps you’re not a troll.
hehehe… thats what Im saying, it doesnt deserve a 10, but the episode is a lot better than almost everything they`ve shown us in the last few months, thats why I was so excited about it!
XD
@Anon
“Nice text of wall”? Glad to see that some people are incapable of comprehending simple English. Come with a reply or something worthy of my time and at the same time work on your atrocious English grammar.
patapon, Anon’s grammar is correct. He said “nice wall of text”, which means, you wrote so much it is like a wall. Of course, this is in a metaphoric sense.
Funny how Inoue’s look drasticly(spelling?) changed from the earlier series. For me I prefer how Inoue look during the start till before the Soul Society(SS) arc. She looks way weird now, and the same with Rukia.
Rukia is a tough one to rate: earlier in the series she looks like a 13 year old kid, but after the SS arc she looks more like a woman…abit.
Ichigo have gone through quite a change too. lul and Ishida is more manly now.(Sounds so damn gay)
Thought in the end, it’s still hard to believe that those guys are 15. Damn hormones lul
Anyways, I don’t have a gripe with the score for this episode, I don’t feel it was perfect (some parts were sorta lame, like Inoue crying over Ichigo looking like her brother when he was a hollow which I thought was a dumb story cause the situation was completely different with her brother), the fight was good, thought I actually thought the Grimmjow vs Ichigo round 1 was a bit better animation wise overall, but compared to the crap we had up till 161 or 162 I thought this was a great episode, too bad for fillers in 2 weeks
Good episode,though I’m really pissed that everyones fighting about the quality of this fight,you don’t like it,fine,it’s simply personal preference towards other anime.Personally I prefer Hellsing and DMC,but most people say DMC sucks,I obviously don’t agree with that but hell,thats how it is.
Patapon,
Your making me feel sorry for nova, for the simple fact that they are doing their best to keep this anime blog website up to date and doing an amazing job at that. 10/10 means that the episode had no flaws and no things in it that the reviewer didn’t like, well have you considered the fact that not everyone feels the same about every episode of anime? or every type/series. Everyone has their own views about a series/episode and it is unfair in my opinion for you to complain firstly about the first scoring system so much that nova changed it and when they changed it you continue to complain? why don’t you post a comment saying how much you enjoyed the show? Not complain about nova doing what they want to do an blog it. This is taking away from the work nova is putting in and you should be able to see this as you mentioned about the amount of work the artists put into the anime to begin with.
Thanks for the blog Nova and it was an awesome episode although i thought alot of grimjaws movements where taken straight out of Naruto.
This was a great episode, I mean, after all the crap we’ve taken from Bleach animators, I guess you could call this episode superb. But still, throughout the episode, Orihime’s face looked different from frame to frame, and so was Grimmjow’s. The art was very inconsistent. I liked the way they ended it, it was dramatic and very cool:) But I wouldn’t give it a 10/10 either, it wasn’t perfect.
@Ben:
Rosen Maiden??? I can’t say much, series didn’t attracted me much
Black lagoon…. point here
NGE…. if ya are talking about Neon Genesis Evangeleon, hey, when did you started comparing matrix with die hard 2 (besides the fourth one, i hink 2 is the best one, xD). It’s hard to find another anime as evangeleon nowadays.
It’s just my personal POV, in that case, comparing the first episode of Sould Eater with this chapter of bleach, the chapter leaves a cruel 4/10 to bleach.
still, this is by far my fav bleach chapter
I can’t really understand the problem here with the rating.
It’s a subjective opinion, “perfect” can’t be the same for each, most of u should know this.
Even if he would give this episode a 9/10 or 11/10 it wouldn’t change my mind as long as he gives convincing arguements.
It has been a long time since I last saw a Bleach episode i liked, therefore this could result in a over-rating but still, giving a 10 out of 10 wouldn’t hurt. ^^
Wow, there’s really been a lot of comments here:P Anyhoo, I have a question.
Since I think that the old eps(SS arc) kicks all the new eps asses completely, I decided to watch them for the second time. However, I noticed something strange:
In ep 8, from 1:50 to 1:57, you see four hollow gather in Hueco Mundo. You can’t see them very clearly, but what you see is very interesting, at least for me. At least two of them are shaped like humans, has no mask(or a broken one, you really can’t see it that clearly), but has a hole. Then Grand Fisher says: “I’ll go”. What the hell?? This is in ep 8, people! Before Aizen got the Hogyoku! And “I’ll go”? Sounds like some kind of conspiracy. Now, what I ask is; is this something that was dropped, or will it come back later? If the latter, please don’t tell me what going to happen, a yes or somesuch will suffice. Even though I have little hope the show will ever recover, it’s still there.
Oh, and I didn’t bother to put a “spoiler alert” or anything since this happened in like ep 8.
@CJLopez
I give Die Hard 2 a 7/10 and The Matrix 1 a 8,5/10 on my good-movie-scale.
If you liked Evangelion try watching RahXephon.
@The Fish
Aizen didn’t invent Arrancar, he just used his balls to create artificial ones/speed up the process. Those early Arrancar “evolved” naturally Show Spoiler ▼
.
@Ben I didn’t came to like Raxhephon, the idea was good, but, don’t know, seemed like they tried to make a Evangeleon Clone, organization, aliens, a boy who doesn’t know what the hell it’s going on, and a mysterious girl who does know what’s going on and what the boy it’s supposed to do. Also, the one taking care of the boy is in love with him???? really, it’s a clone (oh, did I mention there was a giant mech that only this boy could pilot????)
I thought the animation was smooth and quite nice but somehow it didn’t look too good. It looks pretty… stupid animating every single little face expression. If those impressions would just follow those of the manga I didn’t have anything to complain bout.
Danny might well have defended me already, but I just can’t resist the urge to reply.
@Patapon:
Glad to see that some people are incapable of comprehending simple English AND reading (”Nice TEXT of WALL”, hmmmmmm!), along with understanding metaphorical language and irony [i.e. "wall of text" meaning the absolutely ludicrous amount of letters you indignantly pulled straight out of your ass in the first comment and posing as an insult for you a)trying to unleash a shitstorm by trolling and/or b)being a stuck-up little bitch, age likely around 12 or so, spending hours in front of his computer typing his divine, AWE-INSPIRING message on a random anime blog, all while acting like he knows so much shit.]
I suggest YOU reconsider your stand here and come back to me once you think of something worthy of MY time/learn how to walk in this world/grow up.
@JTShiro:
“(some parts were sorta lame, like Inoue crying over Ichigo looking like her brother when he was a hollow which I thought was a dumb story cause the situation was completely different with her brother)”
Actually, I do believe that it had more to do with the same kind of *impression* they both, as Hollows, made on her. She probably felt the same kind of fear as she felt with her brother when she saw Ichigo with the mask on, the same type of cold, foreign darkness or something.
ICHIHIME!!!
love this ep
the fight an Ichigo were hot