After their Rukia Rescue Arc in Soul Society. Ichigo and his company now face a greater evil group called Bount. They are humans with eternal life created after the incident in Soul Society. The Shinigami Research and Development Institute once experimenting about immortality. Their device malfunctioned and cause huge explosion that affect the birth cycle. It causes mutations to the soul and humans with different abilities was born. They are called "Bounts".
Bounts is a creature with eternal life and suck the soul of humans to make them stronger. They are inspired by the Vampires and Count Dracula as you can see with their methods and looks. But the difference is they use "Dolls" to fight enemies. Their dolls are like Zanpakuto but with own will and personality. And once they were destroyed, the owner also die. Because soul society see them as failure on their side, they were exterminated. Along with Quincy, Bounts are killed for the selfish goal of soul society. No wonder they are on the verge of extinction and their hatred toward Soul Society is immeasurable. Bounts looks interesting. But did this arc became one of the best arc in Bleach?
This Arc is Divided into Two Parts
The Bount Arc
Episode: 64-91
This is the main arc as well as the introduction of Bounts and their goals. When they return from Soul Society, they learned the existence of a human that can live forever though consuming human soul. They are called "Bounts" and because they are different from Shinigami and Hollow, their Spiritual Pressure cant be easily detected. And that's the new 3 modified soul was created. They are like Kon but with the purpose of detecting Bounts. Their name is Ririn, Kurodo and Noba.
Later they met Bounts named Maki Ichinose and Jin Kariya. This two are important factors in the story because they have different goals. Ichinose want to stop Kariya and his plan to open a path between Hueco Mondo and the World of Living (that was she thought). But Kariya's plan is totally different. He want to go to soul society and take revenge on the shinigami. He just used Ichinose and killed her. And now he target Ishida, the last Quicy, because his power is necessary in opening the gate to Soul Society. Ishida who felt really attached to Ichinose at that time hated himself and Kariya because he cant do anything since his Quincy power have lost. Not until he was given a tool that can temporarily give him Quincy power. He didn't know that it was a setup from Kariya. Ishida opened the gate because he thought that he can kill Kariya in soul society since it is abundance in Reishi. But it backfired because it also mean that Bounts can get more powerful because they have the ability to absorb Reishi. And that where they planned the second part of the arc which is;
Bount Assault on Soul Society Arc
Episode: 92-109
After Kariya and his group arrived at soul society, they make an agreement to the guys of Rukongai. They promised them to attack Seireitei (headquarters of the Shinigami and a place for the nobles) and turn Soul Society upside down. But as expected, it was just a plot of Kariya and he use this people to open the gate of Seireitei. He successfully entered the Seireitei and ordered his group to scatter and make chaos.
While everything is a mess because of the bounts, soul society is in disaster. And Kariya took this opportunity to sneak into the headquarter of Research and Development Institute to obtain the "Jokai Crest". It is a device sealed by the shinigami because it is the device responsible for the creation of the bounts. Once Kariya obtain its power, he can trigger the explosion of all Jokai Crest in Seireitei and destroy soul society. The 13 commanders order everyone to reseal the crest while Ichigo face Kariya into final battle.
What I Noticed in this Arc?
Bount Arc is just a Large Filler. I am very disappointed to bleach for making this arc. This arc is irrelevant and it didn't have big contribution to the story. Yes Ririn, Kurodo and Noba was introduced but the rest is unnecessary. If you want to watch Bleach for the first time, I suggest you to skip this arc and go directly to Episode 110. I just wasted 45 episode in this arc and I'm not happy with that.
Orihime Inoue is a little bit Bakadere. Inoue is one of the main character in Bleach and I just noticed that she is actually a part of Bakadere in her character. She is clumsy and stupid sometimes and its so adorable. She's not whole Bakadere though because not all the time she acted like that. She's more like Deredere. But I really like her Clumsy side. I don't know if its because of the dub. But as far as I remember when I first watch Bleach. I only saw her as a mature and reliable character and I don't actually like that. But now that I rewatched this, I understand and appreciate her more.
Bleach Power Level is Definitely Broken. Now I find bleach power level annoying. They make Ichigo OP in the first 3 arc but now they suddenly make him weak and later he is OP again. Even the captains now look so strong that you cant believe they got defeated once by Ichigo. Maybe it turn as disease for this series and some may actually like this. But for me its really annoying.
This is the second part of my Bleach article and expect there are more to this until I finish this series. A Thousand Year Blood War Arc is coming and I cant afford to be left behind in terms of story. So yeah I hope it gets released soon.
Bleach Articles
First time I hear the concept of Bakadere... Can you tell me more about it?