Bleach TYBW’s Next Episode Could Have Another Epic Anime-Only Fight

This review contains spoilers for Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War Part 3 – The Conflict, Episode 6, “The Holy Newborn.”

As the title of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War’s previous episode, “The Holy Newborn,” made clear, a new god and world have, indeed, been born. Emperor Yhwach is now effectively the ruler of all life. To add insult to injury, he rebuilt the Quincies’ kingdom from the remains of the Soul King’s palace. The surviving Gotei 13 officers and Ichigo Kurosaki’s party weren’t just too late to stop Yhwach’s ascension to godhood; they were powerless to even do anything about it. In fact, they arrived just in time to see Yhwach cement his dominion over all.

It may have taken two episodes, but The Conflict is now done setting up the stage for the final war between the Soul Reapers and Quincies. This is what happened in the manga, but there’s no reason for the anime to simply follow the original text. Part 3 -The Conflict’s next episode, “Gate of the Sun,” will show the first fight of the decisive war, and it could be one fans never saw coming. This isn’t just because the anime is unpredictable, but because the fight never happened in the manga.

Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War Part 3, Episode 7 Could Feature a New Anime-Only Fight

The Episode Could Fix One of the Manga’s Biggest Missed Opportunities

If the leaks and teasers for “Gate of the Sun” are true, then it seems like Lt. Renji Abarai is about to get a big fight against one of the elite Quincies. Some even theorized that his opponent would be none other than Uryu Ishida. Last week’s episode wasn’t even coy about this, as it ended with Renji reading that week’s teaser poem. The fact that his Zanpakuto, Zabimaru, was the accompanying visual all but confirmed that he’ll fight one of the Schutzstaffel in this week’s episode. And to be fair, even the opening credits foreshadowed this. The close-ups of Renji’s and Ishida’s eyes glowing with power and rage weren’t subtle. Besides the fact that Renji fans have every reason to be excited, what makes this significant is that The Conflict could be on track to fix one of the biggest mistakes of Thousand-Year Blood War’s manga.

Despite being one of Bleach’s most important characters, Renji was reduced to a background Soul Reaper during the biggest fight against the Schutzstaffel. After defeating Mask de Masculine and bonding a bit with Bazz-B, he barely did anything when the war moved from the Seireitei to the Wahrwelt. He was always visible in group shots, plus he still got in a line or two and even landed a few hits on enemy Quincies. But for the most part, Renji wasn’t as prominent as he was in Thousand-Year Blood War’s earlier chapters. This made the fact that he got a massive power-up (including a more powerful Bankai) from training with the Royal Guard feel like a waste of time to more jaded readers. To be fair, this was a direct result of Tite Kubo’s failing health and unrealistic editorial demands more than anything else. Renji’s cut material was a missed opportunity, not a lapse in quality on Kubo’s part.

Kubo and Pierrot Films repeatedly said that they used the anime adaptation of Thousand-Year Blood War – especially The Conflict – as their opportunity to address the manga’s biggest faults. This included everything from clearing up minor plot holes to writing new material. Examples of this include revealing who knocked out Rukia Kuchiki during the first wave of the Wandenreich’s invasion (it was Meninas McAllon), and everything about the Royal Guard’s defeat, respectively. Renji getting a new fight – and possibly one against someone he could call a friend, to boot – is one of the biggest instances of this positive change in action. Its closest comparison is obviously Ichigo’s and Ishida’s anime-only fight from the cour’s fourth episode. It wouldn’t be surprising if Renji’s coming duel is just as good or possibly even better than Ichigo’s brutal defeat at Ishida’s hands. What’s more, this bodes well for the rest of The Conflict and the chapters it will adapt. It’s unlikely that Renji’s fight will be the cour’s last new addition, which makes the next few episodes all the more exciting.

Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War Part 3, Episode 7 Will See the Beginning of the Final War

The Episode Marks the Beginning of the Real War

While Renji’s brand-new fight is obviously a big deal, this isn’t the only battle that will take place atop the Royal Palace’s frozen ruins. As was teased in The Conflict’s teaser material and both its opening and ending credits, the Gotei 13 and Ichigo’s party will be divided among the four members of the Schutzstaffel. The remaining Quincies are so powerful that it will take more than just one captain-class Soul Reaper to fight them, let alone survive the ordeal. Renji will most likely get his long overdue solo spotlight, but in between breaks and dramatic beats, “Gate of the Sun” could also set up the rest of the grand finale’s preliminary fights.

Without spoiling anything from the manga and only going by what was shown in The Conflict and its advertisements, everyone from the Gotei 13’s surviving captains to the remaining Espada and even the defecting Sternritters will get their own episodes to show off their fighting prowess. Either their fights could start as soon as this week, or fans will just have to wait a little bit longer for these characters to get their moment. Regardless of how the next episodes adapt the upcoming series of events, the coming fights are some of the most complex and interesting seen in all of Bleach. It will be amazing to see how Pierrot Films bringe these to life, and how they’ll improve upon Kubo’s promising if rushed ideas from the manga. As for Ichigo, he’ll most probably track down Yhwach again and try to finish what he started. The problem is that Ishida will obviously get in his way again, and Ichigo will be forced to make the impossible choice of killing his friend or not once more. Yhwach was right when he called out Ichigo’s refusal to kill his opponents, and Ichigo had better overcome his understandable hesitation or find a workaround sooner rather than later.

The Conflict is now halfway done, but it only feels like the real battle for existence itself has just begun. This isn’t a slight against the anime, but rather a testament to just how much the stakes have changed and risen since the cour began. The situation was already pretty dire during The Conflict’s premiere, what with Yhwach and Ishida laying waste to the Royal Guard. But now, things are more apocalyptic than ever. Yhwach achieved his goal of usurping his father, the Soul King, and is now moments away from fully realizing his godhood. His royal guard is also ridiculously powerful, and the full extent of their might has yet to even be hinted at. The worlds of the living, the dead and those in between have never faced an existential threat as deadly as Yhwach. This, thankfully, doesn’t mean all hope is lost.

All of Bleach’s surviving fighters are now present on the final battlefield. Everyone’s chances of survival are equally slim, and nobody is even sure if they can return to their respective dimensions, assuming they make it out alive. Victory for the Soul Reapers and their allies means that life can continue as is, while defeat means the end of the world as they knew it. That said, none of them are going down without a fight. Renji’s coming anime-exclusive duel against one of the strongest Quincies will only be the beginning for what promises to be one of many intense penultimate battles that will take place before Ichigo and Yhwach face each other again. Many scores have to be settled, and new ones are about to be born. Things are about to get tougher for Bleach’s surviving characters, which means Bleach fans are in for a wild ride.

Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War Part 3 – The Conflict airs new episodes on streaming every Saturday, 10:30 AM (EST). Part 1 – The Blood Warfare and Part 2 – The Separation are now available to watch and own physically and digitally.