Before I get into the bulk of this article, I want to throw a shout-out to a certain Quincy. I made sure this article was posted today to celebrate the birthday of Uryū Ishida, the last Quincy and absolutely not a friend of any soul reapers at all. I felt an instant fondness towards him as soon as he came on screen, and that has only grown during my journey through the world of Bleach. He’s smart, a quick thinker, and incredibly stubborn. He cares deeply for his friends (despite what he says), but he does not let that interfere with his pride as a Quincy or his enthusiasm for handicraft. I love Uryū—he’s one of my favourite characters in Bleach and brings a great dynamic to the Karakura gang. It’s not often you find a character so tough and skilled in battle who also has a fond love of needlework.

Above image: Uryū Ishida, styled in Quincy white.

Now, onto the main article: my thoughts on the Zanpakuto Rebellion arc!

I went into this season with a mixture of optimism (I love the zanpakuto) and skepticism (I still remember the Shusuke Amagai filler arc, and that left me with plenty of trepidation). Luckily, I can say that this filler arc was much, much better than the one that preceded it.

Warning: there will be spoilers ahead. But they’re spoilers for episodes 230 through 266 of an anime that’s ten years old (with these particular episodes being thirteen years old), so I think that’s pretty much to be expected. You have been warned.  

This article is also written under the assumption that you have at least some familiarity with Bleach, its characters, and its basic concepts, such as that of the soul reaper and the zanpakuto. If I tried to explain them all, I’d just end up boring the readers who are already familiar with the world of Bleach and adding another thousand words to the article’s count. (Please also note that I own a lot of the manga, so those are the translations I used when I wrote this article!)

In case you’re not familiar with this arc in particular, though, I’ll give a brief setup: all of the soul reapers realize that their zanpakuto are not responding and they are consequentially unable to activate their shikai forms. In the first episode, several zanpakuto spirits (now corporeal and humanoid in form) are unleashed and rain destruction down on the Seireitei. The gathered captains and lieutenants (along with Rukia, Yumichika and Ikkaku) are then confronted by a turncoat zanpakuto named Muramasa, who claims that he wishes to set all of his fellow sword spirits free. (Picture Muramasa as  Ghirahim from Skyward Sword if you will, only with much, much longer fingernails.)

As you can expect, things only escalate from there.

There’s a wide cast of characters and their zanpakuto that feature in this arc, as can be expected from Bleach. I’ll try to address them all in this post, but some may get mentioned more than others, like Isane Kotetsu’s poor Itegumo who only gets mentioned, if I recall correctly, twice in this entire arc and never actually shows up on screen.

I have to say, Yumichika and Ruri’iro Kujaku have been driving me absolutely crazy for a while, and this arc highlights exactly why. If Yumichika didn’t hate his sword so much, its power could easily shoot him to a lieutenant position. Damn him and his stubbornness! Because of this, any time I get to see his awe-inspiring Ruri’iro Kujaku in action is an absolute beautiful treat, including this arc. Imagine how epic his bankai could have been. Ruri’iro is just as flamboyant as I could have hoped, and their faceoff where Yumichika refuses to address him by his proper name is great, even if it is a little frustrating to watch.

On the other side of the coin…oh, dear, Haineko. While Rangiku has been known to get a little annoying and is by no means on my list of favourite characters, there are still parts of her character that can be interesting and engaging. Haineko, on the other hand? She’s all the worst bits of Rangiku Matsumoto turned on high without any of the good bits that her soul reaper has for the majority of this arc. Her rivalry with Tobiume is mildly amusing, but very little else regarding her is; her design is also probably among least favourites (That pink cat suit is…more than a little odd). As a matter of fact I think both her and Tobiume have had more screen time this arc than Rangiku and Momo, but maybe that’s just me. (I prefer the latter two to the former two.) She does get a little better towards the very end of the arc, though.

With that being said, I love the character design of most of the zanpakuto, from Senbonzakura’s ornate mask to Tobiume’s floating scarf that reminds me of Mineru’s from Tears of the Kingdom.

We also get to see more of Gonryōmaru in zanpakuto form than we ever did in the hands of Sasakibe, and the show’s fourth wall-breaking jokes about it are hilarious. He’s actually pretty cool! It kind of makes me wish we got more of him in the main storylines. A lightning-type zanpakuto could be very useful against certain opponents (pointedly looks at Tier Halibel).

I’m curious by the notion that all the zanpakuto are in human forms because Muramasa convinced them to be that way. We literally see Hyorinmaru as a dragon at the start of the arc, and several others (Renji and Soi Fon in particular, although Ikkaku seems to have a similar reaction) seemed not to be instantly familiar with their zanpakuto upon their meeting. Suzumebachi mentions changing her appearance to look less dour, which supports this theory. Obviously some, like Sode no Shirayuki, were always humanoid (Rukia seems to instantly recognize her), but why would a captain as powerful and experienced as Jushiro not immediately recognize Sôgyo no Kotowari if they weren’t in a different form? He seems astonished that they’re children. (Perhaps they were originally fish or fish-adjacent, hence the whole ‘law of Pisces’ thing?) I’m weirdly obsessed with this idea and I’d have loved more information. We do get Suzumebachi’s offhand comment and a few surprised looks from certain characters, but that’s about all we get. And why is Ashisogijizo nonverbal, if all the other zanpakuto in their new forms are? Watch as I frantically get some yarn and pushpins to make a mess of my bulletin board, channeling my inner Fox Mulder to try to get to the bottom of every mystery about the zanpakuto.

Above image: a sketch I drew of who is commonly touted as the most beautiful zanpakuto in the Soul Society, Sode no Shirayuki.

We’re seeing more of Gonryōmaru in zanpakuto form than we ever did in the hands of Sasakibe, and the show’s fourth wall-breaking jokes about it are hilarious. He’s actually pretty cool! It kind of makes me wish we got more of him in the main storylines. A lightning-type zanpakuto could be much needed.

I’m kind of sad that Old Man Zangetsu didn’t get a chance to hang out with the other zanpakuto. It’s a missed opportunity for sure. (I’m even more disappointed we didn’t get to see more of Hollow Zangetsu, but let’s be honest, I always think that and I wasn’t expecting it.) I still think it would have been nice, and would have given Ichigo a much-needed parallel to the other soul reapers as well. Maybe Zangetsu would be sealed again—that would be a neat dilemma!

I also really liked that one Toshiro-centric episode. Anytime my baby gets more screen time is a win for me! It was actually really cool to see him making first contact with Hyorinmaru.

Above image: Hyorinmaru in his manifested humanoid form.

Kazeshini just keeps getting cooler the longer he’s on screen. I know Shuhei hates him, and I can understand why, but I think he’s really cool. (Negating that one episode with the baby near the end of the season, of course.)

Ashisogijizo…is really just creepy.

Why does lieutenant Iba’s shikai not have a name? I googled it and apparently it’s never been named. A bit inconvenient for an arc centring around shikai and zanpakuto, and kind of weird.

I actually really like the idea of Koga being corrupted by an insanely powerful zanpakuto. I also like that regardless of how desperately Muramasa wanted him, he didn’t reciprocate and abandoning him was his downfall. It’s reminiscent of Kreacher’s storyline (from Harry Potter) and I approve. I also found it ridiculously funny, as a Zelda fan, every time Muramasa screamed ‘Master Koga!’

Both Yoruichi and Soi Fon get large amounts of screen time compared to normal this arc and I love it.

Jushiro and Sogyo no Kotowari were just so cute with some sweet moments. Jushiro’s great, and I wish he got more attention sometimes.

The post-credits scene of Yamamoto using Ryujin Jakka to light his fireplace and roast potatoes for supper is ridiculously funny. I know it’s not entirely relevant to the overall arc but I’m still thinking about it so it bears mentioning here.

Muramasa’s berserker Menos/Vasto Lorde-thing mode is not my favourite. It lacks the good plotting and power of his earlier plot points with Koga. It feels more contrived for the point of an explosive battle than before.

It’s nice to see the Karakura gang make an appearance for this final faceoff, even if their roles in this storyline are pretty minor. 

I also liked Byakuya’s role in this story arc. It made a lot of sense and was a pleasantly surprising twist that I didn’t see coming. It felt very in character for him once we got the explanation of why, but initially it seemingly came out of left field. Breaking off from the Gotei 13? Is this really Byakuya? It has a good payoff. I like it. (Please note that I thought Byakuya was Koga’s son until I looked it up after wondering why neither of them brought it up.) The only thing I slightly question is him killing Sode no Shirayuki, but I guess we could assume he figured Mayuri would have a plan for fixing the carnage; the captain of Squad Twelve tends to have contingency plans for his contingency plans. Look what happened to Szayelaporro.

The arc was mostly well paced and had an intriguing antagonist, the former being the failing point for the Bounts and the latter being one of my biggest issues with the Amagai arc. The timeline is a little messy because it’s in the middle of several mainline skirmishes (as is pointed out several times in the fourth wall-breaking end credits scenes), and there’s the inevitable strange power gap because of abilities not yet revealed in the mainline story that all the fillers have suffered from. It’s better in this arc because we’re much further along in the story, with much less glaringly obvious power gaps. We’re a long way from Bount arc Rukia, shikai-less and only knowing two kido spells, where this power issue was pretty obvious and annoyingly inhibited the action sequences. 

The twist as to why Yamamoto was sealed away made a lot of sense, which made the payoff more rewarding (even if it’s not what you initially think). However, I do find it kind of weird that neither Shunsui nor Jushiro (nor Unohana, for that matter) knew about Koga. They’re implied to be some of the oldest, original captains (they are, after all, the only ones aside from Yamamoto who were captains all the way back in the Turn Back the Pendulum era), and if Koga’s power trip was that bad you’d expect all the captains at the time to be well acquainted with him and his abilities. This is probably the only glaring plot issue I have with this story arc.

While the Sword Beasts were a bit of an unnecessary epilogue, I genuinely got a little sad during the last episode when the zanpakuto went back to their original forms. This could have happened earlier, yes, but it was sweet and sentimental nonetheless. 

Unfortunately, this arc drags its heels a little at the end. The individual, literally ‘monster-of-the-week’ episodes are fun enough, and I don’t resent them (unlike the Shusuke Amagai episodes) but they don’t feel necessary, particularly with the main antagonists having been thoroughly dispatched at this point in time. Haineko’s episode is a nice redemption of her usually fussy character, and I genuinely enjoyed seeing Senbonzakura’s dark side (Byakuya’s zanpakuto a hothead? Who could imagine). The season could well have ended after the climactic fight with Muramasa, but the denouément episodes are still decently fun filler. It’s nice and these last few episodes don’t take themselves too seriously. It’s also a bit of a lighthearted breather before the impending big Ulquiorra showdown—much needed, as that fight sequence is truly amazing and I could probably rack up two thousand words of babbling about how amazing it is in less than half the time that this took. I don’t mind this fluffy end that much, especially because otherwise the storyline of this arc has been pretty strong for filler, especially considering the reputation that Bleach’s filler has racked up with previous seasons. Also, unlike some of the earlier filler, it was mercifully Kon and Don Kanonji-free. 

Some action sequences in this arc were equally exciting as some parts of the canon arc that preceded it (looking at you, Nnoitra Gilga). The Ichigo and Muramasa showdown early on, despite my aforementioned gripe that we didn’t get to see Zangetsu play more of a role in this storyline afterwards, was really entertaining, and was thankfully not the only well-done fight in this arc. The conflict between Soi Fon and Suzumebachi is particularly good. The aforementioned Yumichika vs Ruri’iro Kujaku fight is also fun to watch. Even better, due to this arc’s subject matter there was blessedly little of Kenpachi Zaraki that I had to sit through—I’m becoming increasingly annoyed by the Squad Eleven captain as the show goes on.

I do think it’s kind of weird, though, that aside from Jushiro and Shunsui, who are canonically stated as the only dual wielders among the high-ranking soul reapers [in chapter 156 of the manga], Zabimaru is suddenly two separate beings. I recognize that several of the zanpakuto weren’t humanoid before Muramasa’s rampage, Zabimaru included (we’ve already seen a non-humanoid Zabimaru in the Soul Society arc), but it seems weird like they’re separate now. The childishly immature and feisty Snake seems like a better representation of Renji’s character overall of the pair that make up his zanpakuto.

I’m a little disappointed by a lack of Kisuke, but the presence of Yoruichi makes up for that, as she generally gets roughly as much screentime as Kisuke does. I do wish that Yoruichi had a canon zanpakuto, but it’s impressive she’s as scary and intimidating as she is without one. There were also a few excellent moments between her and Soi Fon, and since I absolutely adore them and their relationship I was suitably placated. No, I don’t care that it was only about five words. It was still glorious.

Long story short, the plot doesn’t drag like the Bount arc (except for maybe a bit at the end), it has two interesting antagonists, a few surprise twists, and an exciting plot. I like it. It’s biggest issue is from inconvenient placing, meaning that it doesn’t fit nicely into the rest of the storyline, but that’s more or less to be expected with filler (except for, strangely enough, the Bount arc). Otherwise, I’d give it a pretty good ranking! It’s a good romp with characters I’m already fond of, and the scene where they all realize their zanpakuto have left their swords is exciting.

Itegumo’s obscurity in this arc is hilarious. At least Gonryōmaru gets some screentime and his complaints against Sasakibe’s lack of an impression are canonically founded. That guy really doesn’t make himself very memorable, does he? I doubt Ichigo even knows his name… 

Minazuki also had virtually no screentime, but if I understand correctly they have a secret bankai they’re hiding? I don’t know the details but that might explain it. After all, we don’t really know a whole lot about their or Unohana’s abilities.

Overall, I really enjoyed this story arc. Compared to the poorly paced Bount arc and the dumpster fire of a time waster that was the Shusuke Amagai arc (Rurichiyo drove me up the bedroom wall every single episode in frustration), this sings in comparison. I am certainly glad I watched it.

I would recommend not skipping the zanpakuto rebellion arc! Unless you’re deadset on just watching the canon stuff, this arc has a lot going for it and is a fun watch as well as a great breather from the long main Arrancar plotline. I would definitely suggest giving it a try!