Live Review - Bleach 553 - Frozen Cross

Bankai-restoring enemy-exploding auto-win pills from the machine!
Whew... for a second I thought we might actually have to see some different sorts of fights in Bleach! But now everyone has their bankai back! Great. Whatever.

Bleach 553 - Frozen Cross
Scans by mangastream

1
So his wings exploded off 'cause he doesn't have the bankai anymore I guess okay whatever.

2
And this dude here whose name I can't recall at the moment is gonna just put this dude on ice now I guess okay sure.

3
...No, it was that ridiculous invention of Urahara.

4
...What? This thing looks pretty freaky. Actually good job on that character design that is pretty unnerving. It's a robot or something I guess. Soi Foi or whatever her name is seems down for the count but she's gonna bankai it up. Is this whole chapter just gonna be people getting their bankai and then getting revenge?

5
Wait, what? How did he get over there to do that? Why is the robot letting this happen? What the hell?

6
Uh alright sure... so why didn't Urahara just warp the pill over to her?

7
She's gonna beat him lying down like that? Maybe you should move robot-kun.

8
Weren't they right next to each other? Did I miss something? Okay whatever big laser attack sure.

9
And then back to this fight. Whatever...

10
He's going all Wolverine... lol that ain't gonna work.

11
How you gonna act so badass when you just about lost and then got deus ex machinaed and then just like flipped it on him? I'm not buying it man you almost got totally wrecked. smh.

12
Blah blah blah... You know, if you're not feeling the badassness of the guy on the receiving end, the whole "your punches don't even hurt!" scene is really lame.

13
Talking to his bankai... okay whatever... just do the attack, which I'm guessing is called "Ice Cross" and get on with it.

14
I'm not really sure what I'm looking at here... does that ice dragon have abs? Okay whatever.

15
Uhh okay so he got a partial hollow mask... um I don't care what that means.

16
Everyone looks kinda lame. What's actually happening in these panels? Just do the attack or whatever.

17
Okay sure.

The captains fight back with their bankais!
Uhh sure. So they lost them last arc, and now they just got them back for free and fight the same guys. And this guy was introduced just last chapter and now there's a whole chapter of him just getting mercilessly wrecked by the guy he was just wrecking in the past. I just can't get invested in any of this. This was the standard Kubo sort of fight where it's never clear really what's happening and it's just one character acting strawmannishly aggressive and also being wrong about whatever philosophical argument of the day... this one was an in-universe one, too, lol... attacking the other guy ineffectively and then just getting crushed. Ugh, boring. At least it wasn't so blah blah blah.

C-