‘Bleach: TYBW’ Episode 28 review: “Kill the King” gave me life

In my previous Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War review, I speculated on the potential of the anime to make more drastic changes to the original work. Bleach: TYBW episode 28, “Kill the King,” doesn’t quite reach that but does so enough to drastically improve the arc’s chief weakness. “Kill the King” takes care to make both Ichigo and Yhwach interesting in a place where the manga completely fails to. This does wonders both in maintaining the anime’s quality and rewarding manga readers who have stuck with this adaptation. 

Adaptation for the better

“Kill the King” makes it clear from the very first frame that there’s a lot more going on than long time Bleach fans expect. Yhwach gets to be introspective, in ways similar to his flashbacks in “THE FIRE,” but going back to his own birth. He may even be looking before that. It’s esoteric in a way that begs speculation, which I will get to because Ichigo shows up to get his rematch. One that the anime is more than happy to provide, surprisingly. 

As I’ve noted in previous reviews, Yhwach’s Almighty is not exactly a compelling power if you’re someone who actually enjoys anime fights. In the manga, he spends most of the remainder of Bleach walking through every character without much more than “I predicted” this. While impressive at first, it gets old very quickly. TYBW seems to have come to the same conclusion, because when Ichigo attempts to stop him, Yhwach turns The Almighty off. As a result, we get the sweet treat of seeing Ichigo actually using those powers he’s been working toward. 

The power of flexibility

Most if not all of TYBW’s fights have been excellent, but this fight really drives home the creativity of Pierrot Films. Ichigo gets to flex his new skills against Yhwach in a dynamic brawl backed by some truly classic Bleach battle music. It’s genuinely a real treat for longtime fans to get a bit more meat in the build up to the climax. There’s even a great combo of Ichigo and Orihime when she real time heals him to try to catch Yhwach off guard in how hard Ichigo can strike. It doesn’t work, but it lends more credence to things to come, and it’s just nice to see this group taking more actions. 

The rest of the cast is interspersed to help build the drama. The Soul Reapers come together more organically this time around, with much more confusion. Because of this, there’s a larger sense of dread about what’s we’re seeing going on above their heads. Instead of immediately moving towards Urahara’s next plan, there’s a lack of direction the good guys are experiencing. I can absolutely imagine those who never actually read the rest of the manga inheriting this nervousness. 

Even when the battle does reconnect to the narrative as written, the new build up makes it so much more emotional as Ichigo’s body is possessed by Yhwach. What happens within seconds becomes much more drastic and painful, with visible shock instead of anger on Ichigo’s face as he’s forced to bisect the Soul King himself. This is a defeat unlike anything Ichigo faces in the series, and the anime’s made the right choice to dwell on it for much longer. 

Bleach theorizing in 2024?

This is also where it’s time to do something I never thought I’d do again: Bleach theorizing. In Bleach: TYBW episode 28, Yhwach gets to explain himself. Not the self-important stuff, though there’s a bit of that, but this time he actually breaks his motivations down for Ichigo; including why he just made Ichigo do the deed. He needed him to. We’ve seen this spoken in the manga, but this version lays it out clearly. Ichigo has gained various powers over the course of Bleach: Soul Reaper, Hollow, Fullbringer, and the (ugh) Quincy blood he always had. As a result, he himself is the exact mix of powers to actually kill the Soul King. 

In the middle of all this, something genuinely new leaps out: the Soul King’s personal name: Adnyeus. This is a name only previously referred to when Yhwach used Auswählen earlier in the arc, and has been a source of much speculation in the fanbase. It’s this tipped reveal that finally has me feeling confident to call my shot: before TYBW wraps, significantly more will be revealed about the Soul King themselves and what Ichigo actually means in the grand scheme of things. 

Can’t Fear Your Own World, a light novel spin off, does contain a lot more lore about the Soul King, Ichibē, and beyond. A lot of it is on the weird side, in that it further complicates the backing history of TYBW. Most controversially are reveals related to Ichigo himself, and designs others have on him. Curiously, the new OP may actually be directly referring to these exact reveals. In the event of that being the case, I don’t want to give away the ghost quite yet. But, see for yourself: 

Positive cope

The canonicity of these light novels is debatable at best, though Kubo did consult on them. I know I’m more than likely setting myself up for disappointment. There’s little reason to believe there will be a major change or full retcon of Bleach’s original anticlimactic ending, to say nothing of the possibility that the series could resume serialization. However, “Kill the King” puts the effort into making this part of the arc significantly more dynamic, and I must acknowledge that. 

I think it’s time to finally put away my cynicism that has colored this coverage. Even as the story eventually does wind down to the expected conclusion, Pierrot Films deserves high praise. Bleach: TYBW is quickly becoming the definitive way to consume Bleach’s final arc, which is not something easy to say about the original anime at its best. “Kill the King” highlights the staff’s desire to put out the best they can, addressing weaknesses in the story as they can, and improving it. Every time they have done so has been exactly that, improvement. 

Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War is available on Hulu. 

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Featured image ©Tite Kubo/Shueisha, TV TOKYO, dentsu, Pierrot