Bleach TYBW THE END Episode Review - It was BRUTAL

Article at a glance:
Yhwach gets even more terrifying, with the anime going above and beyond to make him feel like an actual calamity.
Ichigo and the others face an increasingly hopeless situation, as the final battle takes a very dark turn.
The anime continues expanding on the manga in some really interesting ways, giving us plenty of new material to dig into.

This might be one of the darkest episodes in Bleach, period. THE END 1 and 2 chapters in the manga were pretty bleak too, but the anime legit makes Yhwach feel scary. Aizen is among my favorite villains of all time, but even HE never felt this terrifying. The TYBW anime has gone above and beyond to make Yhwach feel like an actual calamity, no pun intended. So yeah, welcome back to another Bleach TYBW Episode Review, and today we are talking about THE END.

As usual, there will be spoilers ahead. Please watch the episode before continuing.

Things Are Looking REALLY Bad for Ichigo

Poor Ichigo just can’t catch a break. After witnessing Orihime’s “sacrifice,” he was ready to sacrifice himself and become the Soul King. I like how even the stuff needed for Ichigo to transition into the role of the Soul King even appeared as he approached Yhwach’s throne. But then he senses something and sees Orihime floating in the air behind him. And well, then Yhwach comes back, starting with just one eye that splits into many, many eyes. Very creepy sequence; I like it. Again, just adds to how much more terrifying Yhwach is in the anime compared to the manga.

Yhwach then goes on to explain just how insane The Almighty actually is. How it allows him to change futures effortlessly. And of course, after that, we’re treated to the infamous scene of Yhwach breaking Ichigo’s new Bankai instantly. After dealing with Ichigo, he literally carves Renji into actual pieces as Renji tries to activate his own Bankai. And then proceeds to butcher Rukia as well; they didn’t even show what happened to Rukia, but I can only imagine. All this was not in the manga, and again, it just makes Yhwach look even more diabolical as a villain. THE END chapters focus on Ichigo’s despair, sure, but it’s a lot darker here in the anime because he just saw his friends getting brutalized in front of him.

Uryu vs. Haschwalth transitions to its manga version in this episode too. And yeah, the ending with Haschwalth dying from the Auswählen is still underwhelming, but at least the fight got a LOT, LOT more time in the anime, and they added some genuinely fun moments to it. Haschwalth said that Uryu might be the only person capable of countering The Almighty. And I don’t remember if that line was in the manga. If that’s a new addition, that is very interesting. I also like how the anime constantly gives us updates on the state of the world and what Akon and his team are doing to prevent it. Ukitake + Mimihagi are still barely holding the three worlds together, which is insane given how broken Yhwach is right now.

Winding Up

As for next week, I am pretty sure we will get the conclusion of the Gerard fight as well. I hope they show us a bit more of the fight before the Auswählen hits and ends it. We MAY finally get to see Aizen again next week too. Next episode should close out everything else, I think, and then episodes 8 and 9 will be all about the final fight with Yhwach. Episode 10 should be the aftermath and the epilog. I really do hope that they show more of the immediate aftermath of the arc in the anime. In the manga, they just skipped a few years later, and the immediate aftermath was given by Can’t Fear Your Own World instead.

Regardless, VERY interested in seeing where next week’s episode goes with things. The poem for the episode was by Uryu, as expected, and it is called THE END 2, which is weird since this episode already covered the manga chapter THE END 2. Regardless, that concludes my episode review for Bleach TYBW THE END. Let me know what you guys think in the comments. I will take my leave here. See ya!

Also, check out my thoughts on last week’s episode here!