Radio silence these past couple of weeks = Seth on holiday.
Razor Wind: Overpowered villain - major threat;
Overpowered goodie on main cast - boring if not handled correctly.
Feverfew: It does successfully portray Old Man Yama as the ultimate patriarchal father-figure for Soul Society, however, as he's stepping up to the plate to prove that the monster under the bed is, in fact, not to be worried about.
hachiman: He defeated the monster effortlessly
Transfer: For me it just doesn't ring true that Yamamoto would spare the lives of Mila Rose, Sun-Sun and Apache out of "respect for their spirit".
My interpretation is exactly the opposite of these. While Yamamoto may have beaten Alan without taking a hit himself he underestimated his opponent twice. The chimera was shot through the heart and cut in half, and the Captain of Division 1 only managed to beat him by incinerating him completely. In other words: Yamamoto, the man in charge of the Gotei 13, the oldest and most experienced Shinigami of them all, failed twice in a row to beat a mere animal and needed a third shot to get lucky.
That might seem to be an academic distinction, but in a series like Bleach it's pretty vital. Every fight is about power and status relationships, which means that outcomes can seem to be entirely counter-intuitive. Fights escalate with progressive revelations of power not just because it's freakin' cool (it is), but because the optimum honourable outcome for many combatants is defeating the enemy with precisely the right amount of force, even if it potentially increases the risk to themselves (it's cowardly to be afraid of pain and death). Yamamoto could have incinerated Alan with his first blow, but if you hit an enemy too hard you run the risk of people thinking that you overestimated them because you were afraid of them. This leads to situations like the one in which Nnoitra chose to leave Chad alive rather than acknowledge him as a potential future threat (dealing the death blow would have made him lose face in front of Tesla).
Yamamoto humiliated himself by requiring three hits in order to accurately assess his enemy. He covered for it in two ways. First, he continually patronised both his opponent and the defeated Lieutenants, making disparaging comments about their lack of fighting ability which 'forced' him to take to the battlefield. But it took three 'final blows' to off Alan. The Lieutenants couldn't scratch him. That places the chimera at roughly Captain/Espada level, which is clearly more than Iba, Hinamori, Matsumoto, Hisagi and Kira could have handled. Nevertheless, Yamamoto admonishes them for a lack of power to cover for his own lack of insight. And we know his stated reasons for refusing to kill Sun Sun, Mila Rose and Apache are unlikely to be true, not only because you can't believe a word anyone says about themselves in Bleach, but because of the manner in which he spoke to the chimera. Mocking Alan's fighting spirit as 'not knowing when to quit' totally contradicts praising Halibels' Fraccion for the same behaviour.
Secondly, he attempted to regain the face he believed he lost in misjudging Alan by perfectly estimating the power level of Halibel's remaining Fraccion. You could see it as compensating for coming in at two over par by hitting a hole in one, a precisely judged powerplay intended to disable them but keep them alive. It's not only a far more difficult feat than merely killing them, it's also proving that he is capable of accomplishing that which he screwed up against their pet. Finally, this tactic has the standard secondary gain of dismissing the opponent as not being a threat. Yamamoto left them alive, which is almost invariably a gesture of contempt.
There's another possible reason for his decision to spare Halibel's Fraccion. Members of a squad tend to behave in a manner similar to their leader (Kenpachi's 11th or Unohana's 4th are good examples). If Sun Sun, Mila Rose and Apache went nuts as a result of their pet's death then he might be anticipating that Halibel will react in the same way to her Fraccion's death. Yamamoto may doubt the 10th Squad Captain's ability to defeat his opponent (if the Fraccion are that powerful, what must their master be like?), and so he may have been trying to save Hitsugaya's life without causing him the humiliation of taking over against Espada #3. Halibel went all out when she saw her subordinates defeated, and so if this was his train of thought then he was probably exactly right to flatter them and spare their lives in the hope that Halibel might extend the same treatment to her enemy.
On the subject of Halibel, I both love the design of her concealed face and think it's Exhibit 3,971 for Bleach as ultimately being pretty sexist (HEAVYMETALHRGIGERBONETITSGO!!1!ICHI!). Yes, it has strong female characters. Yes, it subverts many expectations and in doing so offers a critique of the medium. But it never truly transcends the sexism of most boys own adventure stories/comics/shonen archetypes, it just plays with them a little in some interesting ways. It has some way to go before it can even be seen on a par with a series like Gunbuster, the earliest example I've encountered of a fully-fledged sexist critique of sexism in anime (ie: an analysis that works by admitting – indeed, revelling in – its own culpability). However, it meets all the criteria for the Hip Hop Defense, ie; no more misogynist than Johnny Cash, Nick Cave, Bob Dylan etc… Bleach is only likely to be singled out as especially sexist by someone with barely any experience of comics or movies from any culture. It fits right in as an example of what you might expect, it's just a particularly complex, well written and interesting example.
So, exactly how exciting was #339? VERY EXCITING, that's how exciting it was. It took longer than expected, but now that the Fraccion are out of the way we're finally cutting back to our hero, who has been almost entirely passive in the story for around eighteen months since he fought Grimmjow Jaegerjacques. Predictions? A few chapters of fighting and then some interesting answers? Hope so innit! |
