User blog:Xilinoc/Ch. 581 - THE HERO 2

Song to listen to while reading this chapter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZByDVV3yY1c

Fine, fine, I was wrong.

So first off, we've got a nice color page of the four Sternritter. It's good to get to know their color scheme since the anime's out of the picture at this point, but it seems like Kubo's been doing a LOT of color pages for this arc, no? Not a bad thing by any means, but still uncommon, at least as far as I can tell.

Then, we finally cut back to Suì-Fēng and Marechiyo, the latter of whom is protecting the former from some Soldat. Theoretically, he COULD take them, but Momo shows up and blasts them with Tobiume. Turns out Shinji's relatively okay after being exploded by Bambietta, probably thanks to Momo's healing skills, and they seem to remember that whole Special War Power thing - if Kenpachi dies, the war is over. But of course, Bazz-B shows up, says he can't let Jim do that, and uses Burner Finger 3, turning a building into lava. (Side-note: my bet's that it stops at 3 or goes up to 5.)

Then, we've got Byakuya and Rukia rushing toward the source of the lightning, with Rukia apparently still being injured from her last battle. But of course, they both sense a powerful Reiatsu and stop dead in their tracks because they recognize it. A Garganta opens...for some reason...and something falls into a clock tower before moving to Kenpachi, where it turns out to be none other than Ichigo, who is here to save his buddy. D'awww.

Overall, I like the style and content of this chapter a lot. I've always liked it when Kubo cuts around to other characters during a series of successive battles in this arc, but in this case I feel it was more justified than usual because, well, Ichigo's the main character and everyone loves him. Also, he MIGHT be more powerful than even Kenpachi at this point, but who knows.