User blog comment:Xilinoc/Ch. 685 - THE PERFECT END/@comment-24769684-20160806201940

What even was this???

The ten year time skip was definitely not the best way to go, but given Bleach's limited timespan I was open to the possibility of it, if it was done right. But it wasn't.

So first Shunsui mourns Ukitake. Not entirely surprised that the guy died, but HAS KUBO FORGOTTEN WHO ELSE DIED? THE SOUL KING? THE GOD OF THE UNIVERSE WHO HOLDS ALL THINGS TOGETHER? YOU'RE JUST GOING TO SKIP OVER THAT PLOT POINT???

Then there's Mayuri, who seems to have embraced his inner goat-man. He unsurprisingly has another female human shield slave companion called Nemuri Hachigo. Not much left to say about that.

Meanwhile, everyone is bowing down to Kenpachi because Kubo finally decided to fess up and write him in whatever way he wanted. I feel like turning caps lock on again with regard to the Yachiru thing, but it would probably dissolve into inane nonsense, that's how infuriating that awful, awful, awful development was. It might be even worse than the plot hole about the Soul King.

Shinji is doing nothing of importance, as usual

The whole development about Iba becoming Captain and Komamura being lost forever was pretty shocking for me. My main issue with it, however, is the fact that that particular storyline was not seen in 130 chapters, so the only real emotion I felt was shock instead of anything deeper about Komamura's loss.

Hitsugaya is a kid again...for some reason. And then there's Hisagi. He was pretty much the funniest part of the whole chapter. Kubo didn't even try to mask that self-referential stuff, although the fact that he did joke about it doesn't excuse the fact that it was never seen. Soi Fon is back after relaxing for a little bit in Wahrwelt, but she thinks she can tell Kenpachi what to do.

Oh look, Rukia's the new 13th Division Captain. Cool.

Oh yeah, Kensei and Rose are alive too. So Kubo chooses to forsake any semblance of Shinigami being killed by the power of the enemy and instead kills most of them by their own stupidity. Sigh...

And then...we get this cliffhanger. What can I say? It's obviously something relating to Ichigo, there's got to be a reason none of the Karakura characters were in this chapter. I will withhold my judgement about everything Kubo skipped until the final chapter comes out, and hopefully the Soul King hole might be patched. But overall, this wasn't really an enjoyable chapter. I love epilogues, but there's this thing called the denouement that people need to see in order to make the epilogue actually interesting.