User blog:Xilinoc/Ch. 610 - Mausoleum of Skulls

Song to listen to while reading this chapter: "Actions and Motives" by 10 Years

Uuuuuuuggghhh. Now this is a chapter I'm not a fan of.

So we start off with Haschwalth doing his usual thing of explaining Yhwach's abilities for him by telling Uryū about what The Almighty is - clairvoyance, essentially, as it lets Yhwach SEE THE FUTUUUUUURE see what's gonna happen in the future and react accordingly. Apparently, he hadn't been using it up until now because he would have lost control of it and also been unable to absorb power from his Sternritter if he had used it while regaining his powers during those 9 years, which makes more sense than him being nice to his opponents, for sure. Oh, and something something about their prayers being answered, yay god incarnate themes.

Back to Yhwach, who explains basically the same thing to Ichibē except including the detail that this lets him predict powers and use them to his advantage, or something. However, Ichibē don't care for this "future sight" crap, so he takes darkness from Yhwach's body and, in a manner reminiscent of Kidō, uses a technique called Futentaisatsuryō that covers everything and darkness and completely obliterates Yhwach.

...or so it would have, except Yhwach can apparently nullify this with...the power of plot? It's hard to tell at this point. Also, his name is Yhwach, which is why he's just blasted Ichibē to bits.

Good god, this was a terrible chapter. The explanation given for why Yhwach hasn't been using The Almighty up until now was nice, and Ichibē's little technique was pretty cool (felt like something a Quincy might use, what with preventing reincarnation and all), but christ almighty is The Almighty broken. I was reserving judgement until this chapter because I knew it would be explained in more detail, and now that it has...ugh, c'mon Kubo. You're better than this, I know you are, and now it just feels like Ichigo's the only one who can defeat him because plot. I would've been complete fine if his power restoration abilities were in fact The Almighty because that's not super broken, but this is ridiculous.

Oh, and apparently Ichibē's dead now. Great, really, don't need names for anything, amirite?