When Ichigo Chose to KILL Tsukishima - How Kubo Took Bleach's Hero to His Lowest Point | Discussion

there was a period of time where it was a little difficult actually being a fan of bleach and reading it on a weekly basis um and from my perspective what i mean is obviously during the fulbright arc where we had just come off the massive battle with eisen um things changed considerably and a lot of people really didn't like that and they didn't take to the ark very well and for someone like me um who would visit the forums after every single chapter you know whether that was like one manga or bleach asylum or something like that and you would get people just you know either super disappointed or just really really not liking the story or where it was going and you know i was enjoying it every week still um and i was like i still like this you know everyone's really hating on bleach at the moment but i think it's cool and you know the full bring arc yeah openly is nothing like we've ever really seen before it takes its time in giving us an arc that dives deep into the bonds that connect our main set of heroes um obviously tonally it is completely different from anything we've ever seen before it's very dark there are some aspects that feel like it's out like a noir detective genre um it's just considerably more mature i think than anything we've ever seen in the series prior and i'm not going to sit here and say that the people who didn't like it were wrong obviously you know they can have their own opinions but for me it represented a change in the storytelling and the way kubo wanted to depict the world of bleach and now that the eyes in battle and the fights with the espada were a distant memory he was going to try and deal with some slightly more mature themes and i had no problem with that and actually i think the arc especially in retrospect when you're able to look at it all from this privileged position of hindsight where you can just sit back and you know enjoy the arc in like the five volumes that it actually is it does a wonderful job of taking ichigo's character and just tearing him down and then building him up again that's what the ark is all about it's about breaking down the main character and then building him back both literally and figuratively and so it makes sense then for kubo to give ichigo his absolute lowest point in this arc when the story is at its darkest both thematically and in terms of what we're actually seeing on screen as well the ark goes places i don't think anyone ever really expected and so in this video i want to take a look at the moment ichigo decides he's willing to kill someone in cold blood to escape what appears to be an inescapable situation it's a fascinating moment of ichigo's character development that comes at the apex of an arc a lot of people didn't enjoy um but i think the ful the full ring ark or the lost agent arc whatever you want to call it is vital for the development it gives especially ichigo but also to the rest of the karakura gang as well and also for introducing two of my favorite bad guys in the series before we begin however guys if you haven't hit subscribe yet make sure to do that now um we are just literally about a thousand subs away from 70k which would just be incredible um and i really really do appreciate your support so much so if you hit that button that would just be absolutely fantastic give the video a thumbs up as well if you enjoyed it because it really does help with exposure and just getting this video out there to more bleach fans on youtube and also if you do want to take that support a step further we do now have a patreon for the channel as well um where you can support me there for as little as a dollar a month and you can also get videos early there too so i just want to say a massive thank you to everyone who has already become a patron of the channel so far going back now and looking at this arc and it's it can be difficult to read although it's a little bit more liberating knowing that everything turns out all right in the end but reading this on a weekly basis as the ark was escalating to its climax and things were just spiraling out of control for ichigo it wasn't hard to be on the same page as him so for a little context the villain tsukishima has basically enacted his master plan and he's used his fulbright all throughout this arc to basically imprint himself on ichigo's closest friends and family attacking the one thing that means the absolute most to him and right at the end of this arc tsukushima's gambit is revealed and suddenly his ichigo's friends and family all turn not against him but they act as though tsukushima has been a close presence in their lives all along and not some stranger who has just kind of inserted himself into their lives artificially it's chilling it is terrifying and it is incredibly well done and it does sort of feel like it comes out of nowhere but also not it's built up very well and in my opinion one of the best things about the lost agent arc is the smaller scale means that kubo clearly had time to properly plan out this story and it really shows it really shows because there's payoff from moments earlier in the arc that work really well like orahime is first cut by tsukishima right at the start of this arc and then it comes back in a big way right at the end um and so ichigo is the only one in karakura town it seems that knows fukushima for what he really is and you know fukushima is just sitting there in ichigo's living room at one point and his two sisters like they mean so much to him are like ichigo look it's uncle shoe he's just come out of nowhere he's back again um and it's so nice to have him back in our lives tsukushima invites ichigo's friends over each to go punches tsukishima in the face and his friends like lose their minds and as ichigo like runs away and tries to you know take solace in his part-time job with ikumi it turns out that she's been cut as well and it just barrels it builds and builds and it escalates until we get this horror movie vibe where ichigo is just absolutely a shell of a man apparently the only person he can turn to is ginjo and it's just so dark it's so dark and so well done and it takes the series to a place i never imagined it would go this is a very different kind of fight to the one against eisen this is intimate it's personal it's cruel eisen is the big bad at the end of the day fighting him is very much a good versus evil thing as much as i love eisen it's considerably more typical and i don't mind that that's the role he played i'm absolutely fine with that but kubo really dials it in for this arc and basically attacks ichigo at his heart where he lives at home it doesn't get any closer than this um you know eisen threatens to destroy karakura town but it's a very shonen bad guy threat at the end of the day um it's a big war to decide the fate of ichigo's world but here the fate of ichigo's world has seemingly already been decided and by world i mean his closest world and this is what i mean when i say it's not hard to find yourself understanding where he comes from um when ichigo and ginjo escape all of them and find themselves in this little hideout that ginger himself has prepared he basically says to ichigo that he thinks he's discovered tsukushima's true ability he thinks book of the end allows him to manipulate the past which is correct essentially um and the ichigo's friends now see him as someone they have always known and ichigo sweating you know he just looks awful and he says to ginjo in an act of you know ichigo's lowest point um he says will they go back to the way they were will i save them if i kill tsukishima and this is given clear importance in this chapter and from the way it's drawn it's just incredible as far as i'm concerned lost agent has the best character faces in bleach kubo's best character face work ever the emotion on show is just incredible and we need to take a look at ichigo as a wider character to understand why this is such a big moment for him ichigo is a fundamentally good person at heart whose main drive has always been to protect those around him um to protect those that he loves and cares about but he's not evil he's not cruel and he doesn't really have any inclination to be that way he spares nearly every single enemy he fights he heals ikaku after they fight um he heals dordony after they fight and really he just he just fights to win because he has to win and then he'll move on he's not vindictive or anything like that there are obvious exceptions to this rule ichigo kills all kiara but that situation is completely out of his control um and ichigo even professes after that fight that this isn't how he wanted to win obviously zangetsu takes over his body um the rage and instinct comes out and tears all cure apart but it's clearly not ichigo in control at that point and then the only other exception to that rule is eisen with mugetsu ichigo clearly goes for the kill against eisen in my opinion because eisen is split in half after that fight but in my opinion it almost doesn't count because that's very much an act of duty and that's something that kubo is really playing with during that fight as it is um in the eisen kind of says to ichigo i haven't injured any of your friends you should have no reason to hate me why are you fighting me and it's because it's ichigo's duty at that point to step up and you know fight alongside the shinigami against their common foe and so for ichigo to try and kill eisen only makes sense you know it's an act of war they're in the middle of a war and if ichigo doesn't win this fight eisen will destroy everything he knows and loves so to go for the kill makes complete sense as far as ichigo being a soldier of the sh of the goatee 13 goes in this instance but here this is a very personal intimate situation against a human enemy essentially and ichigo wants to kill him in cold blood because he hopes he doesn't know he hopes it will save his friends and that's another important distinction ichigo knows that by killing eisen karakura town is safe it is saved ichigo has no such guarantee that by killing tsukushima his friends will be freed from essentially their mind control it's not literally mind control that is what's going on here um and so that's what again makes this scene so fascinating is it's a massive gamble on ichigo's part as far as his conscience goes i think it's important to remember as well that ichigo is still at the end of the day just a kid and for him to be backed into a corner like this is eye-opening but i think the fullbring arc does a fantastic job of really escalating to this point and pushing ichigo into what seems like from us as a reader an inescapable corner from the very beginning the ark is playing on ichigo's feelings of helplessness and powerlessness since losing his shinigami powers from the moment uryu is attacked by tsukishima ichigo is like white i can't do anything to help you i can't save them and orihime is attacked and something is going on that is pushing ichigo to the point of despair where he puts his trust in a man he doesn't fully trust to try and get his powers back so there is a great moment when ichigo is talking with gin joe it seems like they are at their wit's end fukushima's grand plan has been revealed and now the two of them are alone in ginjo's final hideout the last refuge for these characters to escape to and ichigo asks kim joe flat out if i kill fukushima will things go back to the way they were and i think i just need to bring up kubo's artwork again kubo is making it very clear from the way ichigo looks that if he was to go down this path it would be a mistake ichigo looks like the villain in these panels he looks angry he looks desperate and evil with great shadow work um and that carries on as well into their actual confrontation ichigo looks crazed you know kubo does a great job of just drawing this sense of mania on ichigo's face um even in just small panels you can see he doesn't look like himself you know he looks mentally exhausted and just utterly terrified um but you know kind of willing to do whatever he thinks it takes but when ichigo says can i if i kill fukushima will they go back to normal gingo says that you know i don't know and he basically flat out says i don't know however right now it is our only course of action as big as although we know the truth to all of your friends and family right now we look insane um and so knowing that knowing that we don't know if killing fukushima will set them free can you go through with it could you kill tsukishima in cold blood and ichigo opens his mouth to answer when yukio arrives and it's purposefully cut off and what i think ichigo was going to say here was yes i think he was going to say yes i can do it um but the reason it's cut off is because kubo spares him he spares this child from condemning himself in a sense now obviously ichigo does threaten to kill tsukushima later on anyway but it's this moment of self-realization i guess when he's alone with gingzhou and ginjo flat out asks him it's just the two of them they think and ichigo was going to reply yeah i can murder this guy you know i have to i have to do it um but you know he's just a boy and kubo spares him that kind of no turning back moment i guess in a way um that seems to me why it's purposefully cut off from allowing each girl to actually confess that so at the very end of the arc we get the big final showdown and ichigo and ginjo kind of confronts tsukushima at presumably his house um and they they the fight is the showdown is so original this is what i mean like this this arc does a great job especially with its finale of completely differentiating itself you're never gonna forget this that's for sure um but ichigo is just on the verge of murdering fukushima like the moment sushi opens the front door ichigo goes for him he just like literally lunges at fukushima again that crazed look in his eye but ginjo holds him back and then we see all of ichigo's friends and family are in there and they're like celebrating ichigo coming home and they're like you know you know realize the error of your ways say sorry to tsukishima and it's terrifying like i remember reading it but i remember reading it and and thinking obviously this is going to turn out all right but right now i cannot see a way out you know it's not the same as just fighting eisen ichigo can probably train and overpower him how do you defeat that which has seemingly already won that has already taken ichigo's friends and his family away from him i i actually applaud kubo forgoing this route and for really pushing the boundaries of his main character as far as shonen protagonists go ichigo has always come across to me as being quite down to earth quite realistic in a sense and you kind of have to put yourself in his shoes how many of us out there would be willing to do whatever it takes to save those we care about in a situation like this where tsukushima isn't putting them in any obvious danger but that's because he's already won they're already on his side and life will never be the same again unless you do something about this guy and so i think kubo does a wonderful job at just building and building to ichigo's lowest point turning him against everyone he has ever cared about in this arc you have the the the chapter spotlight broken which is a brilliant chapter where ichigo begins to suspect not only kisgay is turning against him but also his own father um when in actuality they are working to help him behind the scenes now there is there are a lot of things in the lost agent arc that are maybe a little bit annoying and could be explained away by characters just talking to each other like why didn't kisuke and ishin just talk to ichigo and be like we're still on your side we're building you a a zom puck toe that will get all your shinigami powers back don't fret but then we'd lose all the precious drama um and that's what makes this art the end of this arc so special so if anyone does say to you oh you know the lost agent ark it's rubbish it doesn't mean anything it you know it's a filler waste of time i would and they haven't clearly haven't read it i would obviously urge you to you know just point them in the direction of this climax because it's wonderful it does crazy things for ichigo's character kubo really pushes him to the brink like i've said it's all about tearing him down and building him back up again both literally in terms of his losing his full bring powers when ginjo is eventually revealed to have betrayed him as well and he's just sobbing in the rain and then getting his powers back again from rukia a moment of salvation but also literally figuratively as well in terms of pushing him to the point where he's willing to admit he would kill this man when he goes so far has been adamant in preserving his enemies lives um because because he's not a killer at the end of the day you know there's a big distinction between fighting out of a sense of duty in a war situation and this um and i love that kubo does try and i think showcase that this is the wrong path for each go to go down now perhaps the only thing i don't like about this situation is it feels to me like kubo kind of wrote himself into a corner with just how inescapable it seemed like book of the end actually was and it turns out that actually killing fukushima would solve all of their problems and i don't know if i like that because to me it kind of cheapens ichigo's big decision to want to kill fukushima because he could just kill him and then be like everything's hunky-dory again um and i i guess it's weird because it's quite clear that after dying no one even remembers fukushima so if ichigo just killed him outside the house somewhere and then went back in they wouldn't even know he was missing um so in i don't really like that in a way it feels like cooper was like actually how do i deal with the tsukushiba problem uh let's just kill him and and you know it works it's fine but it just feels a little bit like it cheapens ichigo's big decision because it feels like kubo is saying you're going down the wrong path here but actually if you went through with it you know it would be all right um so that's kind of annoying but obviously there's a lot more going on here than just that that's reducing it to its simplest form really this is all about ichigo and his inner conflict the turmoil he's facing if he had killed fukushima yes he would have saved his friends but what would he have lost in the process definitely some of his humanity and then of course later on it's revealed that genjo is actually the main villain of this arc fukushima has been working for him the whole time and it seems like ichigo's final most steadfast ally actually has betrayed him um but then ichigo gets his powers back the shinigami return and it seems like this arc is just a magnet for criticism because it's people didn't really like this either um the shiny gummy coming back feels a little bit like a deus ex mac and it feels like kubo towards the end or the railings maybe shonen jump felt that the ark couldn't carry itself to the finish line and the goatee 13 had to show up to boost the ratings i i think that's very disingenuous i think that the goatee were probably always going to show up there's no doubt about it i think this arc was quite clearly planned out from the get-go um and the goat here are supposed to be ichigo's saviors because he has saved them so many times in the past um and i think that works absolutely fine you know i think that's totally fine i think it makes complete sense rukia being the one to get it to go out of this terrible situation um is brilliant imagery as well and so of course gingio now is this rogue character who is revealed to have this connection to ichigo because they're both substitutes shinigami they've both in a sense been used by the soul society to some degree or another and then ichigo does kill genjo in their final battle but again this feels very different to before it's portrayed very differently to before in a sense this kind of feels like ichigo doing the right thing by ginjo because ichigo has gone through this awful hardship with fukushima uh had this kind of moment of introspection where he's like yeah i would kill someone to save my family and friends but he's come out the other side of it without having to dirty his hands in that way and now once again you get this kind of like feeling of a sense of duty he has matured he seems almost like a proper like adult in the scene where he just cut skin joe down but it's not framed in a malicious way at all it seems like ginjo is caught in this endless cycle of hate at this point where it feels like ichigo is very much the pariah early on when he was trying to save his friends ginjo is now very much out of step with everyone else he is now the one on his own and gin and ichigo kind of just puts him out of his misery essentially like ginjo is on this endless spiral of revenge and hate and there's no way of getting out of it and ichigo kills him and ginjo seems to harbor no ill will towards him for that either the final scene of ginjo in the manga is or at least in the full bring up is beautiful it is so so well done kubo's art is just on another level in in seriously it's so good um you know ichigo basically saying to ginjo like our paths diverged and i've made my choice and i will stop you here and now to protect everyone and that look on ginjo's face where he's like all right let's do this and from this point on ichigo just becomes more mature i think he takes a more mature attitude to everything very in keeping with the themes and the tone of the arc and he puts kinjo down essentially because it's the only way out for this character and even riruka is able to realize that she says you know he's saved he saved genji gingo is the one who saved us but ichigo saved him from his eternal spiral of despair essentially this constantly going around and doing the same thing over and over targeting people it's never going to make him happy it's never going to fulfill this need for revenge he has and so ichigo kind of you know takes him out one substitute shinigami to another it's a moment that i kind of wish kubo had spent a bit more time with uh giving it a bit more time to marinate i do think the final moment between each going gingo is near perfect though with ichigo just looking down on him no sense of triumph but also no sense that he did the wrong thing you know he looks just very solemn and ginjo dies thinking like maybe would our part would would our perspectives have been different if we'd been if you'd been in that place and i'd been in your place um you know would you have done the same as me and it's a great moment between two people who finally understand each other and realize that they're not so different but from this point on ichigo does seem to become a little more mature obviously the thousand-year blood war arc is very mature just in general it seems like kubo took a lot of inspiration from this arc in terms of the tone of that arc now obviously it's a war arc so it's not going to be ever really as intimate as this one but ichigo just seems very different i always felt that ichigo felt very different after this experience and that makes a lot of sense um but i always felt that he he approached situations and just felt more like an adult kind of moving forwards um but yeah so that's that's pretty much it really about ichigo's absolute kind of lowest point his admission that he is ready and willing to kill tsukushima he wants to kill him um he goes for him when they first meet each other he cuts off his arm and he just looks like he wants to kill him but obviously it's an emotional fight but i always find it fascinating to talk and look at this sort of thing about how fukushima and by extension genjo are kind of the antithesis to eisen in that sense and eisen is more of a you know much larger scale threat and these two are a much more personal thing but it's these two that really drive ichigo to despair um and how that affects him how that affects his mental state and just watching the climax of this arc really just build and build every single week in a way that is just gripping as a reader not knowing how ichigo's going to get out of this and sympathizing with him um to some degree and just seeing how much this whole experience kind of changes him as well is fascinating to me but that's it for this video guys i hope you enjoyed it let me know in the comments below what you thought of the finale to the lost agent arc to this final you know almost horus movie scenario that ichigo finds himself in that drives him to the point where he's willing to murder another human in cold blood to take that first dangerous step down a potentially slippery slope let me know what you thought of kubo's handling of ichigo in this arc and the development he receives and the more intimate personal focus on him and his friends let me know what you thought of the lost agent arc in general because i've always been an ardent defender of it um but you know i'm well aware i'm not i'm not blind and i remember my experience back in the day i remember people didn't really like it so let me know where you stand with the ark as a whole but until next time guys i'll catch you later and i'll see you then

Channel: MrTommo2304

Views: 73,167

Rating: 4.9587526 out of 5

Keywords: bleach, bleach manga, bleach anime, bleach discussion, anime, manga, discussion, bleach new anime, bleach tybw, ichigo vs ginjo, ichigo vs tsukishima, lost agent, bleach final arc, bleach 2020, bleach 20th, MrTommo2304, MrTommo2304 bleach

Id: 2sGYlOgoZBU

Length: 27min 44sec (1664 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 17 2021