#ch511

[opbackgrounds]

It's hard to emphasize how Oda builds up this moment without posting entire blocks of manga panels, but he draws out the danger placed to Zoro for three whole pages. Every Straw Hat gets a moment to react or try to help while Zoro lays motionless, and it's all completely useless. The sense of dread that's been going on for the past few chapters reaches its breaking point, and then, bam!

Perfect way to end the chapter, wonderfully drawn and executed. 10/10, no notes

[every-sanji]

[stephanericherthanyou]

Ch505-527

Ch505: The Fire

kon! long time no see :’)

“burn. i am finally able to express my condolences. choujirou.” the guardian of hell...that turns everything into ashes....

/lies down, eviscerated by the old man yaoi of it all (also the loyalty that reminds me a bit of ikkaku & ken-chan....inch resting...)

CANG!!!!! HELLO!!!!!!!

“it’s been over 1000 years. juha bach. i came here...to annihilate you.” DAMN!

Ch506: The Fire 2

wait so this bach is one of the twins, right? so did ken-chan actually dispose of the other one or

“my dad can beat up your dad” - accutron

Ch507: The Fire 3

i see we have reached the era of “trollface comics included at the end of the chapter”

Ch508: Like a Raging Fire

YES THE ZOMBIE ARMY

Ch509: Tenchi Kaijin

man this art is so incredible and gorgeous

“you cannot steal something whose limit is unknown” huh

Ch510: The Extinction

so that /was/ the last time he and okikiba talked....oh :(

Ch511: Die Standing

who knows how much of this yamajii backstory is true given that it’s coming from bach...although he and unohana definitely were that kind of person back in the day so it’s perhaps at least somewhere in the middle

Ch512: Everything But The Rain

ahh it’s raining....i’d forgotten that this chapter had this title as well

“i will not last much longer...despite being a captain of one of the gotei 13, i was unable to defeat the foul enemy who invaded seireitei. i let many valuable soldiers die, causing the suffering of their subordinates and families, and in the end i was defeated miserably. i am ashamed of this. on the other hand, you are a human. normally, not only you shouldn’t be involved in all this...you should not even be here now...yet...i’m going to ask you a favor. please forgive this despicable behavior of mine. please...protect soul society, ichigo kurosaki!”

:( BYAKUYAAAAA

and the ending meme refs his ‘death’....we could not have known. we never could have known.

Ch513: The Dark Moon Stroke

“byakuya, the noble shinigami, entrusted him with his last will!” yeah there was no ambiguity there SHUEISHA

the getsuga tenshou comes out in a shape like the crescent moon huh...that would, i suppose, be the titular “dark moon stroke” (i am slow at these things sometimes ok)

Ch514: Born in the Darkness

telegraphing just as loud as your quincy bedspread in the anime: you, my child, are a quincy. surprise!

ooooh i see....kyoka suigetsu strikes again

Ch515: Relics

isane....unohana....man. we see how tough this is on shunsui, but for unohana--she’d known yamajii longer than anyone, sasakibe probably the same, all their old comrades from back then had died...this is the final order yamajii gave her (& her squad) and she’s holding onto that, and him, for just a little longer...and she probably knows she can’t wait any longer for her rematch with ken-chan, in which she’s going to have to die....and all of this happened within a few days and she is thousands of years old. :(

“-sama” wrow ichigo

and it’s still raining. and rukia doesn’t know about byakkun (did they really reveal he was ~alive~ this soon after? maybe that really long hiatus was between these parts but for some reason i thought it was like....august-september and one of the earlier chaps in this part mentioned it was mid-september on the wsj cover but it was uh. almost 10 years ago and this recap series has demonstrated the faultiness of my memory already)

heh the meme at the back was like “bleach will never end!” and....they were right, but they didn’t know it :’)

Ch516: The Squad Zero

sldfkj is there anyone who /doesn’t/ know about ikkaku’s bankai

Ch517: The Stairway to Heaven

thanks for the earworm kubo

OH MAN UNOHANA’S FACE FUCK THE PAIN

Ch518: The Shooting Star Project (Zero Mix)

og shooting star project (& its remix) were kuukaku.

lol grimmjow pls

kisuke ur right on the money, ofc ichigo will protect everyone

“ganju...he became huge and turned into stone, so im using him to hold the banner” KUUKAKU PLS

and the return of fullbringers huh

Ch519: Hot Hot Heat

so many great ichigo faces...

Ch520: Killers Not Dead

meanwhile, in soul society...!?

“i can see why the king of souls would fall for him” sldkfjs 

AWWW YEAH KENPACHI FIGHT

Ch521: A Piggy Party

ichigo, to renji: you’re staying on the bottom!

it’s just like how ichigo looks in orihime-vision....

Ch522: Love It

“mysterious plushie-chan” sldkfj

Ch523: Words of Origin

which is on top? well, sexually, yes, but also who is the king and who is the horse?

speaking of who’s on top...”you’re taciturn, but i like that. because as long as i hear your voice, the only wound i have can’t stop throbbing.” i don’t remember it being this shippy!

Ch524: The Drop

isane and the love letter huh....she /did/ know about the scar, confirmed and all, so...i wonder. and she was confirmed in love with unohana--did unohana know? were they together?

Ch525: Edges*

it’s ‘if i’m admiring i can’t surpass’ all over again huh

Ch526: The Battle

“you’re the only man in the world that could make me happy” as she is impaled on a blank background. good romantic shit.

yes being impaled on a sword is always romantic but like, the pose here? incredible. lovely.

(also thinking about how her power resembles barragan’s a bit...)

Ch527: Eliminate From Heaven

“you have enemies to fight...friends to argue with (byakuya, ichigo, and...renji apparently?)”

“the one that’s been watching” huh...well. yes i suppose.

[naruto1to700]

Chapter 511

[opbackgrounds]

I don't think anything sells the seriousness of the situation quite like Luffy suggesting that the crew run away, and taking the initiative to make sure the members of the monster trio are all in different groups to protect the weaker members of the crew

[opbackgrounds]

How very kind of Nami to make sure Franky's back isn't facing the enemy

[opbackgrounds]

In case anyone was wondering why Sentomaru dresses Like That, he's based on a Japanese mythological figure named Kintaro, who was also known for carrying an axe and sumo wrestling bears

[opbackgrounds]

Oda's pulling the same trick here he used at the end of Thriller Bark, going really out of his way to emphasize how tired the Straw Hats are before jumping immediately into another fight. It adds to the feeling of hopelessness when the crew is ambushed for a second time

[opbackgrounds]

Usopp starts out hanging all over Zoro, but ends up taking pot shots and an admiral trying to protect him

[opbackgrounds]

I will fully admit that I don't keep up with the week to week theory crafting that goes on within the fandom, but I really don't recall the possibility of clones being brought up at all before Whole Cake Island, when the possibility seems pretty obvious based on what Franky says here I mean, this is laying it on thick, even for Oda

[opbackgrounds]

Aww, it's kind of cute how Usopp instantly goes into kung fu fighting mode

[opbackgrounds]

Chopper knows what's up.

And it seems appropriate the thing we see when questioning who this fake Kuma is is his paw-less hand

[opbackgrounds]

We don't get a very good look at it, but tattoo alert for Sentomaru

And while we see a bit of Sentomaru's backstory later on, I'm a little bit surprised he didn't end up being from Wano. Everything about him seems to fit with that sort of origin story, and he uses haki in a very Wano-ian way.

[every-sanji]

[every-sanji]

[every-sanji]