Is that the Soul King’s Sword? Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War Episode 37 Review

Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War Episode 37 is titled, “Shadow’s Gone”

This is the first episode in the TYBW adaptation that uses an original title yet follows the pattern of the manga titles, opposite of the original Bleach anime with mostly original titles that were longer or had two sentences.

This episode adapts the end of Chapter 649: “The Theater Suicide Scene 3” all the way to the beginning of Chapter 654: “Deadman Standing”.

A Rude Awakening

The episode begins with Shunsui imagining himself as a kid, sleeping on the porch of his brother’s house.

The one to awaken him is a woman that looks suspiciously like Nanao Ise, his lieutenant.

This was his brother’s wife and we see Shunsui teasing his brother over how soft he is around her.

We cut back to the present as Shunsui lies on his Zanpakuto Spirit’s lap when suddenly, an energy blast bores a hole through his body.

As it turns out, Lille has defied death and taken on a new form.

Right off the bat, Lille slices off a portion of the city with Light of Judgment but Kyouraku was still able to move in spite of his wounds, showing off more of his resilience.

Katen suggests that they run away from the fight as it is confirmed that Karamatsu Shinju will not work on the angelic monster a second time.

Once again, he drifts to sleep and sees more of his past until he hears Nanao calling for him.

This gives Kyouraku a sigh of relief as she was unaffected by his Bankai but then he is surprised to hear Nanao asking him to give back her Zanpakuto.

Lille appears from behind to attack them but they vanish thanks to the light that the being produces.

Lille’s Redesigned 2nd Vollstandig Form

The anime altered the design to Lille’s 2nd Vollstandig form significantly, with his white hair fused to the long neck rather than being wispy.

The voice acting and sound effects make Lille out to be a much creepier being and is in a way the truest form of his being as a Quincy.

You can compare Lille’s situation with Espada No. 4 Ulquiorra Cifer

Both have 1st forms that act mostly like shells.

Ulquiorra’s original Resurreccion had him in robes, which is the opposite of what a Resurreccion would go.

In fact, his robes here cover him up more than his Espada uniform.

Lille’s 1st Vollstandig form had no arms and seemingly wraps himself in priestly white robes, his giraffe-like legs revealed when the robe opens up a bit.

However, when both assume their Second Forms, they look quite different

They are devoid of the restraints of their clothes and have high-speed regeneration but more importantly, both seemingly show the truest forms of their respective species, with Lille in particular resembling a Biblically-accurate angel with a more animalistic take.

Both characters also develop nuclear attacks with devastating power, as Ulquiorra’s Lanza del Relámpago, when thrown, could release an explosion that dwarfed Las Noches, a fortress the size of a city, while Lille’s final attack was able to wipe out nearly an entire Wahrwelt city, which used to be one of the five Palaces of Squad 0.

Not to mention how they take up the title page of their respective chapter introductions.

Shunsui Kyouraku’s Past

Hidden together in Lille’s shadow through Kageoni, Kyouraku and Nanao speak as Nanao reveals that she knew everything about the family Zanpakuto because she overheard everything as a child.

Here, Shunsui explains the entire truth about his relation with her mother, as well as the Ise Clan curse.

Shunsui’s brother is the husband of Nanao’s late mother.

Nanao was unaware that Shunsui was her uncle.

Although the manga does not say that the Kyouraku brother is her father, given that the Ise woman was sent back to her family, Occam’s Razor would suggest that Nanao is related to Shunsui by blood.

Shunsui’s past interactions with Nanao would make people ship them but unlike, say Sanji from One Piece, Shunsui does not express full-on romantic interest with the women around him, even the likes of Lisa.

But this does give the impression that Shunsui’s type are women with glasses.

In Episode 30: “The Dark Arm”, we see an anime-original flashback for Jushiro Ukitake, from his childhood to the present day, and now we see the manga flashback of Kyouraku adapted here.

Kyouraku was part of a noble family and he would often visit his brother’s house, where he lived with his wife, the head of the Ise Clan.

A woman with glasses and a familiar kimono.

These were the happiest moments in Kyouraku’s childhood but then out of the blue, his brother died.

The anime depicts the tragedy of the moment vividly in its simplicity as we see that pine tree branches (just like the shadow of his Bankai) appear on.

Kyouraku explains that the family carries a curse.

The entire family is made up of women because the men they marry die unexpected, early deaths.

The Ise Clan laughed off this curse but made a strict rule to adopt sons-in-law for the women to marry but Nanao’s mother defiled this rule and tried to escape the curse by marrying into another house, the Kyouraku Clan but in the end, the elder Kyouraku succumbed to the curse and died as well.

Not wanting her unborn daughter, Nanao, to bear this curse, the woman gave the Zanpakuto to the only person she could trust, Shunsui himself.

How Old is Shunsui Kyouraku Exactly?

A common complaint among some Bleach fans is the confused, non-established way Shinigami or souls in the Soul Society age.

While the story establishes the clear difference between ordinary Pluses and Shinigami is the latter having Reiatsu, and thus the need to eat and sleep, with aging for both it is quite unclear.

We can reasonably assume that people in the Soul Society age twice as slow at the very least, since Toshiro Hitsugaya (and to an extent Momo Hinamori) still remains to be a pre-teen for at least 30 years.

Rukia would also be around 50 years old (not 150 as some fans based her statement in Chapter 1 on).

Time in the Soul Society is a lot more static, just like a fantasy genre story where technology does not develop to the modern level (until we get to Kisuke Urahara’s time a hundred years ago).

Our frame of references for Shunsui Kyouraku and Jushiro Ukitake’s age are two things: Yamamoto’s appearance and their tenure as captains as mentioned in the Turn Back the Pendulum mini-arc.

Early in the story through the Turn Back the Pendulum flashback from 110 years before the start of Bleach, we learn that Retsu Unohana, Genryusai Yamamoto, Jushiro Ukitake, and Shunsui Kyouraku have been captains for at least a century before that.

This statement obviously means that the four mentioned have been incumbent captains for that long, even though Ginrei Kuchiki is Squad 6 captain (then again in the non-canon Zanpakuto Rebellion Arc, Yamamoto’s appearance never changed during Koga’s rebellion centuries ago).

We know Unohana has been a Captain for at least 2,000 years, having been the Squad 11 Kenpachi for most of her life until meeting Kenpachi.

It is likely around the time Ukitake and Kyouraku became Captains that Unohana would be seen as the Squad 4 Captain.

Through Ukitake’s flashback, we see how the Shinigami Academy was the point in Soul Society history where the Captain system was more formalized, where we no longer see most of the original Gotei 13 sans Unohana and Yamamoto, and therefore where the two remaining Captains changed as people.

Yamamoto still looked like his 1,000 year old self (which was also the same appearance he had 2,200 years ago) by the time Kyouraku and Ukitake were still in their pre-teens.

However, Nanao’s mother would have over the Ise Clan’s Zanpakuto to Kyouraku as an adult, who still trained in the Academy.

She would be executed by the time Kyouraku was an ordinary Shinigami, likely unseated.

This was also when a young Nanao would overhear their conversation and she barely changed her appearance since meeting Kyouraku as her captain at least 100 years ago.

It is after her execution that Kyouraku would wear his sister-in-law’s kimono over his captain’s haori.

We can reasonably assume that Kyouraku might at least be 500 years old but very likely at most 800 years old since within the time Kyouraku was still young, Unohana already hide her scar behind her braid and Kenpachi Zaraki did become Captain 110 years ago but Kyouraku would be old enough to know of Yachiru Unohana’s identity.

Nanao might also be around 200 years old, which is not unreasonable.

Nanao’s Resolve

When Shunsui took the sword, he had Katen form a second sword to hold it, sort of like a sheath counterpart.

This is Kyoukotsu, the child who likes to play hide and seek.

This explains why O-Hana has an eyepatch as the only visible part of Kyoukosu’s body is literally the eye and the mask is transparent or acts as the gateway to the sealed Shinken Hakkyoken blade inside her.

It is noted that Kyoukotsu still exists even after the sword was removed.

Nanao recalls her own past, having struggled to mold her Asauchi into a Zanpakuto.

This initially led her to enlist in the Kido Corps but instead she was somehow transferred to Squad 8, likely Shunsui’s machinations to protect her.

In the present, Nanao talks about the curse and how the man she loved will

This circles back to Shunsui’s statement of how everyone, even the Ise Clan, laughed at the idea of the Ise Curse.

Yet here, it is a statement not out of ignorance but from devotion to love.

The statement can come off as vague enough not to ring alarm bells but the timing is quite off, especially with the revelation that Shunsui is essentially Nanao’s uncle.

The anime makes it more fatherly as Shunsui seems to act like a concerned father to Nanao (especially with how Kyoukotsu in the original anime’s Beast Sword Arc did have a resonance with Nanao) and this was Nanao’s way of telling Shunsui to let her bear the burden.

Kyouraku’s Immense Guilt Defines His Life

If you can’t tell already, Shunsui Kyouraku’s Bankai is a reflection of his self-loathing and guilt.

Shunsui took responsibility over the loss of his older brother and his sister-in-law, both of whom shouldered upon him responsibilities that he would live out for the rest of his life.

As tokens of love, the couple wore hairpins, a blue one for the older Kyouraku and a pink one for the ISe Matriarch.

The blue hairpin was given when the older Kyouraku succumbed to the curse and it could be implied that Kyouraku likely became heir of his own family as well.

The pink hairpin is from his sister-in-law, alongside helping her with the crime of keeping the Ise Clan’s Zanpakuto, Shinken Hakkyoken, lost at the cost of her being executed by decree of Central 46.

Perhaps this is why Shunsui is not married and is distracting himself with women and alcohol.

He does not want to think about all the responsibilities and burdens he carries because

However, his most recent burden was from the man he could have seen as his father, Genryusai Yamamoto, and that was to become the Head Captain in the middle of the Thousand Year Blood War.

When he was called by Nanao to heed the summons of Central 46, his face showed it all.

He was no longer able to look away at everything he had been given: the hairpins, the Zanpakuto, the kimono he wore, Yamamoto’s position and now to make his best friend Ukitake’s sacrifice mean something by protecting the world from Yhwach.

It’s somewhat subtle but the moment when Nanao looked at the execution platform in Sokyoku Hill during the Soul Society Arc now looks even more foreboding since Nanao knew the whole time about her mother’s plans to throw away the Shinken Hakkyoken, which in turn cost the woman her life.

KUBO pic.twitter.com/dYml0wTYs5

— BBSHero هيرو (@BBSHER0) December 15, 2024

Here, Shunsui tells Nanao that if she is sad, he will feel bad as well and considering the seriousness of the execution and Shunsui’s own opposition to it, we can see that he is actually telling Nanao not to think about it.

Now we see Shunsui begging Nanao to let him protect her, not wanting to watch helplessly as his loved ones die in front of him one by one and he emerges from her shadow to help her hold the blade as they prepare for Lille’s mos devastating attack yet!

Ise Clan Zanpakuto: Shinken Hakkyoken

The Ise Clan were a clan of Shinto priests responsible for rituals in the Soul Society but unfortunately they bore a two-fold curse, lacking the ability to make an Asauchi into a Zanpakuto and the loss of their loved ones

Shinken Hakkyoken is a Shikai with the ability to “reflect a god’s power”.

When Nanao emerged from the shadow on Lille’s face, she used the Zanpakuto to vaporize Lille’s left hand but the sparks produced from the recoil pushed Nanao back and thus was unable to truly finish it off.

Fans complain about the “Deus Ex Machina” nature of the reveal since there have been no hints or setup about the solution where Bleach would have a way to set it up (such as in the anime with Uryu’s Antithesis being built-up all across the story unlike in the manga, or much later with Toshiro’s Mature Bankai being built from his statement in Chapter 208: “The Scissors” about what happens when all the petals behind him vanish).

There is an interesting idea of how the reason why the Ise Clan was cursed was probably because they were responsible for cutting up the limbs and organs of the Soul King a million years ago when the divided the three worlds.

The Zanpakuto works in an unusual way, as it not only prevents Ise women from making their own individual Zanpakuto but that it does not even look like a sword, just like the Soul King’s own blade being of an unusual form.

This might be either due to Oetsu Nimaiya’s methods or that the blade was made long before Oetsu’s birth and would eventually be reforged into a tool for balance and rituals for the Ise Clan

It would make sense but this is still headcanon.

Trompete: The Most Powerful Single Attack in Bleach

The new soundtrack that plays for the first time in the anime is quite terrifying as it sets a foreboding mood throughout this scene.

This truly feels like despair to amplify the visuals of the moment.

As Lille charges up a lot of Reishi, Nanao feels the seriousness of her wounds, which indicates how sheltered she has been under Kyouraku. Even facing Ayon did not terrify her as much as this moment where she felt the entire world would end from the blast of a trumpet.

And indeed, the so-called “angel of God” would form a trumpet from that Reishi and with his remaining hand, make a trumpet sound that erases a significant chunk of the

Keep in mind that Warhwelt is a singular floating landmass holding the former five Palaces of Squad 0, now converted into Wandenreich cities.

Of all the Schutzstaffel that have and will fight, Lille has done the most amount of property damage with this one attack, which I could compare to Ulquiorra’s Lanza del Relámpago, in terms of devastating power.

Theater Scene Ending on Fireworks

Trompete would indeed blast apart an entire city but this force was reflected against its attacker, resulting in Lille’s invincible body to be torn.

Here, we notice that Lille’s body has completely changed, being hollow, lacking blood, bone, or organs, and made of pure light. (which could be similar to Gerard Valkyrie’s Second Vollstandig form).

Lille’s reaction to being cut in half is incredibly nonchalant, which could represent how his mind is too lost in his zealotry.

Lille is a rather simple antagonist, a quiet sharpshooter whose Vollstandig exposes his vainglorious ego that morphs into mindless, one-track angelic pride, so it makes sense that even when his body cracks and falls apart, he does not bother to get upset with the situation.

When Lille disintegrates into sparks of light, we notice that the city was thoroughly destroyed, with the circle becoming like a crescent moon.

The episode ends with Kyouraku stumbling down from his wounds and we see the episode title covering the remaining ground the two are standing on.

Episode Poem: Bazz-B

This episode ends on Bazz-B’s poem:

“Bullet, Claw, Battle Flag, Short Sword
With my fingers bent, I wait for you”

These four weapons mentioned represent each of Burner Finger’s uses, from 1 to 4. This poem is directed at Haschwalth and Yhwach, the targets of his vengeance.

This is taken from Volume 69: “Against the Judgement”, which covers Chapter 623 of the same name to Chapter 632: “Friend 2”

Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War Episode 38 is titled, “Friend” and will be released on December 21, 2024.

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