Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War is the final anime arc of the overall Bleach franchise. For the most part, TYBW is spending the Fall 2022 anime season pushing the story in bold new directions with the Soul Reaper vs. Quincy war. Many shocking secrets and developments define this bloody story arc, but even the TYBW arc can’t help but honor Bleach’s heyday in the 2000s.
Several major Bleach characters are coming full circle with their arcs, such as Byakuya Kuchiki going from villain to Ichigo’s ally and friend. Meanwhile, Ichigo just found himself in a familiar position and must quickly do something about it. Once again, his zanpakuto has been broken, but if he can fix it, he will be stronger than ever — and he has a new Kisuke Urahara, or several of them, to help.
How Ichigo’s Zanpakuto Problems Reflect His Earlier Growth
Ichigo heroically arrived from Hueco Mundo to save the Soul Society, only for his zanpakuto, Zangetsu, to break while fighting the Quincy king Yhwach and his right-hand man, Jugram Haschwalth. For now, Ichigo has Soul Reaper powers but no weapon, and worse yet, Captain Mayuri Kurotsuchi explains that Ichigo’s bankai can never be repaired to its former state. Once broken, a bankai stays broken, but there is still hope. With the arrival of squad 0, or the five elite Soul Reapers guarding the mysterious Soul King, Ichigo Kurosaki might simply build a new version of Zangetsu instead.
Ichigo’s current version of Zangetsu is the product of the Xcution story arc, where Ichigo met the Fullbringers and regained his spiritual powers with Rukia’s help. However, that won’t be enough to fight the mighty Wandenreich and survive. This is similar to a much earlier chapter in Bleach’s history, when Ichigo’s nameless zanpakuto broke apart while fighting the then-villain Captain Byakuya Kuchiki. At the time, it seemed Ichigo’s substitute Soul Reaper career was over, only for Kisuke to train Ichigo and help him create Zangetsu.
This all-new zanpakuto had a name, a spirit and immense power, unlike the generic zanpakuto, and that pushed Ichigo to far greater heights as a hero. Zangetsu served Ichigo well in the “Soul Society” and “Hueco Mundo” story arcs, but now it’s time for Bleach’s history to repeat itself. For the second time, Ichigo’s blade was shattered in battle, giving him a reason not to mourn but to get excited about the possibilities.
How Squad 0 May Help Ichigo Unlock More Power
When Ichigo obtained a new zanpakuto earlier in Bleach, he didn’t just fix his sword and leap back into battle. Ichigo reinvented himself as a Soul Reaper, going from an ignorant kid with a generic sword to a proper hero with Zangetsu in hand. Ichigo learned that zanpakuto are more like partners and friends than mere tools, similar to the weapon meisters in Soul Eater. Ichigo’s understanding and perspective of Soul Reapers, spirits and his own self totally changed when he met Zangetsu, and something like that may happen again. Squad 0 is unlike any other group Ichigo has met, and they know things that not even Kisuke, Retsu Unohana and Byakuya do. Ichigo got stronger when Kisuke helped him obtain a new sword, and this may now be a scaled-up version of the same situation.
Ichigo is set to rebuild Zangetsu the way it once was, but he doesn’t have to stop there. Despite his youth and tsundere attitude, Ichigo is wiser, nobler and better-informed than ever as a supernatural hero, and this may be his chance to make a third zanpakuto. If Zangetsu was a major step forward from that generic zanpakuto, then with squad 0’s help, Ichigo might make Zangetsu 2.0 and become closer to his zanpakuto spirit than ever before. Zangetsu might take on a new shape as a sword, and it could even come with new powers. Ichigo learned the Getsuga Tensho move when he obtained Zangetsu, so now he might learn another version of it or perhaps an all-new technique. Ichigo has relatively few techniques compared to his shonen counterparts like Naruto Uzumaki and Tanjiro Kamado, so now’s the time to become more than a one-trick pony.
Ichigo isn’t alone in this, though. While he is reinventing his powers and weapon, his allies Rukia, Byakuya and Renji, may heal up and then join him for some self-improvement. All three of them nearly died at the Sternritters’ hands, and like Ichigo, they have more to learn. No Soul Reaper can afford to be complacent or arrogantly think they know everything, not even Byakuya. Rukia, Byakuya and Renji are now experiencing what Ichigo did early in Bleach, so they can power up with shonen protagonist-style training sequences before it’s time to fight the Quincy again. Now they know what Ichigo went through hundreds of episodes ago, and they may likewise become humbler, wiser and smarter Soul Reapers for it.
