Anime Review: Bleach 101

"Mayuri's bankai!! Sawatari Clash of the Demon"

Review
For the past few episodes we have seen the Bount arc kick into gear as the various Soul Reapers fight of the Bounts. While these episodes have been an improvement of what was going on in the real world most of the episodes haven't been able to meet the similar quality of the Soul Society arc. For that reason this episode will probably stand out as one of the best episodes of this filler arc.

What makes this episode stand out from the other episodes of this filler arc is that anyone can come into this episode without having watched this series before and understand who each of these characters are and why they are fighting each other. If this was any of the other Captains than this episode were the fight was drawn out would have been really boring but it works for a character like Mayuri. It is completely in Mayuri's mad scientist personality to play with his opponent since he always wants to keep them intact to study. It is the reason he lost the fight against Uryu in the Soul Society arc and why he had to use his Bakai to defeat Sawatari.

I was glad that Nemu wasn't part of this fight so that we got to see Mayuri fight with out having to use someone as a distraction. It was cool to see how he actual acts in a fight and his scientist mind allows him to quickly analyze his opponent's abilities. He definitely prove to be just as smart, or maybe smarter, than Uruhara since he was able to create a Bount tracker that was even more affective than those Uruhara created.

Overall the fight between Mayuri and Sawatari we get in this episode is a close second to the Ichigo and Byakuya vs Kariya fight so far in this Bount arc. Now that we only have three Bounts left (Kariya, Koga, and Yoshi) it looks like this filler arc wont be lasting long so that we can back to the manga's story. And it looks like we are in store for a nice fight between long-range and short-range fighters as Uryu and Yoshi fight.

Episode Rating - 8.6/10