Bleach 342 - After Orihime blocked Ulquiorra's attack, Ulquiorra starts questioning Orihime about why she didn't help Ichigo sooner, but Ichigo tells Orihime go to somewhere safer. Ichigo calls up a Getsuga but instead of releasing it, Ichigo leaves the Getsuga on his sword to increase his attack power. Unfortunately, this has little effect on Ulquiorra and the two continue to fight. Meanwhile, Orihime is watching the fight with concern in her eyes, and she fails to notice Loli and Menoli sneaking up behind her. The two arrancars grab Orihime and prepares to punish Orihime for what they suffered through. Ichigo tries to save Orihime but Ulquiorra gets in the way. Suddenly, No. 10 Espada Yammy bursts out of behind Orihime and the two female arrancars.My thoughts:Loli and Menoli make their move on Orihime as expected, and Ichigo isn't really in a position to help Orihime. The only interesting bit is that Yammy finally makes his return after a long absence, and we don't really know what he's up to. Yammy used to hang out with Ulquiorra a lot but that doesn't necessarily mean that he likes Ulquiorra, but his appearance probably won't be too beneficial to Ichigo either. Where are all of Ichigo's pals and the four shinigami captains when you need them?----------------Naruto 432 - Naruto summons two clones and together they conjure a Rasen Shuriken. Unlike before, Naruto is able to throw the Rasen Shuriken at the remaining bodies of Pain. The bodies of Pain step out of the way but the Shuriken quickly expands in size. God Realm, Hell Realm manage to dodge the attack but Human Realm is caught by the spinning vortex after tossing Animal Realm out of harm's way. Animal Realm summons a large flightless bird which quickly digs into the ground. Inside the village, Shikamaru learns from Katsuyu that Naruto is fighting Pain by himself. Shikamaru wants to help but his father states that Naruto is on a whole new level now, so the best thing they can do is try not to get in the way. Back on the battle field, the multi-headed dog that Gamikichi was pinning down suddenly splits into several dogs and start to attack the big frogs again. Naruto is running low on chakra after using the Rasen Shuriken, and Fukasaku realizes they have to do separate the Realms to sever their connection to the Rinnegan. The frogs spray a smoke screen and Gamikichi traps both Naruto and Animal Realm in his mouth. In the darkness Naruto is able to score a double Rasengan on Animal Realm, and all of Animal Realm's summons disappear when their master is defeated. After his series of fierce attacks, Naruto reverts back to his normal form because he is out of sage chakra.My Thoughts:I was a little confused with what was happening in this chapter, particularly the part where a giant bird is summoned (by Animal Realm presumably) after Human Realm is taken out by the Rasen Shuriken. What was that bird for anyways? Naruto's "new" technique was a little disappointing. A ranged version of the original Rasen Shuriken is sounds cool, but it's not such a great attack when Naruto only managed to take out one Realm with it and in exchange uses up a large portion of his chakra. Now that Naruto is out of sage chakra, there are a couple of things that couldhappen. Naruto may try to recharge while the frogs hold off Pain, but that's unlikely seeing that God Realm is incredibly strong. Reinforcements may also arrive (Team Guy comes to mind), or as a last resort Naruto will start drawing upon the Demon Fox's chakra and eventually go nuts with it. I don't think Naruto can win just by using sage techniques and the frogs, so there's probably going to be something else that will come into play.----------------One Piece 529 - Ace and Jimbei continue talking and Jimbei reveals the reason why he respects White Beard so much. Jimbei comes Fishman Island, and back in the old days the island was frequently raided by human pirates. However, one day White Beard came along and declared the island his territory, and after that no other pirates would dare bother Fishman Island. Ace and Jimbei's conversation is heard by Sir Crocodile and the other inmates, and most of them are quite excited by the prospect of White Beard being killed.Meanwhile Luffy, Buggy, and Mr. 3 are being chased by a horde of monsters on level 2. Mr. 3 and Buggy secretly agree to dump Luffy when they have the chance, but they run with Luffy for now because all three of them have to get to the stairs. Luffy and company arrive at the stair entrance to find it guarded by a giant sphinx. Luffy jumps on top of the sphinx while Buggy floats around with his powers, but Mr. 3 is stuck on the ground and catches the attention of the giant beast. The sphinx tries to stomp Mr. 3 but Mr. 3 makes many wax copies of himself. As the sphinx become preoccupied with stomping the wax copies, Buggy and Mr. 3 run for the stairs. Unfortunately for Mr. 3 and Buggy, the sphinx's stomping causes the floor to collapse and the company of three along with the giant beast fall down into level 3.My Thoughts:so Sir Crocodile is still around, but it doesn't sound like he is going to be any help to Luffy (which is expected). Luffy's dungeon crawling adventure continues and he picks up another member for his group, so maybe he'll pick up another helper on level 3. There are probably a few more of Sir Crocodile's agents around so perhaps they will join Luffy. One question I had after reading this chapter was who/what is the level 2 boss? I'm not sure if the sphinx is the boss, but I doubt it since the sphinx is pretty dumb, and it's probably a bad idea to let a mindless beast run a certain level of a prison. It doesn't matter any more now that Luffy and his group is on level 3, and there will be a whole new set of gaolers waiting for our hero and his unlikely companions.
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