Warning: MAJOR spoilers for Bleach: The Millennium Blood War
Summary
Bleach fans were unhappy with the rushed and grueling final battle between Yhwach and Ichigo in the manga. Yhwach's superior power and Ichigo's underutilized Bankai leave a lot to be desired in the climactic match. Fans hope the anime adaptation will improve on the final battle by expanding on Ichigo's Bankai abilities and Uryu's role.
The Bleach: The thousand-year blood war The anime has made some serious improvements to the manga's finale, but there's one big problem the series still has to deal with: the final battle. The manga's final battle leaves a lot to be desired, and the task of elevating it falls to the anime adaptation.
The final battle between Yhwach and Ichigo in the manga is quite intense, taking place in just a few short chapters and ending unsatisfactorily. Yhwach continually proves that he cannot be defeated because his power (The Allmighty) allows him to see and rewrite the future to suit his desires. He is defeated and even resurrected from death using his powers, but the timely appearance of Uryu with a special substance known as Still Silver suppresses his powers long enough for Ichigo to can deliver the final blow.
Ichigo never fully uses his new Bankai, and Uryu's role in the battle is to fire a single arrow, leaving fans with a lot left to reveal.
Can the anime fix Bleach's disappointing final battle?
There are many different reasons why Bleach's final battle was so rushed, but the end result was a short, rather disappointing battle that didn't deliver what fans wanted or even expectation. Part of the problem lies in how powerful Yhwach was created to be; If the enemy can change the future so that he doesn't die when he should die, how can he overcome it? While Ichigo benefits from the same ability, as Orihime can use her powers (combined with the Fullbringers) to restore her damaged Bankai, Ichigo never uses that Bankai.
It's pretty clear that Yhwach is afraid of Ichigo's Bankai for some reason, but the exact reason is never explained, as Ichigo doesn't really do much with it in the final battle. Giving Ichigo a chance to really show off the abilities of his new Bankai would go a long way in fixing this fight, something that could easily be achieved by expanding the fight as shown. Similarly, Uryu is shown to have the perfect Schrift power to counter Yhwach's Omnipotence with his own Antithesis, but that also never comes into effect in the manga's ending.
Giving Uryu a larger role in the final battle, perhaps even allowing him to embody a Vollstandig like the other Quincy, would also go a long way in making his sudden appearance with exactly the right characteristics. What it takes to win becomes less cheap. Also joined by Sosuke Aizen, who uses his Zanpakuto illusion ability to trick even Yhwach. Perhaps it could be clarified that there are limits to what Yhwach can foresee with the Almighty – if he doesn't know what's going to happen, he can misread the potential future, raising Aizen's ability value.
So far, the new adaptation of Bleach's final manga arc has had no problem making changes and expanding upon what's already there, so there's plenty of reason to think that the final battle There will also be some changes. Fans can only hope that anything goes Bleach: The thousand-year blood war offers a more satisfactory conclusion than the one the manga provides.