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Sep 17, 2023

The Possible Evangelion Reference in BLEACH: Thousand

The opening moments of the first episode of BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War Part 2 tell an entire story, and something about it is eerily familiar. The currently-airing second cours of BLEACH:

The opening moments of the first episode of BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War Part 2 tell an entire story, and something about it is eerily familiar.

The currently-airing second cours of BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War has been brilliant on various levels, and one component that has been pivotal in this new, improved BLEACH is the direction. The first 90 seconds of the first episode of BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War Part 2 tell an entire story, but something about it is eerily reminiscent, in appearance and thematic relevance, of a certain cataclysmic event: The Third Impact in Neon Genesis Evangelion.

The Auswählen is Yhwach's systematic reappropriation of the power he borrowed to other Quincies, and the event led to the deaths of countless individuals on the basis of "impurity". On the other hand, the Third Impact was the third in the series of apocalyptic events in Neon Genesis Evangelion. Something about them feels similar, but what?

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The Auswählen is an extension of Yhwach's ability to dole out fragments of his power to other people, and it enables him to do the reverse: forcibly remove another Quincy's powers. When Yhwach used the ability to regain his power nine years ago, various Quincies of mixed origin were the target. The process was thought to be guaranteed fatal; however, Uryū Ishida's survival of the event leads to Yhwach's interest in him and subsequent crowning as his successor. Uryū lived the majority of his existence throughout the BLEACH narrative as the last surviving Quincy, at least until Uryū's father was revealed. The widespread and imminent nature of the Auswählen makes it similar to an apocalyptic event, and in the context of the plot, the Auswählen was the dynamic at play in the development of crucial events like the death of Masaki Kurosaki.

The Third Impact is an event featured in The End of Evangelion, the second movie in the franchise, and it denotes the third major event involving the extraterrestrial progenitors of life in the Neon Genesis universe. There are actually different versions of the Third Impact, all of which have specific outcomes, but the gist of it is that the Third Impact is the event that leads to the breakdown of the separations between all human life, assembling every human being into one unified being. In one version of the event, the alien ancestor of humanity, codenamed "Lilith" is met by a fellow alien, bringing about the Third Impact. The mysterious organization known as Seele strove to catalyse the Third Impact because they believed it would bring about the evolution of humankind, an endeavour they dubbed "The Human Instrumentality Project".

While the scale differs, both the Auswählen and the Third Impact are similar in that they are the result of the actions of powerful, cosmic beings that feed on the very lives of people in a wide-scale elimination of the targets that is, on some level, a fated event. The Quincy King's return was seen as an eventuality, and as the legend goes, it took 999 years for Yhwach to gain the might to be able to conquer the world. While Lilith's intentions were far less ambitious, let alone understandable given the mystery of the desires of the Angels in Neon Genesis Evangelion. Lilith's harvesting of human souls in the Third Impact parallels Yhwach's harvesting of power from Quincies he deemed unfit, taking back the power that he once borrowed to them.

Similarly, Lilith is the ancestor of all life on Earth in the Evangelion universe, while Yhwach is seen as the father of the Quincies even though there were Quincies before him. However, Lilith is also one of an unknown number of primordial beings that arrive on planets and populate them with life much like planet-scale seeds, and humanity is descended from her. Yhwach's attitude towards siphoning the lives of his children is simply that they have served their purpose in being vessels of his power, and in his case, the cataclysmic event is a return to source for the life that he distributed; while the Third Impact is the centralization of human consciousness, a less direct but similar return to source.

Similarity in concept alone isn't enough to be convincing in linking these two events; however, the visuals in the first episode of BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War Part 2 – The Separation, and the deliberate nature of the direction in the series since the arrival of the final arc's adaptation point towards some level of validity to the claim that these events are similar. The imagery of hands exalting Yhwach and glowing brightly with vitality before being drained of their life force is similar to that of Lilith as she harvests human souls, and there's the subtext of Christian iconography being prevalent in Neon Genesis Evangelion and in the characterization of Yhwach and the Quincies in BLEACH. The red hue of the visuals in BLEACH, while part of the contrast between red and blue that is the main visual motif this season, also gave an extra layer of similarity to the red-tinged landscape of the Third Impact.

The panning through the hands that were writhing in agony was eerie and reminiscent of the screams heard during the Third Impact as bright crosses representing the "liberated" souls of the terrified masses are erected wherever the event's effect has reached. The pillars of light seen when the Quincies activate their Vollständig at the end of BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War, episode 16, "The Fundamental Virulence", is also similar to the light that emanated from EVA Unit-01 during the Third Impact. While it can't conclusively be said that some aspects of this current season of BLEACH have specific inspiration from Evangelion, the similarities remain intriguing.

BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War Part 2 – The Separation is available for streaming on Hulu and Disney+.

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People who know Naledi are perpetually aware of two things: he is a talented visual artist, and he has seen copious amounts of anime.