Warning: Spoilers for The Thousand-Year Blood War Episode 5The Soul Society's 13 Court Guard Squads in the wildly aggressive Quincy Wandenreich, however, it's time for Head Captain Yamamoto to show his true power--and he has no reason to hold back even a little.
Head Captain Yamamoto is quite old, even by Soul Society standards, so he's rarely on the front lines alongside younger characters. To think that his age is reducing his power would be a mistake, though; he's simply had more time to hone his abilities. Yamamoto has been the first and only Head Captain of the Soul Reapers to date, and one doesn't stay in power for that long by being weak. Many of his past fights have been against opponents he would've preferred not to kill, so Yamamoto often fought on screen at less than full strength, but even in spite of that fact, Yamamoto was more than able to hold his own each time.
The Quincy invasion in Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War has provoked every Soul Reaper into action, and that naturally includes the Head Captain. In episode 5, he arrives just in time to save Shuhei Hisagi from certain death, only to realize that the Quincy attacking him is the very one who had earlier killed his Lieutenant, Chojiro Sasakibe. Yamamoto's fury over that death immediately leads to him escalating to his Bankai, a fire-based attack that's said to be made from the flames of the Sun itself. While the Quincy tries to use Sasakibe's stolen Bankai to kill Yamamoto, the Head Captain instead is unharmed and retaliates with an attack so powerful that his opponent is immediately reduced to a pile of ash, with even his bones incinerated.
The Most Powerful Soul Reaper in Action
With literally thousands of years of experience and one of against the Soul Society; the decision to kill all Quincy was surely made with that Yamamoto's approval. In a sense, this invasion is karma catching up to him after all these years.
Though Yamamoto may be old and inflexible at times, he's still one of the strongest warriors the Soul Society has on its side in Bleach, so having him out there at full strength is their only hope of ending all this without further casualties. The Head Captain is only just getting started in Bleach, though, so it remains to be seen if this will be enough to repel the Quincy attack.
Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War is available for streaming on Hulu, with new episodes released on Mondays.
