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Review

by Carl Kimlinger,

Bleach

DVD - Box Set 6

Synopsis:
Bleach DVD Box Set 6
It's back to school for Ichigo. No kidnappings, no soul-sucking villains, just papers to write and friends to reconnect with. Such peace cannot last long. And it doesn't. Highly suspicious transfer student Hirako quite handily breaks it by breaking the news to Ichigo that he's not alone with his little inner-Hollow problem. Hirako is an emissary from a faction known as the "Visored." They're Soul Reapers who, like Ichigo, possess Hollow powers. Ichigo refuses to join their ranks, and some ugliness ensues. But it doesn't get far, because another group who are blurring the line between Hollow and Soul Reaper arrive in Karakura Town. They're the Arrancar, Hollows who have acquired Soul Reaper powers. And they've come directly from Aizen with one object: To kill Ichigo Kurosaki.
Review:

Coming on the heels of the Bount filler arc, Bleach's sixth set is a blissful twelve-episode return to the main story arc. No enforced character stasis, no side-stories—nothing but advancing plot, shifting character dynamics, and gobs of superpowered action. Of course, this being Bleach and therefore being an enormous shonen cliché, the plot advances in wee little steps, the character dynamics never shift too far, and the action is as predictable as sunrise and sunset. But who cares? Bleach is on the path, moving forward. There are more players to worry about, more conspiracies to look into, more revelations to be revealed, and plenty of hurdles, emotional and physical, to overcome on the way to achieving ever-greater powers.

The first of Bleach's signatures to return, and with a vengeance, is its demented character humor. A return to school means a return to Ichigo's crazed classmates, and they chew the scenery as if famished. Their antics border on the frenzied, and can certainly annoy. But their novel comic chemistry with the new cast more than compensates. Ever wonder what would happen if perverted goofball Keigo met Rangiku's cleavage? You'll find out here. How about what happens when he brings Ikkaku home like a bald, bleeding stray? Or when Orihime-stalking Chizuru spots Hirako flirting with the object of her obsession? How about when Orihime and Rangiku move in together? Or when Rukia tries to live openly with Ichigo's deranged family? The set is infested with new, strange and often uproarious combinations of characters.

Hilarity isn't all that results. The two Visored we see are funny, and typically colorful, but also really scary, and just untrustworthy enough to make their promises of power appropriately Mephistophelian. The mixture is pure Bleach. Where else will you find a character who can one minute be on the verge of ripping through Orihime like talons through tissue and the next be violating her comrade with a quarrelsome finger? Elsewhere a meeting between Ichigo's dad and Kisuke in, shall we say, heightened circumstances drops a bomb on Kon and recasts the Kurosaki household's dynamic in a somewhat unsettling light. Still elsewhere, the reunion of Ishida with his estranged father opens up a fruitful vein of speculation about Ishida's past and Quincy powers.

Everyone gets a goodly nudge forward and their moment to shine. And are the better for it. With a couple of rather conspicuous exceptions. Aizen is given little to do but lounge on his Hueco Mundo throne and look villainous, and Ichigo spends the majority of the set agonizing over his failures and holding himself back for fear of unleashing his inner Hollow. Aizen isn't such a problem; all he has to do is flash his smug smirk and he's done his work—namely making us hate his rotten guts. Emo-Ichi, on the other hand, is a serious detriment. His straight-charging, consequences-be-damned forcefulness has always been Ichigo's greatest asset. Taking that from him may serve a purpose—preparing him for the next power-up, say—but it still strips him of much of his charm.

Ichigo's fights are largely designed to bring out Emo-Ichi, giving him fallen comrades and psychic attacks by his Hollow self to ponder while brooding in the dark. Which means his fights must be at best inconclusive, and at worst outright defeats. Not a lot of fun to be had there. That leaves the supporting cast with a pretty serious amount of action slack to pick up. And they do. As villains go, the Arrancar are on the simplistic side—no moral gray areas here—but they are frightening in their indomitable power and unadulterated viciousness. And their opponents—Chad, Orihime, Ikkaku, Renji, Rangiku, Hitsugaya—are a lot more disposable and on a whole weaker than Ichigo. Put Ichigo in front of a pair of Arrancar? Meh. Have Orihime cross the same pair? Instant agony.

Working from Tite Kubo's manga always gives the action a boost in artistic quality. The fights are better composed, more cogently constructed, and more inventively staged. In the case of Ichigo's fights that can seem something of a waste. The flowing black splash of his finishing attack connecting, the sleek minimalism of his Bankai attire, the displays of inhuman prowess—they're useless in fights that go nowhere. But when the same fluidity is applied to a lesser fight, when the artfully spilled blood and high-impact cross-hatching are employed in support of Renji or Yoruichi, the results are quite different. Then we get such thrilling sights as Yoruichi's acrobatic thrashing of an Arrancar bully, or Ururu unleashing unstoppable brutality in a fugue state. And when everything combines—Kubo's eye for cool, Studio Pierrot's punchy animation, Shiro Sagisu's mariachi contributions to his own guitar-and-dissonance score—during the very expendable Ikkaku's genuine death-match with a volcanic Arrancar...the results can be sublime.

Today's wealth of extras: a fifteen-minute dub-only video overview of the villains to date. Don't spend it all in one place.

There is little new to say about Viz's dub. The humor has a becoming looseness, intensity is preserved, and no one seriously flubs anything. A sharp-eyed viewer may catch the occasional disparity between a character's dialogue and expression, but only rarely. None of the new additions have been pushed far enough to test how well they'll act in extremis, but they do solid and appropriate work here. Particular kudos to Stephanie Sheh for nailing Orihime's difficult bathside confession to Rangiku.

The gonzo mixture of whacked character humor and gut-puncturing violence, the complicated back-stories, the shadowy organizations, the attenuated angst: this is Bleach the way it's meant to be. Maybe you'll want to kick Ichigo in his mopey, I-can't-protect-my-friends-and-I'm-afraid-my-inner-Hollow-will-consume-me ass, but it's hard to care about that when Keigo's vicious sister is falling for Ikkaku's shiny pate or Rukia is planning to redesign Ichigo's closet for comfort living. Or, more importantly, when Orihime is pouring her conflicted heart out to a shockingly tender Rangiku. It's one of the beauties of Bleach that its characters, honed stereotypes though they are, can still surprise you. And it's a beauty you can only appreciate at times like these, when the filler stops.

Grade:
Overall (dub) : B
Overall (sub) : B
Story : B
Animation : B
Art : B+
Music : B+

+ The full-time return of the main plot; revelations, developments and new characters galore; Ikkaku fight.
Ichigo goes into mope mode; fights not involving subcharacters are unsatisfying.

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Production Info:
Director: Noriyuki Abe
Series Composition:
Tsuyoshi Kida
Kento Shimoyama
Masashi Sogo
Script:
Kazuyuki Fudeyasu
Miho Imamura
Mio Imamura
Rika Nakase
Masahiro Okubo
Masao Ōkubo
Kento Shimoyama
Masashi Sogo
Natsuko Takahashi
Michiko Yokote
Genki Yoshimura
Storyboard:
Noriyuki Abe
Masami Anno
Koji Aritomi
Tetsuya Endō
Manabu Fukazawa
Kiyomu Fukuda
Shigeki Hatakeyama
Yasuyuki Honda
Masashi Ishihama
Satoshi Ishino
Shigenori Kageyama
Jun Kamiya
Rei Kaneko
Akio Kawamura
Masahiko Komino
Chiaki Kon
Junya Koshiba
Masashi Kudo
Hodaka Kuramoto
Toshihiko Masuda
Tadahito Matsubayashi
Hitoyuki Matsui
Yasuhiro Matsumura
Yukihiro Matsushita
Yuzuru Mitsui
Shigeyuki Miya
Kazunori Mizuno
Yūji Moriyama
Minoru Murao
Takehiro Nakayama
Yasuto Nishikata
Hiroaki Nishimura
Satoshi Nishimura
Mitsutaka Noshitani
Tetsuhito Saito
Masami Shimoda
Ogura Shirakawa
Yoshifumi Sueda
Natsuko Suzuki
Hideki Tachibana
Yuzuru Tachikawa
Jun Takada
Hiroki Takagi
Motosuke Takahashi
Takahiro Takamizawa
Shinichi Tōkairin
Sanzou Tsuyukida
Shigeru Ueda
Atsushi Wakabayashi
Shinichi Watanabe
Hideyo Yamamoto
Minoru Yamaoka
Episode Director:
Noriyuki Abe
Eitarō Ano
Koji Aritomi
Matsuo Asami
Kiyomu Fukuda
Shigeki Hatakeyama
Tomoko Hiramuki
Tetsuo Ichimura
Akane Inoue
Yasuo Iwamoto
Akira Iwanaga
Taiji Kawanishi
Takushi Kimura
Chiaki Kon
Harume Kosaka
Junya Koshiba
Masashi Kudo
Hodaka Kuramoto
Yasuhiro Kuroda
Keizou Kusakawa
Tadahito Matsubayashi
Nobufumi Matsuda
Yasuhiro Matsumura
Yuzuru Mitsui
Ryo Miyata
Kazunori Mizuno
Geisei Morita
Eiko Nishi
Yasuto Nishikata
Hiroaki Nishimura
Kazuo Nogami
Mitsutaka Noshitani
Yoshinori Odaka
Rokou Ogiwara
Yukio Okazaki
Masaya Sasaki
Kazuma Satō
Yuji Sekimoto
Akira Shimizu
Kazunobu Shimizu
Ogura Shirakawa
Yoshifumi Sueda
Yuzuru Tachikawa
Hiroki Takagi
Takeshi Tomita
Shigeru Ueda
Takeshi Yamaguchi
Minoru Yamaoka
Mitsue Yamazaki
Unit Director:
Noriyuki Abe
Masashi Kudo
Shingo Ogiso
Yuzuru Tachikawa
Music: Shirō Sagisu
Original creator: Tite Kubo
Character Design: Masashi Kudo
Art Director:
Natsuko Suzuki
Sawako Takagi
Art:
Tsuyoshi Fukumoto
Masaya Hamaguchi
Yuki Kasahara
Hideaki Kudo
Katsusuke Okamura
Mayu Shirai
Sawako Takagi
Shinobu Takahashi
Mayu Usui
Norihiko Yokomatsu
Animation Director:
MANASITA
Chiaki Abe
Yoshie Anzai
Shigemi Aoyagi
Eiki Arasato
Eri Baba
Bum-Chul Chang
Manabu Fukazawa
Akihiro Fukui
Yeong-Hun Han
Daiki Handa
Kenji Hattori
Yūri Ichinose
Shin Jae Ick
Hidenori Igari
Hiroaki Imaki
Keiichi Ishida
Masashi Ishihama
Tomomi Ishikawa
Nobuyuki Iwai
Gil Soo Joo
Akio Kawamura
Toshihiro Kikuchi
Gi Nam Kim
Hyon Ok Kim
Hyun Ok Kim
Il Bae Kim
Sang-Yeob Kim
Seong Beom Kim
Yong Sik Kim
Yoon-Joung Kim
Seiji Kishimoto
Akemi Kobayashi
Ryo Kobayashi
Yukari Kobayashi
Ryou Kodama
Makoto Koga
Masahiko Komino
Atsushi Komori
Mitsuki Kosaka
Fumiaki Kouta
Tsuguyuki Kubo
Masashi Kudo
Manabu Kurihara
Shinichi Kurita
Boo Hee Lee
Sung Jin Lee
Shuji Maruyama
Ippei Masui
Tamami Miura
Shuuji Miyazaki
Kazuya Miyoshi
Joo Yeon Moon
Minoru Morita
Yūji Moriyama
Tsutomu Murakami
Keiya Nakano
Shingo Ogiso
Masaya Ōnishi
Shigetsune Ōsawa
Chang Hwan Park
Hye-Ran Park
In-Hee Park
Jong Jun Park
Tomoko Satō
Yang Kwang Seock
Sanae Shimada
Makoto Shimojima
Jae-Ik Shin
Kim-Young Sik
Sayuri Sugitou
Natsuko Suzuki
Shin'ichi Suzuki
Shinichi Suzuki
Yoko Suzuki
Hiroki Takagi
Motosuke Takahashi
Akira Takeuchi
Yukari Takeuchi
Masaya Tanaka
Seiki Tanaka
Takashi Uchida
Miyuki Ueda
Tomomi Umemura
Masaru Yamada
Asuka Yamaguchi
Keiko Yamamoto
Osamu Yamamoto
Yoshimitsu Yamashita
Naoki Yamauchi
Teruhiko Yamazaki
Takeshi Yoshioka
Director of Photography:
Toshiyuki Fukushima
Katsufumi Sato
Producer:
Shunji Aoki
Ken Hagino
Kyoko Kobayashi
Mai Nagai
Yutaka Sugiyama
Jun Takibuchi
Yukio Yoshimura
Licensed by: Viz Media

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