Retsgip’s Anime Blog

Darkshaunz remembers the Bleach movie.

Episode Score: 9.0/10

Movie Score: 7.9/10

Is it that time already? Time sure passes by quickly when you are having fun, as they say. By gosh, we are having a bloody ball with Bleach at the moment, the upwards sloping trend shows no signs of slowing down as our Karakura boys and girls continue to swing their pointy-things in the general direction of the big, bad Arrancars. As the clock ticks down to the Winter beatdown, both sides retreat to their respective lanes to a much needed showdown on this fateful afternoon. Oh, and I decided to add in some of my thoughts on the Bleach movie which was made available on the interwebs recently as an afterthought.

Weiss checks out his new manicure.

One thing which irks me is the weekly revision of course, I’ve cried and whined about it in previous entries and I’ll still continue to do so as long as they eat up precious air time with these recaps. Yes, we know what happened last week, and chances are if viewers missed a chain of episodes up till this point, the whole direction of the plot would be lost to them. Deliciously, the action resumes and Urahara is always a smooth and suave way to start this week’s excursion into the soul-slaying jig of things. Wanderweiss, or “Weiss” as we affectionately call him here, was bouting with the Candyman. Urahara is seemingly shocked by Weiss’s use of “Bara” or “Overpowered Shit” as I like to call it. Basically, all you need to do is clench your fist and talk really loud, the combination of the two results in a sub-par Cero which is twenty times faster. These can be launched in succession, and Yammy abuses this move repeatedly because he doesn’t know how to do anything else (once he grasps that it’s essentially a plothaxed Cero), except maybe lick my balls.

Repetition: The sure way to lose a battle.

A real ladies man, Luppi “Seizes” opportunities in ways never before seen.

Now, I’m no stranger to Luppi now. He and I, we’re in this kind of awkward relationship. Where I want to lick his metrosexual face and where he wants to impale me with eight huge tentacles like some tormented Hentai bondage show. Unfortunately, he’s more interested in tits at the moment (which is a fine choice), and looks to pursue his opportunity to copulate with heavenly-boobs. He is however unfortunate in this partaking of the flesh, mainly because Captain Shouta calls Shotgun on that fine piece of property. Captain Shouta has an “Icey” relationship with Luppi at best. Things degrade for our dear Luppi further when Captain Shouta decides that Hyorinmaru should just freeze the water particles in the atmosphere to trap Luppi. In hindsight, I can see now where this guy was voted most popular Bleach character in the polls. He’s a Bishie Shouta, has a fine pair of tits which follows him around and without a doubt, the “coollest” Zanpaktou in all of Soul Society. Goddamn, if only I grew up to be as cool as that bastard (or Grew down, whatever).

Luppi learns the hard way that Ice Tentacles trump fleshy tentacles.

King Cold mercilessly refrigerates his opponents.

Yammy, who is continously stuck thinking with anything but his brain, amuses audiences with his repetitive Bara spam. I knew he was retarded, but this kind of combat logic takes the whole level of retardness to making non-sentient objects like a rock seem more charismatic than him. Urahara is not amused of coursed, and proceeds to nullify any attacks thrown at him by the huge ape. Now, the other thing of concern is Urahara’s blow up doll Gigai. It’s of concern because I bet you, some Japanese company out there is going to start mass producing these things (Hold on to your knickers, girls). Now, I wouldn’t mind owning a Urahara blow up doll, just because it’s a great conversation starter…..in a blow-up doll convention. I am also concerned about the Yaoi doujins which will undoubtedly spawn featuring Urahara and his Gigai doing all kinds of things which will scar the minds of bleach male fans all around the world. The funny-hat man we all know and love was featured in all his glory, and it’s always a treat to see Kisuke and his devious scruffy face get a taste of some combat air. His general disregard for fashion and seriousness in general makes his fighting style a visual treat.

Urahara isn’t only powerful, but he makes 70s Hippie Fashion sexy again.

Yammy realizes that “close shaves” really do mean just that.

Princess in Shining Armour

The Black Knight is in big trouble. The White Knight has read the moves of the Black one, he knows that the White Knight’s sudden shift to a King was but a brief one, and so he makes his nifty hop across the board to land the final checkmate. Now, Ichigo’s burnt out from his Kamen-rider stint, and to top it all off, his hand is stuck on the ground because Grimmjaw (More like Grinjaw at the moment), pierced it down with his sword. Ichigo showed no signs of pain when this happened, because he has been training for this very moment. If he can withstand Hiyori kicking his balls repeatedly, then this is nothing to the man. In typical style of an Espada, killing an enemy isn’t enough, you must absolutely vapourize him from the face of the Earth. The White Knight figures that a Point-blank Cero would most definitely do the trick. Before the Cero could go off, Grimmjaw is abruptly stopped (of course) by a sudden change in weather. My, did it get a bit chilly around here? My Stars, the White Knight has been cascaded by the frozen winds of the Ice Queen, who has just lashed across the board like a battle-hardened strategic trump card.

Grinjaw Lollerjacks.

Ichigo practices early for his rendition of “RaptorJesus”.

Fuck yeah, Rukia.

Ichigo shows some admiration for Rukia’s new power, and I personally must say that it is impressive. To put it briefly, she summons a fucking avalanche. There’s no need for any description, just that, if Grimmjaw was a skier, he would have been dead a long time ago. Now, in a less-than-romantic setting of a frozen Arrancar in the background and Rukia’s Knight in bloodied armour, the two enjoy a nice afternoon chat whilst Rukia struggles to pull out a sword from his hand (yeah, totally an event to remember). Rukia kinds of stops pulling towards the end, because I think she realizes that the sword has basically become part of the road, and needs to bring in an excavator or something. Regardless, Grimmjaw capitalizes on one of her many worryings over Ichigo. The last time these two met, Grimmjaw impaled her with his hand, now, he grabs her head and chastizes her about her underestimation about the King of Grimness. Since it is Cero Siesta this episode, you can imagine what Grimmjaw was thinking at the moment he grabbed Rukia’s head. To Ichigo and Rukia’s Horror, “Cero at point blank” just got a little closer.

Karakura town is usually a quiet place, save for the random epic battles.

Rukia uses Pantene, which means her hair is always silky smooth.

Lazer eye-surgery, Arrancar style.

However, before I could break down into a miserable pile of tears and sorrow (much like Tobi, when Deidara was fighting Sasoogay), my tears were averted into a “Holy shit what was that!?” expression. Seconds after the Cero is about to be released into the cranium of Rukia, Shinji turns up with his mop-hair and excessively huge mouth. Though none of those body parts did anything, he did knock out Grimmjaw’s Cero with a energy blast of his own (DBZ never looked better). Realizing that Grimmjaw was a pretty tough customer, Shinji wastes no time in getting down to business with his adversary. The two dance in the skies like angry, horny and wrathful dragonflies on speed. Dragonflies with swords and spirit power levels through the roof, that is. Grimmjaw’s expression throughout the fight was priceless, he simply could not believe that a nobody from nowhere could just turn up and really put him in his place. After some speedfighting and sword parries, Shinji decides to put some Cero juice down on the stage, and Grimmjaw cops it pretty badly despite launching his own mini-cero to counter it.

I’m bringing the Mop-hair back, guys.

Your skills are good, but your hate is weak, young skywalker.

The episode ends with Ulquiorra stopping Grimmjaw’s mad dash to cut Shinji. Apparently the “mission” was over (which was to secure and take Orihime into Aizen’s pimp crib). In true Bleach style, this means that the bad guys are rescued by Negacion’ (plothax ray) and live to fight another day. For the good guys, who had to grow an extra pair of balls just to cope with the stressful spike in their enemy’s power, it would mean that they had to train more in the hyperbolic time chamber and make more serious, moody and apocalyptic facial expressions for the episodes of the future. Despite the lack of a next episode preview, we did get another educational infomercial, which ended some weirdly. That is, Weiss snuggled up to Tousen in a dog-like manner, the jury is still out on whether Tousen is a Pedobear or if Weiss is an arrancar or an actual Dog.

The Bleach Movie - yeah…

She is just stunned by all the Strawberry Cream Puffs floating around.

Memories of Nobody sure, but Mammaries of Somebody nonetheless, mainly Rangiku’s fine twins make their debut in a jiggling manner during the course of the movie. Alright, so there was an actual plot to the movie, basically they made up some place called “Valley of Screams” which is threatening Soul Society and Earth to collide into each other. Yeah, I couldn’t believe that such a concept could pass as a serious drama-inducing feature, but apparently it’s believable. I am sure you would know a lot about Senna right now, and I know our friend Danny from Novastorm is a Senna fan. I don’t mind her as such, but the ditzy, clumsy and high-energy category was already filled by Orihime (and I’d rather watch Orihime, because she’s hot). At times, I found Senna annoying and I was rolling my eyes at some of corny, tacked-on background they were trying to shove down our throats. I would have rather if Orihime, Chad and Ishida got more presence in the movie too, and not just towards the end of the movie.

I always like saying hello to the twins.

Air-time, we didn’t get any.

Shippers will be pleased to know that Ichigo and Rukia get a lot time to themselves in the typical silently-nagging husband/wife scenarios (that we saw even in the above episode), and it doesn’t matter if you bat for Renji and Rukia either, as the two of them also get the old-childhood charm rolling. It’s obvious that the animation studio capitalized on projecting the chraracter relationship and popularity for this movie. Which is what I am about to get to, the movie plot and the new character may have seemed somewhat uninspiring and samey, but that’s because the original secondary cast is just so kickass. In fact, the Gotei 13 breeds so much badass and awesome that not even a decently-hot schoolgirl type could avert the Spotlight from them. They really ARE that enjoyable to watch, so in all fairness, Bleach: Memories of Nobody is more like Bleach: We have Fucking awesome Characters. If you are an Orihime, Chad and Ishida fan, this movie will fail to deliver the goods (I too was disappointed, in all honesty).

I like how Kon is perched on Rukia’s shoulder, like the Zaraki/Yachiru pair.

In Soul Society, serious looks equate to coolness.

In terms of the bad guys, these guys are even more cliche’d than a sad clown holding daffodils outside a rundown amusement park. “Exiles” from Soul Society and from a Noble House, they were forced to wander the dimensions until they inhabited a space of land formed by memory-less spirits known as “Blanks”. Like all exiles, they swore revenge on Soul Society and sought also to end humanity while they were at it. The leader of these guys was Ganryuu-sama (or something) and was basically Captain Ukitake with a scar and buffier green armour. As you can already imagine, the bad guys are made up of a Cynical bitch woman, a Silent but powerful oaf, an Eccentric liutenant and a cool-headed ninjitsu user. This seems to be super-generic setup of most bad guys in even the Naruto movies. The Leader is obviously a calm, arrogant, powerful and cape-wearing douche who was destined to get by in the last ten minutes.

Even his hair tries to disguise his over-genericness.

If you are a Soi Fong fan, you will ejaculate pleasure all over your rooms, whether you are a guy fan or girl fan…she is very very sexy in this movie (even got me forgetting about Rukia, which is a serious thing to do). You owe it to yourself to see her get down and dirty with the baddies in this outing. Captain Shouta and his crew are a giveaway appearance of course, and they are always nice to watch, even though we can’t seem to fucking get away from them. Zaraki, the king of GAR makes his throne in combat known to the bad guys, and even gets Yachiru in on the action. There’s a Rukia/Byakuya “nee-sama” moment for the incest fetishists and even the launching of a Soul Society Lazer Cannon (I call it the Dick cannon, because that’s what it is). Yes, yes, this movie was pretty much saved by the popularity and absolute win-oozing formulae of the existing cast. One thing most people will not appreciate is the Senna and Ichigo implied romance in the movie. That is, unless there are already fanclubs, forum threads of imageboard discussions in support of this pairing that I do not know about and if you are a reader who supports this pairing. I have no qualms about the implied romance, I have qualms about the sudden-ness of it.

Her eyes look like they’ve had too much carrot juice. Still hot though.

In a catfight, if one of the cats happens to be Soi Fong, you just know its going to Rock.

Now, I was drinking Ribena or some shit whilst watching this, so my brain was clouded by sugar (they don’t put real blackcurrant in the stuff any more). I was imagining the local Bleach forums erupting in rage at the whole Senna and Ichigo implication the movie was trying to slap our faces with. The problem I had with it, was that it was rushed, they had less than an hour to fit in any kind of love-love crap into the movie, because there were more important things fans would have wanted to see instead, like Ishida’s awesome sewing skills (why the hell was that not featured? sewing is hell manly, right?). Throughout the movie Ichigo yells, “SENNNAAA” more than he yelled, “RUKIIAAAA” in Soul Society and definitely more than he yelled, “INOUEEE” in our current anime arc. I have no problems with this, because shouting and loudness is how Bleach characters increase their power level. The problem resides with the rushing of the relationship building of the two, and the end is essentially anti-climatic in this sense. Fifity minutes of SENNAAA!!! ICHIGOO!!! SENNAAA!!! was zoned down to zilch at the very end. Nice.

Ichigo handles his bitches well.

Piggybacking through graveyards was voted the Silliest recreational sport ever recently.

Tldr. So in conclusion, if you are looking for a popcorn movie, this would be an excellent outing. There’s plenty of heart-warming moments, eye-rolling cliche’s and stereotypes, laughable moments, a lazer cannon which looks like a penis and if you are Ichigo/Renji/Rukia 3-way or 2-way Shipper (God you guys are complicated) this is also a good day out for you, Soi Fong fans shouldn’t miss her fight toward the end (Bonnerr) and if you get natural highs from the Gotei 13, Memories of Nobody is a No-brainer for you. We waited a long time for the movie, and the action may even pale in comparison to the current goodness we are getting from the canon material, but if you’re a fan to the genre and if you can’t get enough of “Heavenly-boobs” or want to see Rukia do an awesome (and I mean briefly, but fucking cute) backflip off a bridge, this movie will be more than just a “Forgettable” experience. Look forward to Bleach: Diamond Dust Rebellion sometime next season.

I found this kind of hot. Mmm, take it all Rukia.

Cheers,

Darkshaunz

PS on the Manga: When out of ideas, simply add some spirit water for instant boobage!