The Bleach Saga has Ended

Plot Summary: Ichigo Kurosaki is a 15-year-old-boy who has an ability to see ghosts/spirits. Because of his ability, he is able to meet a female soul reaper named Rukia Kuchiki. To save his family and friends from unwanted soul-eating spirits (Hollows), Rukia transfers her soul reaper powers to Ichigo. As Rukia takes on a human shell, together they solve mysteries involving spirits and Hollows until from the spirit world come two other soul reapers, who explain that it is illegal to transfer Shinigami powers to humans and that Rukia exceeded the time limit to stay in the human world. After they sentence her death for breaking the law, Ichigo snaps and swears to everyone he will retrieve Rukia by breaking into the spirit world.

Back on October 5, 2004, when I was 14-years-old and didn’t really know what anime was, the BLEACH anime first aired in Japan. Eight years later, and the BLEACH anime saga has concluded. The manga’s still going, but its ending is in sight as well.

I remember starting to watch this at the behest of one of my friends after I had picked up YuYu Hakusho and Naruto, among a few other typical shonen or “starter” shows. I was pretty stunned at it initially. I mean, up until this point, I had never seen a show so completely mix English and Japanese into their dialogue, which BLEACH does with the names of their zanpakutou. That gives you a little indication of how early on in my anime fandom that I began watching BLEACH. In fact, the Bount arc in English was not yet complete when I started watching BLEACH, which was back in late 2008, early 2009. So, I, in my then-18-year-old wisdom, illegally downloaded the Japanese remainder of BLEACH, which at the time was around Szayel Aporro’s introduction, I think. When I caught up with the Japanese anime, I turned to the scanlations, which was when One Manga was still a thing.

I’ve changed since then, though. I watched the final episode (which puts the total count of BLEACH episodes to 366) through my subscription to Crunchyroll.

Oh, but where to start with a review of a 366-episode series? First, oh god filler. I watched up to the point where Aizen was defeated and just stopped there. I continue to read the manga though (through questionable means). But when I heard that the series was ending, I had to pick it back up. So I did.

What I have no choice but to commend BLEACH on is the music. The music, throughout BLEACH, was always well done. It gave Spanish guitar-themed music to the arrancar since those characters were based off of Spanish things and terms. The point being, each protagonist group and antagonist group was given its own special music which worked really well. The high point through the filler episodes were the beginning (where the concept was still new and the writers didn’t ruin it yet) and the music.

But BLEACH, of course, has its flaws. Its first main conflict is that Rukia needs to be saved from the Soul Society. Its next main conflict is that Orihime needs to be saved from Hueco Mundo. Its next main conflict (which will now only be present in the manga, unless they animate the final arc of the manga into anime form at some point) is that Dondochakka needs to be saved from Hueco Mundo. Tite Kubo seems to only know how to write kidnapping stories when it comes to BLEACH. Kubo isn’t the only shonen manga writer that suffers this drawback, though, as Eiichiro Oda wrote a lot of corrupt leader needs to be defeated stories in One Piece (Axe-Hand Morgan, Arlong, Wapol, Crocodile, Eneru, the entire World Government).

The story itself is pretty meh after Rukia’s initial arc, and even then it’s not the greatest. It has a lot of faults, the most noticeable one being that Ichigo powers up to the point of being able to go toe-to-toe with a Captain-class Soul Reaper after, like, three days. And Kubo clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing with this most recent arc, which saw a very strong character being defeated. This character knew bankai and Ichigo defeated him (along with two other Lieutenant-class Soul Reapers) during his reintroduction after learning his own bankai. That kind of gives it away. It was Chojiro Sasakibe. Spoilers, he learned his bankai before Shunsui Kyoraku and Jushiro Ukitake. Yes, he learned his bankai before two out of the four longest tenured Soul Reapers in the 13 Court Guard Squad, one of the four being the Captain-Commander.

The highlight of the story is the continuing cool abilities of the Soul Reapers throughout the series. Their powers are clearly there just to serve Kubo’s interests at the time (as I’m sure that he had no plans for the people’s powers beyond the first arc, and I’m not sure if he even had that planned out completely). Ichigo’s powers are overall meh, but powers like those of Izuru Kira, Shinji Hirako, and Momo Hinamori fascinate me. I would love for someone to explore the history and mythology behind each of the zanpakutou.

Overall, the series provided typical shonen entertainment, though not on the level of One Piece or Fairy Tail. Reading the manga, I switch between whether I’m more entertained by Naruto or BLEACH at that particular moment in time. They’re equally fascinating, but their stories often leave something to be desired.

Brief II

This is a really big cop-out, but I need to share these articles with anyone who reads this. They all have great information from the anime source, Anime News Network. The three-part series is called "The Anime Economy" and it taught me a lot about how (gasp) the anime economy works nowadays and how it used to work back when. If you've got the time and patience, then Justin Sevakis can give you a lot more information on the subject that I ever could.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2012-03-05

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2012-03-07

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2012-03-09

Comic Heroes v. Manga Heroes Part I: Batman v. Naruto

[Editor's note: For the sake of brevity and my own laziness (and ease of comparison), I'll only be comparing Batman to Naruto. This will include Tim Burton's Batman, Christopher Nolan's Batman, Year One, Arkham Asylum, and The Killing Joke. I know this is a shallow pool of Batman to choose from, but it's all I've seen/read. And the Naruto source material will be manga material and its anime adaptation.]

I read an article recently that compared American superheroes to their Japanese counterparts, which are arguably shonen manga main characters. Of course, that's not inclusive, since you could easily make comparisons between, say, Batman and Spike from Cowboy Bebop. But this particular article will focus on two characters in their respective canons: Batman and Naruto.

One of the key differences I found was that Batman was badass to begin with. In Year One, Tim Burton's Batman, and Batman Returns, Batman is a pretty big badass. In Begins, Batman's biggest obstacle that isn't an antagonist is arguably which design to use for his costume and which gadgets to use. However, my memory is fuzzy with the movie.

Naruto, however, starts off as an idiot who can't really do anything right. Sasuke is really the Batman of Naruto, to throw Batman down to that level of badassery (what I'm saying here with my awkward wording is that Batman is way more badass than Sasuke can ever hope to be).

Over the course of Naruto, the character of Naruto grows in strength to overcome a powerful foe (Zabuza, Orochimaru, Sasuke, Akatsuki). He starts off relatively weak. Throughout the comics of Batman that I've read, and the progression of the movie series' I've seen, the physical strength, or battle strength if you will, doesn't change. This is a big difference between character archetypes in the United States and in Japan. The characters in the U.S. oftentimes (and I could be completely off-kilter here) don't grow in terms of physical strength while Japanese antagonists in almost every show I've seen have to go through some sort of power-up in order to defeat their opponents (Super Saiyan, Sage Mode, Nine-Tails Cloak, Shikai, Bankai, Second Gear).

The difference in knowledge of the world has, in every case, been very different between Japanese products and U.S. products. In U.S. comics, the world is our own and something scientific will usually happen to give the protagonists power. Batman is actually an outlier in this sense. But in Japanese manga and anime, it is very frequently a fantastical world like that of Mushishi, Naruto, half of Bleach, One Piece, and a whole lot more. So the Japanese face a difficult task in setting up the politics of the world, the limitations of the world, and the "magic" of the world. This is a task and a limitation that U.S. comics don't have to go through. What Naruto decided to do was have the reader learn the world as the character of Naruto learns the world. This is a good way of doing things, but Masashi Kisimoto seems to be making things up as he goes along rather than creating the world before he sets out on the project.

The characters of Batman and Naruto vary greatly in how they handle situations. In the early going, both Batman and Naruto believed they had to do things themselves. Batman took on Gotham and Naruto took on Konoha. But while Naruto gradually realizes that he needs help from his friends, Batman continues to be a loner-type character. Sure, he has some people that help him out at points, but it's ultimately about Batman. Naruto delves a little deeper into the subject, so to speak. Naruto joins a team by force, meets Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi and eventually proves himself to the rest of the village as a whole, especially Rock Lee, Kiba, Shikamaru, and Choji in particular. He gathers a close-knit group of friends that follow him and protect him. They give each other strength rather than Batman's connection to clean up the city of Gotham. It's really a theme throughout a lot of manga, that friends will help you in the end. And Batman in particular is an exemplary loner-type character in the works that I've read.

Brief I

I'm going to start a series of briefs where I can just post blurbs about anime rather than a few paragraphs, like I usually do. And since I've been swamped this week with homework and work and watching anime, it's time for Brief I!

The plural of "anime" is "anime." I frequently say "animes" when speaking, but never in text. So, for future reference, it's "anime," not "animes."

Shonen Jump Alpha and Manga Stream

I’m going to do this again. I’m going to talk anime industry again. And I wanted to challenge myself with some Japanese pop culture instead. But no.

Anyway, Manga Stream (an illegal manga viewing site) just shut down every Viz translation they had up on their site. Which means One Piece, Naruto, and BLEACH, most notably, are now off their site. I know this because, up until now, I had been using their site to read those three manga because I was A. cheap, B. poor, and C. too lazy to get a Shonen Jump Alpha subscription. Well, the first two haven’t really changed, but I can always find enough money for anime or manga in my wallet. And the laziness changed when Viz shut down the Viz manga from Manga Stream.

I’m going to first talk about Manga Stream, then move on to Shonen Jump Alpha, as I have problems with both of them.

First, Manga Stream, when I started reading it back when One Manga was still a thing, was in support of legal translations. They had a banner on their archive page (which went back about four weeks) that said they only had the last four weeks because they encouraged buying the manga. Now what do they have? “Manga Stream translations are spoilers, we don't archive any older chapters.” I have no idea when they changed their “mission statement,” but it’s clear they don’t care about legal translations anymore.

This is the latest volume of Shonen Jump Alpha. Its comments have exploded with people complaining about Manga Stream’s Viz titles being shut down. One comment in particular has both greatly amused and annoyed me.

“What the crap is this? i paid 26 bucks for a 1 year membership only because Vis decided to be turds toward the fan-based scanlation sites, only to find out that the current issue is the one i read 3 weeks ago? and not only is it 3 weeks behind what the fan sites already did, the translations are crap and the site is nowhere near my definition of user friendly.... your company is putting out a shoddy product and (as a paying customer), I'm unhappy.”

Wow. Really? All of this information was clearly defined when they had the press release for Shonen Jump Alpha months ago. So you just said to yourself, “Hey. No more Manga Stream, better buy it then. Jesus…Oh? What the hell is this? This is outrageous! Blaraaaaaaarg.” If I didn’t know anything about Shonen Jump Alpha, I would do a bit of research before dropping 26 bucks on it. Fortunately, I dropped 26 bucks on it having done lots of research.

One comment by username “Vizsucks” simply says, get this, “Viz sucks”. That entertains my greatly. But before I talk about their business model, I’ll complain a little about Viz myself.

A trend in the anime industry in general is their apparently love over Apple products. I am not one of the swooners. I have a Windows PC, a Zune HD, a Samsung Mesmerize, and a 1st Gen iPod Shuffle. Very little Apple stuff in there. Yet Viz is appealing to, granted, their biggest audience by having their mobile apps only on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. I have absolutely no problem with this, but I have also heard no word from Viz that they’re planning on releasing non-Apple app equivalent for us non-Apple users. I do have a problem with that, if it turns out to be true (which I am hard pressed to believe). I would gladly pay a few bucks for it, if they wanted it. Preferably free, but that’s really how all of us are. And I would buy the hell out of manga if I could get it right to my phone.

Of course I see what Viz is trying to do here. Shonen Jump Alpha is a huge step toward stomping out manga piracy, and nothing up until Shonen Jump Alpha had really been done to stop it or slow it down. You can call shutting down One Manga a step in the right direction, but more sites can just pop up.

But until you get to the point where you’re getting the release same week as Japan and your service is just as good or better than the scanlation sites, you’re still running behind. Someone like me that wants to support the industry will buy the subscription, but the run-in-the-mill anime fan wants their stuff for free and they want it now. The best and easiest way to get that is undoubtedly the scanlation sites.

Science Fiction Anime

Science fiction anime is kind of a peculiarity. I’ve watched tons of anime that I would classify as science fiction, like Ghost in the Shell, Cowboy Bebop, and Appleseed. But there’s a distinct difference between what is classified as an anime sci fi and what’s classified as an American sci fi. American sci fi tends to focus more on the science. That is, what is considered the good sci fi in America is science fiction. What’s considered good sci fi in Japan is science fiction. The classification is taken from Nancy Kress, whose husband believed in science fiction whereas she believed in science fiction.

I am a stout believer in science fiction, as my background in anime and my short description might suggest.

Think back to something like Star Trek. It’s something I’m not very familiar with, but I have it on four Trekkie’s authorities that Star Trek is about science fiction. I have absolutely nothing wrong with this. The episode where Data is under trial for being considered property of the Federation or a new species was absolutely amazing.

However something like the Doctor Who episode “The Girl in the Fireplace” is also a great testament to sci fi, even though it had tons and tons of science and really no explanation. And as much as Russell T Davies isn’t as good as Steven Moffat, this Moffat-penned episode is just as brilliant as that Star Trek episode for putting the fiction in the science.

My point being that Star Trek is science fiction while Doctor Who, like anime, is science fiction.

What separates anime is that it has some subgenres that are acceptable to the greater anime watching culture. GitS is cyberpunk, Bebop is a space western, and Appleseed is utopia/dystopia. But to the general populace, I would bet that they would clump them all into the science fiction genre.

So what anime does, in its science fiction-yness, is focus on those subgenres. GitS doesn’t make me question whether androids and cyborgs deserve equal rights; rather, it makes me question whether I have free will. Way to turn things around on me Puppet Master.

Bebop focuses on the great characters of Spike and Jet, and later Faye and Ed and Ein, and their grand adventures of being forever broke.

Appleseed focuses on the politics. It questions whether there can be a perfect society and how that perfect society would be structured if it did exist. And how people in power become corrupt.

What these three anime have in common is they’re science fiction. They’re not focusing on the logistics of a fully cybernetic body, Section 9’s communication system, the Bebop’s inner workings or any of the other ships inner workings, anything about Red Eye, how a hovercar would work, how a cyborg would work, or how any of their machines work. They focus on their story and their character without cluttering itself with lengthy explanations of the science behind the fiction.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s very important to explain the science behind the fiction. But when it’s such an integrated part of society as it is in these shows, it’s hard to bring it up naturally and, in my opinion, not worth sacrificing the flow of the show just to give science nerds their needed explanations.

Wandering Son Graphic Novel Volume 2 Review

Last week, I reviewed Wandering Son volume 1. I have equally high praise for volume 2. Spoilers ahead, as I'm assuming that, by now, you have read both volume 1 and volume 2 of the great series that is Wandering Son.

In volume 2, I realize that the pacing of this series is incredibly slow. I didn't really realize this in the last volume or while watching the anime since I blasted through the anime at breakneck speed and reading the manga didn't really give me enough material to work with to make that conclusion. I'm not saying that the pacing of the series is bad. In fact, I praise it for being paced so slowly and keeping my interest like it's Fairy Tail or One Piece (which seem to go by really quickly when I'm watching or reading them).

Volume 2 does introduce a few new characters. Nakazawa-sensei, Nitori-kun and Takatsuki-san's 6th grade teacher. And it finally gets into Yuki-san and Shii-chan's story.

First, Nakazawa-sensei. You didn't get much of a look of her in the volume, but you can tell she's a little innocent and she's new at this teaching thing. She provides a good role model figure to contrast with Yuki-san, who is very relateable for Nitori-kun and Takatsuki-san, but maybe not the best role model. Past that, I can't really give much of a judgment on the character given how much screen time she had in the volume. I'm looking forward to seeing how she works into the rest of the story.

And, again, we finally get a look into Yuki-san. She is one of the best characters for Shimura-sensei to put into the manga. Yuki-san is a transgendered person who was born a male and had surgery to become a female. It's a little far-fetched at how they met Yuki-san (or, more accurately, how Takatsuki-san met Yuki-san), but go with it. Chance encounters and all.

What it does for both Nitori-kun and Takatsuki-san is give them someone who is going through the same or a similar thing as they're going through right now. Their parents can't really help them and the only people they have is each other. Yuki-san provides the teacher-figure for them in the story (or really the cool but weird aunt). It's really important for these kids to have someone like that that they can look up to when they're going through not only puberty, but gender confusion.

Now for the main characters. Chiba-san and the newly named Sasa-san realize they're kind of being ousted by Nitori-kun and Takatsuki-san. And Maho has found a new love.

But they're trouble in paradise, her new love has a crush on (wait for it)...you guessed it, Nitori-kun, who was dressed as a girl at the time. This is kind of a brilliant move on the part of Shimura-sensei. It shows that Maho is kind of dense (or at least slow on the uptake) and that Nitori-kun really does look like a girl when he's all doidled up. It also provides a little look into how shallow Maho can be at times.

But Maho isn't the only shallow character. Chiba-san has her own dark side. And she's a little peppy when it comes to defending herself and her friends. She dropped a tray of food on a guy for calling Nitori-kun a faggot. Granted, he called Nitori-kun a faggot. Still, what a waste of food. Sanji would be disappointed.

This volume also provides a little insight into Sasa-san. She's an innocent little girl, and a little scatterbrained. Not much is known about her yet, but from my recollection of the anime, she gets deeper and more interesting. Just wait for it, or watch the anime like I did.

But the main characters. Oh the main characters. It's been barely a few months and it feels like they're growing up so fast. Both Nitori-kun and Takatsuki-san are getting into the roles of girl and boy respectively so well. And they even made an adult friend in Yuki-san, who was fooled by their disguises and thought they really were a girl and a boy respectively. Oh, how the fleeting lives of youth do go.

What this, of course, breaks down to is a character study of gender roles and gender confusion, not only in Japan, but throughout the world. And specifically a character study of Nitori-kun and of Takatsuki-san. It's written beautifully and the content is still as fresh as it ever was. It's eye opening and amazing to be able to read about something this deep and this sophisticated in a manga format. It continues to touch on the subject of gender roles in a touching and innocent fashion while keeping a childhood naiveté and incorporating a little bit of puberty all the while. All of it is woven together into a beautiful narrative that I will continue to highly suggest to anyone willing to read or watch it.

To reiterate, Amazon and Right Stuf have the first volume for sale while Crunchyroll has the series subbed on its website. Check it out.