June 13, 2008
The movie from the manga and anime Bleach was released in the US this week. I saw it Wednesday on the big screen in Fair Oaks. Spoilers ahead...
Overall it was good. I'm not familiar with the anime, only having read the manga (and only the first nine volumes at that) but the pacing was mostly well done and the characters seem to have progressed from where I see them at my years-behind-the-times vantage point.
That said, I do have some complaints. The new character, Senna, was introduced as a half-comic, half-manic, half-ADD foil for Ichigo and Rukia. (Yes, I know that's three halves. There's overlap.) As the movie progresses she becomes a more sympathetic character, but that doesn't change the fact that they could have dialed her down a bit at the beginning. By the time Senna and Ichigo got to the mall the first time I was ready to throttle her.
My only other real complaint is plot-induced stupidity on Rukia's (and many others') part. It's understandable that Ichigo may not know about Blanks and the Memory Jewel (sorry, I can't remember the Japanese word they used for it), but Rukia and the others being unaware or needing Hat 'n Clogs to play Exposition Man for them is just lazy. Even a simple "let's take care of these quick, I'll explain later" would have been better than leaving a trained soul reaper ignorant of her job.
Since this is based on shonen manga there's plenty of fighting, and you know the movie's almost over and the Boss Fight is ready to start when Ichigo and the others arrive in the Valley of Screams and start rearranging the landscape. A bit like DBZ in that regard, but better drawn.
And finally, there's the reveal of Senna as the Memory Jewel, and that she can control the Blanks and stop the Soul Society and the World of the Living from colliding. I probably should have seen it coming -- Bleach ain't High Plains Drifter or The Usual Suspects -- but I was just enjoying the ride at that point. My real beef is with the reset switch they pulled at the end. I realize that anime movies tend to operate outside the normal continuity and thus need to clean up after themselves. But saying that since Senna never really existed that they'd forget her as the Blanks' energy dissipates seems pointless.
In my mind it would have been better that they do remember her, though they softened the blow a bit by having Ichigo catch a glimmer of a memory when he sees her ribbon the next day. Maybe I'm just jaded from watching too much Star Trek as a kid, but if you're going to spend an hour and a half doing stuff, have it mean something when it's through.
So anyway, there you have it. If I had to assign a rating I'd say it's a 7 out of 10 or so. Worth seeing on the big screen, but maybe not worth $10 except that they only showed it once a day so it's 10 bucks or nothing.
