Review for Bleach: Series 10 Part 1 (2 Discs) (UK)

Introduction

Start the New Year with a smile on your face, joy in your heart, and a resolution to go on as you begin the year... I bloody well hope not, as Manga Entertainment launch their 2013 campaign with the genre that I whinge about the most, shonen. Shonen is television for young pre-teen and teen males, epic length series that comprise constant battling, with characters levelling up their skills and strengths, and episodes long fights where the winner will succeed through superior willpower alone. Stop me if you’ve heard this rant before, but it’s the rare shonen action show that I can tolerate without contemplating the hereafter. Manga kicks off the year with the granddaddy of them all, Dragon Ball Z, and then following up with this, the next instalment of Bleach. If that isn’t enough, the meat in this bombastic sandwich is the re-release of Shigurui Death Frenzy, a manly anime show to a degree that makes Fist of the North Star look like a treatise on flower arrangement. Remember 2012, when Manga Entertainment’s biggest release was a show about pretty, shiny magical girls, and cute little wishes, and an utter bastard of a mascot animal?


You’d think that a teenager’s life would be complicated enough if he could speak to ghosts. But that was only the beginning for Ichigo Kurosaki. When he literally bumped into a Shinigami named Rukia Kuchiki, he was introduced to a whole new world. The Shinigami’s mission is to guide forlorn spirits known as Wholes to the Soul Society, and protect them and the living from Hollows, perverted spirits that have become monsters that prey on other souls, living or dead. They are not supposed to let the living know about this supernatural world, but not only does Ichigo see Rukia, circumstances force her to give him her powers, and train him to be a Shinigami while she regains her strength. Through their adventures, Ichigo learns that his classmates Orihime and Chad are similarly bestowed with spiritual abilities. He also meets Uryu Ishida, the last Quincy, heir to a tribe of spiritual warriors from the human world that once sought out and destroyed Hollows, before the Shinigami in turn eradicated them for disrupting the balance.


Some shonen anime shows have epic stories that are more endless than others, and Bleach’s story is the endless-est of them all. It’s been a devil’s age since I was last invested in the show in the same way that I’ve been invested in Naruto, and when the last twenty-something episodes have been a stretch of filler that has nothing at all to do with where we left the story over a year ago now, it’s hard to pick up where we left off. Add to that a lack of motivation in finding out just what was going on in Series 8, and I have to rely on my ever more tenuous memory to fill in the gaps.


So Shinigami Aizen betrays the Soul Society and escapes with a couple of confederates to continue his plans for just whatever it is that he wants to do... He winds up in Hueco Mundo, the land of the Hollows, where he starts ripping Hollow masks off them to turn them into even more powerful Arrancars. Meanwhile, some Shinigami types are putting Hollow masks on to become Visoreds. Everyone’s training and powering up for the next big invasion, when Aizen realises that Orihime, the orange haired, big breasted friend of Ichigo has some kind of power that threatens his plans, so he kidnaps her. Ichigo, Rukia, Chad, Ishida and Renji head off to Hueco Mundo to rescue her from Las Noches. They meet up with a friendly little Arrancar named Nel and her comic relief friends, and together (and then separately) battle against the members of the Espada, the ranked Arrancars that follow Aizen. There are lots of fights, lasting countless episodes, in which both sides beat each other half to death, then finding previously unknown hidden reserves to turn the tables. Rinse and repeat until one of them wins, and then move on to the next fight. All this time, Orihime the captive weeps delicately, whimpering ‘Kurosaki-kun’ over and over again. Anyway, filler out of the way, it’s back to the battling with the unfeasibly large swords over the next twelve episodes of Bleach.

Picture

Bleach has now gone widescreen. It’s now in the modern TV friendly aspect ratio of 1.78:1 anamorphic. And that’s the end of the good news. The last few releases of Bleach via Madman Entertainment had native PAL transfers, 25 frames per second with 4% PAL speedup, but of high resolution and free of any standards conversion artefacts. Not anymore. With Kazé’s release of Bleach, we’re back to the bad old days of NTSC-PAL standards conversions. It’s worse in my opinion, as my limited experience of Kazé output has shown that while their Blu-rays are sweet, and their PAL DVDs are acceptable, their NTSC-PAL conversions leave a lot to be desired, and are the least impressive of any distributor that I have reviewed.


Bleach’s 1.78:1 anamorphic image is now once more prone to significant ghosting and blended frames, a little more than you would expect from a standards conversion, but you wouldn’t expect the resolution and detail to be degraded as much as it is on these discs, nor would you expect the constant judder in pans and scrolls that makes you want to watch it on as small a screen as possible to avoid nausea.


Shonen action shows mean a lot of flashbacks in amongst the posturing and discussing of special moves. Don’t be surprised if the episodes suddenly switch to 4:3 pillarboxed when it recalls some scenes from Series 8 of the show, when last we were battling in Las Noches. In fact the first 15 minutes of the first episode in this collection is all 4:3.

Sound

There are some positives to be had in the audio department. The discs now have the surround flag activated, so you now have DD 2.0 Surround English and Japanese audio. It sounds exactly the same in practice however. More significant is that Kazé provide translated subtitles for the Japanese audio, and a signs only English track for the English audio. This season sees some new theme songs debuted for the series, but unlike the Madman discs, the songs don’t have subtitle translations for the lyrics. Incidentally, in the Japanese, Szayelaporro’s Zanpakuto special move is ‘Fornicaras’ Now while you may hear it in the Japanese dub, it happens to be a rather naughty Spanish word, so it’s written as completely differently in the subtitles, La Lujuriosa or something.

These being Kazé discs, you can’t change audio or subtitles on the fly, so Hard of Hearing English dub fans are out of luck.

Extras

You’ve probably already heard me whinge about Kazé discs and UPOPs, so consider it whinged again. These discs are locked up tighter than Fort Knox, and I had to guess at the run time for the episodes.

Kazé don’t put trailers on their discs, and neither do they offer a line art gallery. All you get are karaoke versions of the credit sequences, minus the credit text, but with a romanji (Japanese in English script) burnt in subtitle track that insists that you sing along.

And after the first Kazé instalment’s omission, the Illustrated Guide to Soul Reapers Golden comedy sketches and next episode previews are still there on this third release.

Conclusion

Bleach is the most infuriating of shows. It’s dull, tiresome, tedious, stretched till it’s threadbare, and devoted to exemplifying all the traits of the shonen genre that I find most annoying. Characters will have a lengthy chat about tactics in the middle of a fight, while their opponents kindly wait for them to finish. Recaps will be lengthy... Oh God! I just realised that I’m recapping my standard shonen rant. I’ve gone all meta. The infuriating thing about Bleach, is despite my disdain for it, it’s still compelling viewing. At no point during these twelve episodes was I ever tempted to switch off. I may be swearing at the clichés, I may be throwing cushions at the TV, but I am watching it.


Glad that the filler was finally done and dusted, I put in the first disc and settled down to get back to the main story, only to instantly remember why I was so glad to ditch it in the first place in favour of the filler. Lengthy fights and posturing ensue, and we switch from viewpoint to viewpoint as we see our heroes all get their butts kicked in their respective battles. On occasion we might switch to those already beaten, lying there unconscious, just to remind us that they are actually still, barely alive. On occasion we might get a bit of comic relief from Pesche and Dondachakka, but that’s it for the first six episodes of this collection. And then something good happens. We get a plot twist that reveals the little Arrancar Nel’s true nature; including a flashback episode to explain just how she got the way she is now.


Then something better happens. Just as Ichigo is about to face the final curtain, reinforcements unexpectedly arrive in the form of some Soul Reaper Captains. “At last”, I thought, “we’re going to get some change in the flow of the story, mix things up a bit.” Except that we don’t really. We get another six episodes of extended combat, although the shoes are on the other feet. What makes this section of the story more interesting is that the Soul Reapers at least have some character to them, Kenpachi is a total bad ass at the best of times, while Mayuri’s sadistic streak is a joy to watch when he’s expounding. Byakuya is... well... he is dull, but two out of three isn’t bad.


What we get here in Bleach, Series 10 Part 1 is another twelve episodes of one-on-one mortal combat, albeit leavened with standing around talking, flashbacks, and recaps. The problems with Bleach that really stood out for me this time is that with such a vast array of characters, most of them get neglected when they aren’t a focus of the narrative, so that when they show up again, I have only the vaguest recollection of just who they are. The second problem that I noticed this time is that I haven’t the slightest idea of what the point of all this is any more. 12 episodes of fights to the death are all well and good, but what the hell are they fighting for again? Just what is the point of Bleach? Can anyone remind me? Other than the hypnotic suggestion that compels me to watch just one more episode, despite the fact that I’ll forget it as soon as the end credits stutter up the screen, I have no idea any more.

My brain melt. Bleach good for Bleach fan. Kazé discs not good.