Review for Bleach: Series 11 (4 Discs) (UK)

Introduction

Welcome to Season 12 of Bleach. Yes, I know it says Series 11 on the box, but this is actually Season 12 the way that the Japanese number them. The actual Season 11 was just seven episodes long, and to maximise value for money, Kazé just tagged them onto the back end of Season 10 Part 2 and were done with it. But because they’re releasing as season collections, and part collections, they had to release a season 11 next, or otherwise people would be complaining about the gap on their shelves. The US and Australia never bothered with sticking to seasons (Bleach’s episode counts are all over the place, and while season 11 may have just 7 episodes, season 14 has 51), so in those two territories, you just get nice and neat episode collections, with no mention of the Japanese season numbering. You know, Season 13 has 36 episodes. If Kazé splits it in two, and releases one part as Season 12, and the other as Season 13, we’ll get right back on track. Anyway, I’ve spent more time thinking about this than it really deserves.


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.


So where were we? Ichigo and his friends went to Hueco Mundo, the Hispanic land of the Hollows to rescue Orihime, who’d been kidnapped by the Soul Society traitor Aizen. He’s been turning Hollows into human looking Arrancars armed with Zanpakutos of their own. Ichigo has been training to become a Visored, which is like coming at an Arrancar from the other direction. Aizen’s plan becomes clear, he wants to take over the Soul Society, but to do that he has to attack Ichigo’s hometown first in the world of the living. At the end of the previous volume, after delivering a kicking to a major section of the Shinigami, he unveiled his plan, and left Ichigo and his friends trapped in Hueco Mundo to attack Karakura town. To forestall Aizen’s plan, the Shinigami came up with a plan of their own, setting up a mechanism to transfer the real Karakura Town to the Soul Society, and creating a fake town in which to engage Aizen and his minions in battle. But Aizen’s ready for this, as he and his Arrancars face the top Captains of the Soul Society. Meanwhile, Ichigo is heading to Las Noches to rescue Orihime, but the Arrancar Ulquiorra stands in his way.


But before we get to that, let’s have some Sentai Rangers style filler first!

17 episodes in all are presented across four discs from Kazé Entertainment, distributed by Manga.

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, but there is slightly less in the way of judder this time around.

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. 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.

Most episodes end with the Illustrated Guide to Soul Reapers Golden comedy sketches.

Conclusion

Oh Bleach, you are a tease! Just when I think I’ve escaped from this utterly formulaic shonen action show, it does just enough to draw me back in, promising much, but delivering nothing of consequence. Season 11 is a case in point. We left Season 10 with the promise of some serious action to come, with the renegade Shinigami Aizen’s plans coming to a head, and the very existence of Karakura town threatened. He, his fellow conspirators and his Arrancars had left Ichigo and his friends trapped in Hueco Mundo, and launched their attack in the world of the living, only the Soul Reapers had anticipated him and pulled a bait and switch. Except Aizen had anticipated their anticipation and planned accordingly. Things were poised...


And this collection forgets all that and begins with a bit of filler; a couple of episodes revealing what the people in the Living World were up to while everyone else was off in other realms being heroic. It’s the comic relief section of the show, as we see Kon and the rest of the second-stringers forming a Sentai team to fight Hollows, borrowing heavily from Gatchaman in the process. It does feature the return of Don Kanonji, always a positive for me, but even he can’t elevate this from the obvious filler that it is.


Then it’s back to the main storyline and 12 episodes of bait and switch for the viewer. We begin back in Hueco Mundo, and we see Ichigo finally get around to rescuing Orihime, or at least the start of it. He has to face Ulquiorra in battle, and after the usual posturing, we get to see the swords clash, the fight begin, and the end credits roll, only for the next episode to take us to Karakura Town, or a close facsimile, as Aizen and his minions face the Soul Reaper Captains and Lieutenants in battle. Only at this point, it’s just a battle against the Arrancars, as the Head Captain waves his sword and seals Aizen behind a wall of fire. Thereafter not only do we not see a lot of Aizen, we don’t even see the whopping great wall of fire in the sky that he’s trapped behind. We’ll pretend everyone knows it’s there, and save the money, as fire is bloody hard to animate.


Over the next few episodes, we jump from character to character, fight to fight, with around six to eight minutes of recap at the head of each episode, showing us just enough to get us invested into the action, engaging with the characters, before pulling away to switch to another fight. It’s annoying, it’s tedious, it’s unsatisfying, but it just about holds the attention. You wind up urging the story to get back to the fight sequence that you had just got to grips with, but then the new focus insinuates itself. By this time you’ll almost have forgotten that what you really wanted to see was Ichigo kick Ulquiorra’s butt.


Of course by this time this will be nothing new. It’s typical shonen, and it’s typical Bleach. The bright side is that we do get to see something that we have been long anticipating, after a fashion. The potential was always there for Karakura Town to become the venue of some serious Shinigami and Hollow action, and in this collection of episodes we get to see the town take some serious pummelling, only mitigated by the fact that it’s a fake town.


Then it’s back to the filler for the final three episodes, and contrary as I always am, they were the most enjoyable episodes in this collection for me. We get one episode of prequel story, taking us to before the series even started, with Ichigo and his friends to be at their first day in high school, as well as the day that Rukia got assigned to the Living World, and Renji got promoted to Lieutenant. Then there is the obligatory swimsuit episode. Every show has to have one, and Bleach is no exception, as all the Soul Reapers get a day off in the Living World and head for the beach. Breast sizes will be compared, groping will occur, and embarrassment will ensue. It’s no Drifters of the Dead, but I still found it to be funny. Finally, and even funnier is a sequel to a short arc in the main storyline, as Ikkaku returns to the Living World on a mission to find an escaped Hollow, and winds up needing a place to stay again. He has to return to Keigo’s place, and once again encounters Keigo’s sister, who has a fetish about bald men.


It goes without saying that Bleach fans will love this stuff. There’s some great action, and the story does progress, after a fashion. Bleach is probably my least favourite shonen show, certainly among Manga’s licenses. But it keeps doing the minimum to keep me coming back for more.