Review for Bleach: Series 15 Part 2 (3 Discs) (UK)

Introduction

With this review out of the way, it will be 36 down and 2 to go. It feels like I’m counting down to the millennium again. I’ll throw a party once the last of Bleach has passed by my eyes, getting drunk on the sheer joy that comes with the realisation that I no longer have to review my least favourite shonen property. Then again, I thought that with Dragon Ball, only for Manga to announce Dragon Ball Kai. Knowing my luck, someone will decide to release Bleach on Blu-ray, or they’ll start making them again in Japan. Look at that, an opening paragraph that has already taken me on a journey from euphoria to despair. Who knows what the episodes in this collection will bring?


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.


When last we encountered Ichigo and his friends, they had just defeated the pernicious plans of Aizen and his Arrancars, but in doing so, Ichigo had paid a high price. Now, the Sword of Damocles that is the eventual loss of his Soul Reaper powers hangs over him. The more he uses them, the quicker he will lose them. But when odd things start happening in the Precipice World, causing the Soul Society and the Living World to drift out of sync, Ichigo will need his powers more than ever. For a mad scientist in the Soul Society named Kageroza has been messing about with Mod Souls, and has created Regai, replicas of the Soul Reapers that he has used to take over the Soul Society, defeating the Captains of the 13 Squads. He’s turned his eyes on the World of The Living, where the Shinigami Lieutenants have escaped to. Meanwhile Ichigo and his friends have encountered an enigmatic green-haired girl named Nozomi Kujo, who has Soul Reaper abilities, but is no Soul Reaper. She also has selective amnesia and something of a self-destructive streak. But she might just hold the key to defeating Kageroza, which is why she’s Kageroza’s first target when the Regai invade the World of the Living.

13 episodes across 3 discs come in Series 15 Part 2, episodes 330-342, subtitled The Invading Army Part 2.

Picture

Finally, finally, Kazé have proffered the transfer for Bleach that every other anime show gets as standard these days. You have a 1.78:1 anamorphic, native PAL transfer, played at the correct frame rate for UK TVs, with the requisite 4% speed-up. Gone is that profanity inducing jerkovision that marred the previous Kazé releases of Bleach, that induce a nervous twitch in my own eyes. As for the transfer, it’s not spectacular, looking to be an upscale of an NTSC source, rather than using HD masters to get the image as sharp as possible for the PAL resolution. As a result Bleach still looks soft. But, no jerking, and no blended frames. Hurrah and Huzzah!

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. I’ve also noticed that the subtitles aren’t overscan friendly, with letters disappearing off the edge of the screen on my old CRT TV. But with the image finally going to native PAL, Kazé have opted to pitch correct the audio to compensate for the speed-up. Yes... wobbly music ensues...

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. I always scour these discs for new Kazé screw-ups, and this time it’s pretty obscure. While the end credits are in English, they’ve listed the French dub cast instead of the English. I double checked to be sure and the English dub is on the discs, not the French.


Kazé don’t put separate Bleach 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. The discs have trailers for Tenkai Knights (a new title from Kazé that we might see here in the future), Wolf Children (a Kazé Europe title that we won’t see in the UK as it’s actually a Manga licence here), and Journey to Agartha.

Conclusion

The last instalment of Bleach filler turned out better than I thought it would, following the first half last month, which pitted the Soul Reapers versus their doppelgangers in a series of somewhat predictable and tedious fight sequences. That aspect is still there in this half, although there is the added benefit of strategy thrown in. What really improves it is how the Nozomi storyline plays out, the non-canon exploration of mod souls and their implications, and a rather touching storyline for Kon, which at last elevates him beyond the teddy bear comic relief.


Unfortunately, with the predictability of a reset button essentially taking everything back to the end of the Arrancar saga, it means that the interesting new characters don’t get to stick around, any relationships and friendships formed in this arc are quickly forgotten, as are the odd bits of character development. It’s to be expected of course, but for once this is a filler arc that stands up well in comparison to the manga storyline.


The story comes from a simplistic premise though, that about friendship, and for the arc’s antagonist, the lack thereof. Yushina Ouka was a somewhat weak and powerless Soul Reaper who didn’t have a lot of friends, and wound up assigned to the research department, where he started work on mod souls. He came up with a scheme to attain power through use of mod soul proxies as it were, espousing a philosophy of total self-reliance, given his difficulty in making friends. That philosophy is something he passed on to the mod souls that he created, and in particular Kageroza and Nozomi, which explains why Nozomi was always stand-offish and apt to run off in the first half of this arc. The thing is that over the course of this arc, Nozomi gets to experience friendship, trust, and belief in others, where Kageroza does not, so the conclusion of the arc comes down to a conflict between the two ideas, with the heroes working together through friendship, against the superior power of Kageroza.


There’s also a greater sense of peril in this arc, given that Ichigo’s Spiritual Energy is on the wane following his battle with Aizen, and he keeps losing his mojo when he needs it most. The final battle here is more of a team effort, which certainly shows on screen in a positive way, and even the weaker members of the team have a positive input, even if the conclusion of the arc is predictably bittersweet.


The final episode on these discs takes us back to the canon material, and after the will he, won’t he dithering of the filler, the process here is quick and abrupt. Ichigo loses his Soul Reaper powers, in a moment that’s touching and emotive, featuring some of the finest character animation of this show so far, as Rukia fades from his vision. That Ichigo is somewhat stressed about it is at odds with the moment of self-realisation that he has in the filler arc, but issues of continuity like that are to be expected.


Once again, I find Bleach filler to be more satisfying than the canon material, as it uses the characters better, and there’s an immediacy to the story told over just 25 episodes that is lost when you have arcs stretching across hundreds of them. If this weren’t a shonen battle fest, then more character focus on the mod souls, and the relationship between Nozomi and Kon could have brought out the bittersweet aspects of the story more, but I do have to say that the final battle between Ichigo and Kageroza is very well choreographed, balanced and timed, and is really the fight that the final battle against Aizen should have been. Unfortunately for me, it’s the last of the filler. With just two more collections to go, Bleach will have to pull out something fantastic to leave on a positive note.