What’s The Story? Mourning Glory.

Last night, after finishing a rewatch of Neo Ranga (still a great show, despite it’s many faults), I decided my next rewatch would be Bleach’s Soul Society arc, if only because the anime wouldn’t stop reminding me of its far superior roots.  (If you’re wondering why I’m rewatching this part of Bleach for the 5th or 6th time rather than catching up on the golden oldies, it’s because it’s one of the few anime DVDs I own and that means I can pop it in my 360 and watch it in bed. Ahhhhh.)

Bleach was one of the first animes I’d ever seen, so as soon as episode one started I was overcome by a sense of nostalgia that told me that no matter how bad it had become, Bleach had been a good (perhaps even great?) show. That single episode reminded me why I fell in love with the show in the first place: the immensely stylish opening (still one of my favourites), the attractive art, colour tone and direction (such as the haze which permeates the screen whenever we see Hollows) and the blend of action and quirky comedy. The first episode encapsulates everything that was good about Bleach, before it even reached the first main plotline of the series. So it’s even more disappointing to watch the show as it is now and see 5 minutes of recap followed by a boring fight with sub-par animation.

But even seeing how far the series has fallen since that point, I still like the show. I know that it sucks in terms of pacing and animation, but I’m still more likely to watch it than any older (better) shows that I’ve put on hold, such as Ergo Proxy (good show, but soooo slooooow.) I don’t wany to drop it either. I would like to think that the main reason is that it’s gone on so long I just want to see how it ends, but if that was the case I could just wait till it’s finished and marathon it later – instead I feel a compulsion to watch the show and read the manga chapter week by week (strangely enough, I’m savong up the One Piece manga for monthly reads since it’s gotten SO DAMN AWESOME as of later.)

I think the main reason I’m still following Bleach is that the newbie anime watcher inside me (struggling for breath beneath the waves of cynicism that comes with actually watching good anime) still wants the series to return to its former glory. It’s like all the one other thing from my childhood that I still hope and pray to become great again: Sonic the Hedgehog. Every damn couple of years it’s the same thing: I anticipate a game, get my hopes up and then… it’s either average or downright awful. Only with Bleach the moment of anticipation was the Turn Back the Pendulum arc and it’s just been downhill from there. But no matter what, I’ll keep following the series through whatever madness it may throw at me since within those average/awful times there are small glimmers of greatness which give me hope.

Side Note: Funnily enough, the same couldn’t be said for another show from my early years: Naruto. Although it hadn’t gotten as bad as Bleach had gotten (in fact, things were starting to look up, especially after Azuma’s death) I still ended up dropping the anime, though I still read the manga. Perhaps it’s just the fact that Bleach was more interesting to me.Or the fact that it decided to go on yet another filler arc.

Although the series has gone to crap in terms of plot and characters, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s the same characters in the same world that was once so interesting to me. How can I abandon Soi Fon the crazy lesbian stalker, or Kyouraku the effortlessly badass lazyman, or Kenpachi the AWESOME? These are characters which have already endeared themsleves to me, so I want to see what they’ll do next.

Focusing on the manga, the “plot” progresses at a snail’s place due to Kubo’s rule of no more than 5 panels per pagea and the art’s sloppy (with practically no backgrounds beyond, white, black and buildings with sky) and Soi Fon’s Bankai is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen. The series has some large flaws, but to be honest, I’m a kid at heart and one thing that I always liked about Bleach is the action. It’s simple really: Bleach has action, I like action, therefore I like Bleach. But when even that starts to become lacklustre and uninteresting with zero strategy involved, it’s clear those glimmers of greatness aren’t going to count for much any more. For example, this was the process that the Hitsugaya v. Halibel fight went through:

Hitsugaya: I control water
Halibel: I control water
Hitsugaya: I get all water in the air
Halibel: I get all water in the air
Hitsugaya: I get YOUR water
Halibel: I get YOUR water too

Hitsugaya: …I MAKE WATER

WINNER: Hitsugaya

It’s not all that surprising at this point though, especially in light of some things Kubo said during an interview :

PWCW: Now that Bleach has been going on for a bit, how do you keep the adventure and the story fresh?

TK: I think it maintains a freshness because when I create manga, I don’t think about what’s going to happen—I just come up with an idea and let it flow. It’s a weekly installment, so I have a very short time to create manga, but the good thing is that because it’s short, I can come up with the idea and start creating it.

PWCW: Have you ever gotten yourself into a situation that made you say, “Uh-oh”?

TK: I don’t really face that kind of situation because it’s a long story and sometimes I forget what’s happened in the past, but I read the previous volumes of Bleach and that usually helps me to create and have a new idea.

Damn.

Well, no matter what I do, Bleach will just keep pulling me back in, so I might as well just try to enjoy its positives for the next 4 years. As for where the story will go from here, all I know is that when made up theories on 4chan good, there’s a problem.