Review for Bleach The Movie 4: Hell Verse - Collector's Edition

Introduction

Bleach is doing Hell now? I mean, Bleach is fundamentally a show about the afterlife. It’s about Soul Reapers who rescue lost souls and guide them to the afterlife in the Soul Society, a sort of holding area before they are reborn. At the same time they battle lost souls which have turned into Hollows, Hollows that call another otherworldly realm called Hueco Mundo home. Over some 200 episodes, and 3 feature length movies, Bleach has taken us to all manner of planes of existence and infernal realms with which it continues to develop its story. To be honest, none of them, not even the Soul Society seem all that paradisiacal. Hueco Mundo’s bleak and lifeless realm seems as close to my expectations of eternal torment as any. But no, actually it turns out that Bleach hasn’t touched upon the Judeo-Christian definition of Hell until now. It’s been saving it up for the fourth movie, Hell Verse, which comes to us from Kazé Entertainment, distributed for them by Manga on DVD, and Special Edition Blu-ray/DVD combo. I’ve given the Blu-ray a once over for this review.


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.

It’s just another normal day in Karakura City, with Ichigo once again educating some delinquents who don’t pay enough respect to the recently departed. Renji and Rukia show up on a mission that they would rather not disturb Ichigo with, but naturally that’s a forlorn hope when Ichigo’s school is attacked by something new, something different. Three masked figures appear, apparently immune to the usual spiritual weapons that the Shinigami, Ichigo and his friends wield. Moreover, they appear to know Ichigo by name. The attack on the school turns out to be a diversion, and the real target is Ichigo’s home, where another masked figure has kidnapped his sisters, Yuzu and Karin. With the aid of an unexpected warrior in chains named Kokuto, Ichigo manages to rescue Karin, but Yuzu is taken through a set of spectral gates and held hostage. The masked figures demand Ichigo’s help in freeing them from their purgatory. They demand that he walk into Hell itself, and destroy the Gates of Hell from the inside, if he wants his sister back. Kokuto is a sinner who is also condemned to hell, but he had a sister once, and he offers to help Ichigo get Yuzu back. But can a sinner be trusted?

Picture

Bleach’s fourth movie incarnation gets a relatively bare-bones Blu-ray release on this disc, so with just a 94-minute feature, there shouldn’t be much in the way of compression and the like. The 1.85:1 widescreen transfer is presented at 1080p resolution, and I have to say that it is the most impressive looking Bleach movie Blu-ray yet, crystal clear with impressive, dynamic animation, bringing out the film’s various action sequences without flaw. It also is the best way to appreciate the film’s artwork, as this Bleach movie makes the most of its colour palette to highlight the differences between the real world and hell, which receives something of a Bleach bypass treatment (pun intended). If there is a hint of banding in the transfer, it’s hardly noticeable during normal playback.

The images used in this review are sourced from the PR, and aren’t necessarily representative of the retail release.

Sound

Kazé release another title for European audiences, and that is reflected in the language menu options when you insert the disc, Dutch, French, and English. On the disc you’ll find audio options in DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround English, Japanese, and French, along with Dutch, English, and French subtitles, as well as a French signs only track. As far as I can tell, there’s only one caption that needs translating (Kurosaki Clinic), and while you’ll miss out on it if you watch the English dub, it’s hardly a plot specific bit of text. I went with the Japanese audio with English subtitles, and found it to be a wholly acceptable experience, with the usual suspects returning for the main cast, and Kazuya Nakai making a memorable appearance as Kokuto. The surrounds work well to enhance the action sequences, and the otherworld that is hell. The music too for this movie really drives the film’s tempo and carries the atmosphere. The subtitles are timed well, and other than one missing word that I noticed, are free of error. I gave the dub a quick try and it will be just as familiar for dub fans of the series.

Incidentally, this is a Kazé disc, so everything is locked up tighter than Fort Knox. No subtitles to support hard of hearing dub fans.

Extras

I didn’t receive the packaging, just the discs, but apparently there is something special for people who purchase the combo release as opposed to a regular Amaray style case.

There are no extras on this Blu-ray disc, but if you insert the disc and choose the French menus, you can take a look at some Gallic anime releases guaranteed to make you jealous, including a Patlabor 2 Movie Blu-ray, Fate/Zero, and most stunning of all, a Blu-ray release of Blue Exorcist, complete with French dub. There are also trailers for Persona 4, the 6th One Piece feature, and KZTV.

Also in this collection is the DVD release of Bleach: Hell Verse, which is presented in the same languages, with a whole different set of trailers in the French menus, with the movie in PAL (with pitch corrected 5.1 audio), and locked up tighter than a Kazé Blu-ray.

Conclusion

I found this to be the best Bleach movie outing since Memories of Nobody. This time however, it isn’t because it does anything particularly different, or that it develops its characters in unexpected ways, the way that the first Bleach movie did. This time it is because Hell Verse finds and distils the best of the Bleach universe, the best of the shonen anime tropes, and presents them in a way that is wholly entertaining. This is pure Bleach as you have come to expect it, given cinema quality production values, and shorn of padding, excess weight, flashbacks and pointless exposition. It’s a Bleach movie purely for the Bleach fan, and newcomers to the franchise will be lost at this point. But if you know your Shinigami from your Hollows, know who all the characters are, and don’t need to waste any time recapping, then you will love this film.


The way that a Bleach arc usually works is that something will happen that will require Ichigo and his friends to train up, and venture into another realm to do battle with a villain, usually to rescue someone. At the moment, the UK television releases are following the Arrancar arc, with Ichigo and his friends heading into Hueco Mundo, after Ichigo has been training to release his inner Hollow and become a Visored, to do battle with Aizen and his army of Arrancars so that they can rescue Orihime. Bleach the television series has managed to stretch this out over dozens of episodes now, with no sign that this story will end anytime soon. Episode spanning fights abound, lots of recaps, lots of flashbacks, and to be quite honest, I find it tedious at the best of times. Long have I wished that Bleach would just cut to the chase and give us the good bits.

With Hell Verse, it does just that. There’s not much in the way of exposition, and no extra padding with pointless fights with meaningless minions, or interminable flashbacks. The film kicks off by getting straight to the point, the attack on Ichigo’s school and the kidnapping of his sister Yuzu. It becomes clear that he has to go to Hell to rescue her, and that’s what he does with the aid of a resident of the underworld. The point of the film is revealed through its narrative, not through exposition, and the stakes that they are playing for become clear in the same way. The visual imagination used to realise this depiction of hell is brilliantly put across in the film, and draws the viewer in, so much so that the usual running around, quest sequences of such a film don’t ever seem obvious.


We get to what we think is the climax, only the story throws in an unexpected twist that manages to tug on the heartstrings, even though we know this is a filler movie, and all will be reset for when the TV series resumes. Our heroes have to collect themselves and find their inner reserves to do what’s right and hopefully prevail in the end. In the TV series, they could stretch this out to 100 episodes and more without breaking a sweat. Here they tell the same story in just 90 minutes, and it is wholly entertaining, and never outstays its welcome. Bleach The Movie 4: Hell Verse is perfectly paced, blends action and drama just right, and throws in enough of the comedy and Bleach character moments to remind you that you are indeed watching a Bleach film. And there’s not an ounce of fat on it.


Newcomers to the Bleach universe will be lost, but established fans will be delighted at a movie that delivers all that Bleach is best at, in a bite size package that doesn’t require the investment of a significant fraction of your life. The Blu-ray may be light on extras, but the quality of the film on this disc can’t be faulted, and is leaps and bounds ahead of the DVD release.