Review for Bleach: Series 8 Part 1 (2 Discs) (UK)

Introduction

I was briefly excited when Season 7 of Bleach came to the UK, as both sets were released in quick succession, giving the impression that the release schedule would finally begin to speed up. Since then, there's been a five month gap until the first part of season 8, a long enough hiatus to let the plot slip from my mind again. However, this Spring looks to be a full-on Spring of Bleach, as it turns out that the March release of Season 8 Part 1 will be followed by Part 2 in May and Season 9 Part 1 in June. If that isn't all, May will see the Blu-ray release of films 1 & 2, as well as the UK home-video premiere of Bleach's third Movie, Fade to Black on both Blu-ray and DVD. But this silver lining has a cloud in the form of reduced episode counts. Manga Entertainment's releases are conforming to the broadcast seasons, and season 8 is just 16 episodes long. That means that Season 8 Part 1 is the shortest release yet, at just 8 episodes in length. That stands at odds with the US and Australian releases, which tend to an arbitrary eleven or twelve episodes.


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.


Previously on Bleach, Ichigo and his friends had returned from the Soul Society, and were trying to rebuild their lives in the real world. But then Captain Sosuke Aizen, who had betrayed the Soul Society and fled with his conspirators at the end of the Soul Society Arc, decided to put his plan into effect. He started by taking the strongest Hollows, indeed the strongest of the Menos Grande, removed their masks, and equipped them with the Zanpakuto swords and abilities of the Soul Reapers. These are the Arrancars, and they soon came to the living world to wreak havoc. At the same time, it turned out that there is an outlaw group of Soul Reapers, shinigami that have embraced their Hollow natures and strengths and have called themselves Visoreds. They came to the living world to recruit Ichigo, who has trouble controlling his Hollow half.


As we left Season 7, Aizen's plans had taken a distinctly unexpected turn, when he kidnapped Ichigo's friend, Orihime Inoue, seeing her spiritual abilities as the key to his victory. What's worse is that through blackmail, insinuation, and persuasion, he made it look as if Orihime left of her own accord. Consequently that meant that the Soul Society marked Orihime as a traitor and left her to her fate. That wasn't good enough for Ichigo, and he, Chad and Ishida decided to rescue her by themselves. Of course friendship is stronger than duty for some, and of the Soul Reapers, Rukia and Renji decided to join them. To rescue Orihime would mean venturing into the world of the Hollows in Hueco Mundo, finding the fortress of Las Noches, defeating the Arrancars and the Hollows and Aizen's forces to boot, and then finally rescuing Orihime. Fortunately, this lions' den has some unexpectedly friendly lions, as they discovered when they met the long lost Soul Reaper Ashida, and the friendly child-like Arrancar Nel Tu and her brothers. As we left the previous volume, the gang had just entered Las Noches, where they were faced with five paths to choose from. The logical next step was to split up and take one path apiece, but that means that they will each have to face the next Arrancar threats alone. Manga Entertainment presents the next eight episodes, 152-159 of Bleach across two discs.

Picture

From Season 6 onwards, Bleach went native PAL. It's a more common sight in anime mastered in Australia now, and gone are the days of ghosting, judder, lower resolution and conversion artefacts, and in comes a 4% PAL speed up. The image is clear enough, the colours strong and vibrant, and the picture is as sharp as you would expect. It's a fun, colourful animation, heavy on the primary colours, and the character and world designs have universal appeal. I must say that in this sixth series, the character designs are showing a greater degree of inconsistency, which is a tad disappointing. Given that it is a long running show, you wouldn't expect a great deal of detail and frippery, but though the animation is simple, it's also very dynamic, especially in the action sequences. Bleach looks really splendid now, all except the end credit text scroll, which didn't survive the transfer to PAL as well as the animation did.

Sound

You get a choice of DD 2.0 English or Japanese with a sole translated subtitle track to accompany them. The dialogue is clear, the show has some nice music, and it is all presented as vibrantly and competently as you would expect from stereo soundtracks. I've also noticed that while there is only the single subtitle track, the on screen text continues to be translated, which is an improvement over the first season.

Extras

Static menus and a jacket picture for when the disc isn't spinning. Each episode ends in an Illustrated Guide to Soul Reapers Golden comedy sketch. The only extras are on Disc 2. This has 2 textless closing sequences, and 32 line-art images in a gallery, as well as trailers for the Bleach the Series, Bleach the Movie 1: Memories of Nobody, and Bleach the Movie 2: Diamond Dust Rebellion and the Bleach videogame.

Conclusion

There was a brief stretch of episodes, pretty much the entirety of Bleach: Season 7 Part 2 that I thought the series had come good, that it had attained the heights and the promise of Season 1, and that I was finally engaging with it and enjoying it on a personal level. That was a short-lived hope, as with the arrival of Season 8 Part 1, really just the continuation of what happened in the previous volume, it plummets into the depths of mediocrity once more, and for me, watching the show becomes an exercise in battling insomnia yet again. What I had appreciated about the previous volume is that it had drawn back from the character overload that typified much of Bleach, and that with its main characters working as a team to rescue Orihime, the interactions and dialogue between Ichigo, Rukia, Uryu, Renji and Chad made for a whole lot of entertainment. That all ends here, as at the end of the previous volume, and in the recap at the start of this one, the rescuers arrived at Las Noches to face a choice of five paths. The obvious solution, to them at any rate, is to split up and barrel on ahead by themselves. So much for character interaction...


The point here is to get to Orihime, and here we hit the ground state of shonen action anime, the one-on-one battles against foes that run over several episodes. There's lots of levelling up, lots of calling out names of special moves, and lots of succeeding through superior willpower where simple odds would dictate otherwise. If you are a fan of Bleach, if you invest in the characters, invest in the back-story, basically live and breathe the series, then you'll love this stuff. If on the other hand you're a somewhat dispassionate reviewer, who is intrinsically aware of the clichés around shonen anime, then it very quickly becomes tiresome. Character A faces character B. Character B overwhelms character A. Character A finds hidden reserves and turns tables on B. B levels up and turns tables on A, rinse and repeat until one of them wins, or the universe implodes.


Of course the thing is that each series has its own jargon, own style, and own separate clichés, which allows for fans to become regimented and compartmentalised. If you know Bleach inside and out, I doubt you have room left for something like One Piece or Naruto, and vice versa. In this volume, the jargon goes up to eleven again, as we get into the nitty-gritty of Hueco Mundo, Las Noches, the Hollows, the Arrancars, the Espada, and all other variations and oddities this realm hides. As you can guess, the nomenclature here is of Spanish origin, so you have a whole new language of terms to assimilate. With most of the foes really appearing for a few episodes before being defeated and lost to the pages of old dog-eared manga, I'm not that level of fan to take on the names that the anime assigns. I instead refer to them as Pirate Guy, Orange Afro, Scythe Boy, Yoyo Girl, and something a little more profane for the guy that looks like two sentient balls floating in a jar. Uryu fights Yoyo Girl in these episodes, Chad fights Orange Afro, Rukia faces Bollock Jar, and Ichigo takes on Pirate Guy, and lots of one-upmanship and levelling up ensues. All the time while one person is fighting, everyone else seems to sense telepathically if they're winning or losing.


One of the more interesting developments in this collection is the foe that Rukia faces first of all, a blast from her past which gives her serious pause. Of course the Soul Society Arc and the Kaien flashback was so long ago now that I had absolutely no idea what was going on until halfway through the battle. Kaien was Rukia's mentor, the Lieutenant who died at her hands when he was taken over by a Hollow. Seeing him apparently resurrected here as a member of the Espada hamstrings Rukia in the middle of a crisis situation, and it's interesting to see the battle play out, to the point it's a disappointment when the focus shifts to another character. Otherwise the few bright spots in this set come in the form of its humour, provided by the little baby Arrancar Nel Tu and her 'brothers' Clown Face and Phlegm Ant (Yeah, I know, I really have given up now.) Clown Face pursues, and scares the heck out of Renji, while Phlegm Ant offers his dubious and forgetful assistance to Uryu.


All the while in the background, story is occurring, and once in a while we even get a reminder of the whole point of this shindig, the rescue of Orihime. But with this instalment of episodes, Bleach has returned to its tedious ground state of endless, chi explosion filled battles. In Japan, Bleach is finally coming to an end as it approaches episode 370. That's over 200 more for us to go. With the quality of these episodes, that's a prospect that just makes me whimper. If you're a Bleach die-hard, you'll be buying these episodes regardless of what I say, but if you're looking for something new and long-running, I'd point you in the direction of Fairy Tail, that looks like more fun.