Bleach 26
Posted: February 6, 2009 Filed under: Bleach 2 Comments »This is either the best volume I’ve seen in awhile or the story is getting much more awesome here. The fighting is mostly training stuff, with some arrancars popping in towards the end to spar with the characters as a distraction. There are peeks at the training Chad and Uryuu are doing, and some fooling around with Kisuke Urahara, but a large chunk of the volume is for showing off Ichigo’s progress as a Visored and for Orihime.
Come to think of it, I probably really liked this volume because I really like Orihime. She’s really fun and has pretty much stayed consistently entertaining without being annoying for the entirety of the series, despite the fact she’s appeared so infrequently since the first few volumes. For some reason, she’s not allowed to fight the hollows and arrancars, and several characters count her out of the fights. This actually broke my heart a little because it made Orihime so sad, and she’s just… so loyal.
Orihime is also the first person to track down Ichigo. There’s a short scene between her and Ichigo which was really anticlimactic. Of course, Ichigo’s just not a romantic dude, and Orihime’s feelings probably weren’t first in his mind.
Bizarrely, Orihime runs to Rukia for support. I didn’t really think the two of them would get along, but they seem to be the only friend the other girl has. It’s actually kind of nice.
And at the end of the volume, I’m actually looking forward to the arrancar fights quite a bit. They seem to be coming out on top, and there are one or two really annoying new arrancars, so I want to see how that goes. The girl featured on the front of this volume is the one I want to see bite the dust. And in case anyone was wondering, I think Bleach has stolen the crown for ridiculous names from any other series that may wish to possess it. Each and every new character’s name is like a separate gift from the author lately.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
I really enjoyed this volume too. The foreshadowing hints about individuals’ abilities and origins, along with some intense showcasing on their training, made it a really great installment.
Also, the character on the front of the book, Luppi, is actually a boy. Go figure?
Wow. I… I was so sure Luppi was a girl. That’s… uh, yeah. I guess the genders can get sort of ambiguous in this series, with the exception of the flagrant abuse of breast jokes for some characters.