Bleach 36
Posted: November 24, 2011 Filed under: Bleach 2 Comments »Tite Kubo – Viz – 2011 – 52+ volumes
So, I’ve said before I’m giving up on this after I finish with the volumes I’ve preordered. Bleach may have officially kicked me out of the club this volume, because in the character popularity poll in the back, Hitsugaya finished first. Not just that, Rukia finished second. Ichigo was third in his own series. Rukia… I can kind of see. She is, in theory, the main female character, and she only beat Ichigo by a little over 50 votes. Then again, she hasn’t really been in it much for the last 30 volumes. But… Hitsugaya won by a large margin. He’s a side character. I don’t understand.
Anyway. Setting that aside, predictably, Bleach caught my interest again in this volume, as it always does when I think of quitting. Nothing short of a volume with both Mayuri and Urahara in it would do the trick for me, and that’s incredibly unlikely. Mayuri’s only been in the story twice, and we haven’t seen Urahara for ten volumes. Lo and behold, flashback! They were in the same company! They’re friends! I love it. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot between them here, so it’s not much of a victory.
The entire volume is a flashback, telling of Urahara’s time as a captain of one of the Companies, and what happened between himself, Aizen, and the other captains 100 years ago. It’s a great little bit of story, and I enjoyed it immensely. But again, Bleach’s reliance on about 200 characters cripples my enjoyment. Instead of focusing on Urahara, Aizen, Shinji, Yoruichi, any of the other major players, or the situation at hand, much time is spent inserting as many cameos as possible so that you can see the younger version of your favorite character. The story is secondary to this, and it makes me angry since it’s still a good story. There’s a lot to tell. We start to get some details about why it’s so unusual that Urahara and Yoruichi live how they currently do, we get a glimpse at the beginning of Aizen’s plans, and any insight into Urahara’s character and what drives him to act as he does in the present is much appreciated. But instead, we shift around and see where everyone is and what their rank is, and a fight breaks out at the end.
Bleach, why?
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
-Then again, she hasn’t really been in it much for the last 30 volumes. But… Hitsugaya won by a large margin. He’s a side character. I don’t understand.-
I think it’s a “fandom in Japan got big enough that it started to drive the popularity” thing.
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