Slightly Biased Manga

With four volumes backlogged, I embarked on the first one in the line I hadn’t read. My interest in the story is definitely waning, but I like the characters a lot, and there’s a lot of that this time around in between the big fight from last volume and what appears to be the big fight coming up in the next volume.

I’m starting to get used to the ranking system in the companies and all the different characters and their ranks among each other, the different company’s ranks amongst themselves, etc. I think I even learned some names! Momo, Hana, Kenny, Ichimaru, and… Aizen? Was that his name? Maybe. Didn’t see much of him, really.

I enjoyed this volume solely for the lack of ultra-manly fighting. There were some heads butting at the end, but the manly stuff won’t start until next volume. This was purely character-centric. The kindest thing we got was a Ichigo/Chad flashback and an explanation of their relationship. There was no Orihime and the Quincy in this volume, but that’s okay. Everyone cared about one another, picked fights because of their feelings, and stood up for their friends. All of that’s good stuff in this series.

The one thing that still makes me ultra-sad though is that Ichigo is going through all this for Rukia. That probably means the chances between he and Orihime are nil, and really, that’s what I was rooting for.

As I said though, my interest in this series is still waning, and I am not looking forward to more Soul Society politics, more big battles surrounding said politics, and just… boring stuff. There’s much better stuff going on in Shounen Jump right now.

For instance, Garp? DRAGON? Where the FUCK did that come from? And why can’t One Piece come out in America once a week parallel to the Japanese chapters? There is a great injustice being done here. And amidst all this, if it doesn’t finally lead to a Luffy flashback at nearly volume number goddamn 50, I’ll be pissed. The very first Luffy flashback was what got me liking the series in the first place, but in the end, it told us very little of how Luffy grew up et al. We know more about the others, save Zoro, really.

And that concludes the review of One Piece as well.

Oh my. It’s happened. It’s turned into a fucking Shounen Jump series. Why Bleach, why?

While I like the occasional tournament-style boys series (God knows Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure can’t do wrong), this was not the series I wanted it with. I loved the earlier formula of Ichigo fighting hollows. I hate all this soul society stuff. I knew I was doomed to hate later volumes when Renji told Ichigo that there were 12 captains and 12 vice captains to get through before he got to Rukia, and Ichigo said that’s what was going to happen. Dammit. I hate keeping all these people straight, too. I finally figured out some of the squad stuff, but not all of it, and I’ll never remember which names go with which faces in the way that seems to be required now. Bah.

I’ll ride it out, though. Maybe the next few volumes will be better. Maybe they’ll all just face him at once, he’ll take them out in one fell swoop, rescue Rukia, then go back to mortal living and hollow busting. Let’s hope.

Bohahaha. It’s doing a One Piece thing with the Don. Not that I mind. Or think that that sort of thing was spawned with One Piece.

I actually didn’t like this volume as much as it deserved. One of the huge major I-don’t-wanna-read-this-series-anymore flaws with Bleach is the way it introduces characters, lets you know they’re important, then doesn’t let them play too much of an active role in the plot, then have characters discuss them like they’re important without them being around, thus confusing any reader who’s not 100% willing to memorize every character’s name, precise role & rank (and character’s rank and how the ranks work in Soul Society is something I’m certainly not going to devote any time to unless the story makes it rote), and face. I don’t want to have to do this with all the characters introduced in this volume. Looks like I’ll have to, though, because I’m sure it’ll come back. There was probably somewhere in the vicinity of 15 characters only introduced by name that will come back and play a casual role in the plot with no explanation. Fuck you Kubo.

All the same, the plot rocks. Bring on the Soul Society.

I’ve been looking at Kuukaku on the cover of this volume for years and didn’t realize she was missing an arm, not even while I was flipping through the volume when I unpacked it. Creepy.

This isn’t as eye-catching or powerful as the last graphic novel was, and I hated Kuukaku’s brother, but she herself was awesome… unfortunately she was only in the last two chapters, though. It was just as epic as the other volumes have been… but it wasn’t nearly as urgent for me as the last one. Maybe it’s because the black cat knows what’s going on, and he was advising against what Ichigo was doing, so I knew there was another path they were going to take. The giant was a nifty character, though. And I still like Orihime a lot… I’m a big fan of IchigoxOrihime.

The shinigami rank system is confusing as hell. I’m probably not going to be spending much time memorizing all the names and types of rank et al, which is unfortunate because I know it’ll become a big, confusing part of the story now. Dammit.

Hmm. Still cool, looking forward to the next volume mostly for Kuukaku.

God, when I thought I was gettin’ that lovin’ feelin’ back last volume, I was right. Perhaps I just needed to get through the stuff I’d already read, which like I said ended last volume. I hadn’t seen or touched anything in this volume, and GODDAMN.

Urahara, you are a pimp and a hero. Ichigo, you are also very awesome, but a bit too egotistical and over-the-top. Urahara, you are perfect. Please don’t just fade away, and please be whatever was the cause of the alarm over Rukia’s… fake body thing. The result of the second challenge and the third challenge minus Ichigo’s inner dialogue were easily the best part of this volume

I don’t quite understand the physics or what’s going on with the gate to Soul Society at the end though. Ichigo needed to be removed from his body, but the other three, who couldn’t be removed, are staying in their bodies… and this is okay?

The scenes with their classmates and Ichigo’s family at fireworks was nice and touching, of course as it should be since this is the sad going-away before Soul Society. But Isshin is cool, as always. And I liked the touching scene between Orihime and Tatsuki.

God, Bleach is a necessary thing again. I CANNOT WAIT until the next volume. Come out now, dammit!

Bleach is still pretty cool. The beginning of this volume didn’t quite grab me like the first volumes were doing when I was reading them scanslated long ago, but I started to get a bit of the old feeling back when Urahara began nailing Ichigo during the training at the end of the volume. This is past the point that I’ve read in scanslations, so everything from… Urahara’s training and Orihime and Chad seeking that cat out on is new to me.

Urahara’s training is really… amazing. So was the battle between the two shinigami and Ichigo. It really was a surprise to me that he beat the first one, and I was also a bit disappointed when the second one smoked him. Honestly, that’s such a Shounen Jump thing to do. And I don’t really count that as a spoiler since you KNEW one of them was going to annhilate him.

And URAHARA! One of my favorites! I want to find out more about him, but I have a feeling that’s not going to come up again once the series moves on. But all the beating and killing going on down below the shop, and what a GREAT cliffhanger. Honestly Bleach, could you be any more awesome? I didn’t think so.

Again, I cannot WAIT until next volume.

Ah, crunch time at the end of the semester! Nothing better than procrastinating and wasting money on comics! And with the Borders sale, it’s just so easy to do. Luckily, things like Bleach 6 come out of it.

Volume 6 is where my foreknowledge of Bleach stops. Well, I had read most of this volume and maybe the first half of seven, but at any rate, we ARE getting into territory that I have not yet ventured into. It’s still a great series, still doesn’t disappoint. I loved the battle with Menos Grande in this volume, I loved the dynamic that worked out between Uryuu and Ichigo, I still love Kon, and Kisuke is still awesome, and about to get moreso.

Lots of battles. And Rukia is about to get her comeuppance. Not much more to say than that, really.

The second volume of Bleach is just as cool and stylish as the first, which means it still sweats awesome out of every pore. Personally, the third volume is where I think it begins to get good, but I actually haven’t really read past the 6th or 7th volume as of yet, so perhaps it starts to go downhill from that point. Eh. Either way, this volume is still great.

Chad is sort of the focus here, along with an adorable parakeet (that kind of looks like a cockatiel, but whatever). The story about the parakeet and the hollow was really well-done and quite moving. Actually, the episodic stories such as this one, the one in the next volume, Don Kanonji, etc are what I love best about the series, because they balance action and characters uncommonly well. Well enough that it really distinguishes itself from the rest. I’m kind of apprehensive about when the series moves into the “Soul Society” arc because these things come to an end. Sure, there are still cool battles and lots of characters, but these stories are really charming, and I want them to keep going.

The artwork helps out a lot with the coolness factor of Bleach, and I still can’t get over Kubo Tite’s smooth style. It’s orgasmic.

I don’t know if this was a review or not. Either way, I rambled about Bleach, I guess, so all’s well. I don’t like this volume as well as the last, and the next is my favorite thus far, as I have said, so this one is probably at the bottom of my Bleach list as far as that goes. However, the bottom of my Bleach list is still far above most other mediocre manga.