Review for Bleach: Series 15 Part 1 (3 Discs) (UK)

Introduction

This is probably the thirtieth time I’ve had to write an introductory paragraph to some sort of Bleach release, or thereabouts, and quite frankly I’m drawing a blank. There really is nothing new that I can think of saying about the show at this juncture, only an impending sense of relief that the franchise is coming to a close. Just three more releases after this one. Then again, I thought my days of reviewing Dragon Ball and its spin-offs were well and truly over, and then Manga went and licensed Dragon Ball Kai. Actually, if any show would benefit from the Kai treatment, editing out filler, streamlining the storytelling, and removing all those flashbacks and recaps, it would be Bleach. They’d be able to tell the whole story in just a hundred episodes or so.


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.


When last we encountered Ichigo and his friends, they had just defeated the pernicious plans of Aizen and his Arrancars, but in doing so, Ichigo had paid a high price. Now, the Sword of Damocles that is the eventual loss of his Soul Reaper powers hangs over him, the more he uses them, the quicker he will lose them. But when odd things start happening in the Precipice World, causing the Soul Society and the Living World to drift out of sync, Ichigo will need his powers more than ever,

13 episodes across 3 discs come in Series 15 Part 1, episodes 317-329, subtitled The Invading Army Part 1.

Picture

Finally, finally, Kazé have proffered the transfer for Bleach that every other anime show gets as standard these days. You have a 1.78:1 anamorphic, native PAL transfer, played at the correct frame rate for UK TVs, with the requisite 4% speed-up. Gone is that profanity inducing jerkovision that marred the previous Kazé releases of Bleach, that induce a nervous twitch in my own eyes. As for the transfer, it’s not spectacular, looking to be an upscale of an NTSC source, rather than using HD masters to get the image as sharp as possible for the PAL resolution. As a result Bleach still looks soft. But, no jerking, and no blended frames. Hurrah and Huzzah!

Sound

There are some positives to be had in the audio department. The discs now have the surround flag activated, so you now have DD 2.0 Surround English and Japanese audio. It sounds exactly the same in practice however. More significant is that Kazé provide translated subtitles for the Japanese audio, and a signs only English track for the English audio. This season sees some new theme songs debuted for the series, but unlike the Madman discs, the songs don’t have subtitle translations for the lyrics. These being Kazé discs, you can’t change audio or subtitles on the fly, so Hard of Hearing English dub fans are out of luck. I’ve also noticed that the subtitles aren’t overscan friendly, with letters disappearing off the edge of the screen on my old CRT TV. But with the image finally going to native PAL, Kazé have opted to pitch correct the audio to compensate for the speed-up. Yes... wobbly music ensues...

Incidentally, there is a corrupted text caption some 6:48 into episode 320. It’s whole in the signs only track, but the way the disc is authored, skipping back and changing subtitle streams isn’t an option.

Extras

You’ve probably already heard me whinge about Kazé discs and UPOPs, so consider it whinged again. These discs are locked up tighter than Fort Knox, and I had to guess at the run time for the episodes.

Kazé don’t put separate Bleach trailers on their discs, and neither do they offer a line art gallery. All you get are karaoke versions of the credit sequences, minus the credit text, but with a romanji (Japanese in English script) burnt in subtitle track that insists that you sing along. The discs have trailers for Bakuman Season 1 (they’re still trying to shift this trainwreck), Berserk the Movie 1, Journey to Agartha, and Nura Rise of the Yokai Clan.

Conclusion

We’re back to Bleach filler, although with this being the start of an ongoing arc, it’s more of a serious and complex storyline rather than the one shot nonsense episodes we had at the end of the previous collection. It’s usually a toss up as to how good the filler is, depending on the guest characters and the way the story develops. For me, this first half of the Invading Army arc is pretty average.


The plus points are in the concept of the story, and while one or two elements may stray from the canon, it is still an appealing idea. It’s all about mod-souls and substitute bodies. In the world of the living, when Soul Reapers want to interact with the living, they use Gigai bodies which their spirits inhabit, discarding them for their spirit bodies when they do battle with Hollows. That’s what Ichigo has to do when he does his Soul Reaping, leaving his body inert, or at least that was until he encountered the Mod Soul Kon, who now spends his days inhabiting a plush lion toy, but takes over Ichigo’s body while he’s off battling Hollows and the like.


This arc introduces the concept of the Regai, substitute bodies created for the Spirit World, and the special Mod Souls created for them, so that they could be used to do battle alongside the Soul Reapers. At least that was the plan until the whole project was cancelled. In the Invading Army arc, the concept is resurrected by the arc’s villain Kageroza Inaba, when he starts interfering with the Precipice World connecting the World of the Living with the Soul Society. It turns out that the Precipice World has a couple of strange properties that he can exploit. He’s created Regai bearing the images and personalities of the Soul Reapers, perfect duplicates in fact, and pretty soon he’s using them to infiltrate and take over the Soul Society, as well as sending them to the World of the Living to hunt down an escaped Soul Reaper named Nozomi Kujo. Naturally Ichigo and his friends get drawn in.


Sounds like a great idea, but the execution is poor, with Kageroza Inaba merely another Aizen clone, ridiculously superior in ability and power against the Soul Reapers that he faces, and tediously fond of pontificating. As for Nozomi Kujo, she fits the quiet, submissive, tsundere stereotype, constantly berating Kon for being a pervert, and kicking him around, but otherwise quietly accepting what fate will bestow on her, even repeatedly refusing the help of Ichigo and his friends. I lost count the number of times she ran away on the first disc, to be captured by the villains, only to be rescued by Ichigo once more.


The final disappointments are the Regai, a great idea on paper, but in the show it boils down to the Soul Reapers fighting their duplicates, identical in appearance and personality, but with lightning coloured eyes. I guess it saves money on voice actors, and doesn’t require any imagination from the animators.


You can tell that Bleach is winding down at this point. My heart certainly isn’t in watching any more, but I get the feeling that the creators’ hearts aren’t in it either. Kazé’s visual presentation improves, but the audio takes a hit. On balance it’s still a change for the better, as I’m more forgiving of audio burbles than twitchy animation, but it is still too little, too late.