Saturday 9 May 2015

Kubology: The Study of Kubo?

Greetings to everyone at Applied Logic.  Like many of you here, I too was a Bleach fan and was excited for each new volume to be released in english (later chapters as I was reading it online).  However, like many of you, I came to a point in the series where is wanted to bash my face in.


Wait, wait.  I'm getting ahead of myself.  Let's take a trip down memory lane:

September of 2007, after the incredible magazine Anime Insider had featured Bleach a few times, I decided to give it a chance.  What could go wrong?  So i started borrowing volumes from the library one at a time.  I mean it was so cool.  A series that combined horror and action?  With a good splash of comedy?  Sign me up.  Watching Ichigo and Rukia tackle hollows, seeing the chemistry between the characters.  Man that first arc was great.  I think it was because Kubo kept the cast to a minimum and the lore of the world simple.

Does anyone even remember these characters anymore?
Sigh.  So Rukia gets captured, the shady Urahara helps Ichigo and company become strong enough to invade Soul Society and save the day.  And this is where shit starts to get crazy.  The cast increases from twenty to a hundred twenty.  GAH! So many new characters.  Most were just exposition characters too.  Well Ichigo and friends are blazing through Soul Society, dishing out heaping helpings of pain, and we get a taste of the consequences of the method Ichigo used to re-aquire his shinigami juice.
Hey, Ichigo?  I have a secret.  But we'll both won't know what it is for another five hundred chapters.  Tee hee

Yep, the menacing "Shirosaki".  This was actually a cool concept on Kubo's part.  Due to the unorthodox method Urahara had Ichigo go through to become a shinigami again created this pesky monster.  As such, Ichigo now had to keep its murderous will at bay while fighting.  It's a pity Kubo just fucked this up so much.

As all the fights are going on we get a look at Rukia's past, and the guilt she has felt for killing Kaien Shiba.  Now here's where things start to become problematic.  Ichigo and Kaien supposedly look alike.



Maybe it's because of Kubo's "Only Six Character Faces" style of drawing, but I honestly did not see it.  I still don't know of Kubo did this intentionally or it worked out that way.  And then the whole reveal that Isshin is Kukaku's, Ganju's, and Kaien's uncle much later?  Sorry, that's a later rant.
So we get to the point when Aizen betrays Soul Society, and I'll admit it, it blew my mind.
Anyway, I'm still with Bleach during the Arrancar Arc, the LOOONG Hueco Mundo Arc, and the Las Noches Arc.  We learned about the "true" nature of Ichigo's hollow, get introduced to the Visored and the Espada.  And we get more fights.  YAY!  Pitting the forces of good against the forces of evil.  Then Aizen reveals his bait and switch, and Orihime becomes useless.
And then we get to the part where I want to bash my face in:
God I hated this so much
Gimme a sec, I need to lobotomize myself. sigh.  Then things just start going to shit.  I don't need to tell you how.

Good night everyone.  I'll be doing analysis in the future.  Stay tuned.

3 comments:

  1. I for one did not mind the Yammi reveal, as the top Espada were all insufferable or bland.

    Of course then Kubo basically completely skips his fight because we need to see Aizen prancing around as a butterfly.

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    Replies
    1. I will be doing a rant on thar in the future.

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  2. Yammy was the ultimate ass pull, and the funny thing was it was so predictable because Kubo had so clearly written himself into a corner

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