Ichigo, Bankai, Seireitei: The Movie

So. I like Bleach. I admit it. I know it's just a fighting show with a million characters and very little character development. I know that Ichigo is a bland, by the books protagonist. I know no good guys will ever die. But I like it. 

The other night, Adult Swim aired the first Bleach movie, Memories of Nobody. I was pretty excited to see what I thought would be a pretty standard, but fun, anime film. And that's exactly what I got. Kinda.

Bleach: Memories of Nobody is so paint by numbers, it's absurd. Here we have a new threat that is defeated by the end. We have a new female character for Ichigo to deal with. We have some interesting things hinted at that never go anywhere. And so on.

The film starts off like every other anime film based off a long running TV series: A day in the life. Ichigo and Rukia are Hollow hunting. The film takes ten minutes to establish this before moving into the plot. The first part of the plot was pretty interesting, with the advent of lost souls called Blanks, and the introduction of a Soul Reaper nobody seems to know. From there, however, it falls apart.

The new Soul Reaper, Senna, is your stereotypical super bubbly school girl, prancing around like a lunatic for most of her screen time. What is it with Japanese folks loving these lala carefree girls? Who really says, "let's play tag and if you catch me I'll tell you what you want to know?" Later on, her role is revealed, but by then, the viewer has already figured it out, so it comes as no surprise, and with little drama.

The villians of the film are the Dark Ones. They were banished from the Soul Society a long time ago. That's pretty much all the film explains. One dimensional doesn't even begin to describe how under developed these guys are. There are 5 or 6. None are named except the leader, who is the leader just cuz. What do they want? Why, to destroy the Soul Society of course. But that's it. 

I can complain about how Chad, Orihime, and Uryu don't do anything in the film. I can whine about how the only Soul Reaper captains who actually do anything are the same 3 or 4 that do anything in the show. Why have 13 captains and 13 lietenants if you only going to use 4? 

All in all though, maybe I'm being too harsh. It wasn't BAD, per se, but it was very standard. It luckily didn't feel like a two hour episode (ahem, Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door), but it wasn't anything great either. Maybe a 5/10.

The animation was pretty nice though.

About movieguyjon

I write on the internet and complain a lot. Sometimes a smart thought gets out. Who knew?