Bleach DVD 15 (original) (raw)
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Review
by Carl Kimlinger, Mar 17th 2009
Bleach
DVD 15
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Review: |
Synopsis: | ![]() |
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As Renji spirits Rukia away from the execution grounds, Ichigo fights to prevent her cold-blooded elder brother Byakuya from executing her with his own hands. It's bankai on bankai as two towering martial talents clash, neither to escape unscathed. Elsewhere Captain Hitsugaya is investigating the conspiracy that pitted his childhood friend Hinamori against him, only to come to the horrified conclusion that someone has been issuing false orders under the authority of Central 46, Soul Society's lawmaking body. When Captain Aizen seemingly returns from the dead, Hitsugaya realizes that something is terribly wrong indeed, particularly when the newly resurrected captain begins to act in ways very unlike the compassionate Aizen of old. Hitsugaya has always had an inkling that something large and ominous was moving behind the scenes, but he finds he greatly underestimated the sheer monstrous scope of it. And, as luck would have it, the one thing that may be able to prevent the evil machinations from grinding to their sinister conclusion are the humans he and his fellow shinigami have worked so hard to destroy. | |
Review: |
If volume fourteen was an exhilarating fulfillment of expectations, volume fifteen is Bleach proving that defiance of expectations can be just as exhilarating. The final episode of the Ichigo/Byakuya fight is replete with all of the hairpin turnarounds, lengthy explanations and terminal coolness that one expects of the series, but its conclusion marks, not the end of the arc, but rather its ugliest turnaround yet. What follows is the series at its most brutally unpredictable as Aizen reveals the last stages of his plan and instigates one of the genre's most shocking festivals of defeat. This isn't the viscerally satisfying violence of the previous volume or the Byakuya fight; it's a series of frustrations and revelations. But in a way it's just as satisfying, if not more so. The questions it answers have been dangling since the opening of the Soul Society arc, and it answers them in the most sensationalistic manner it can. That of course entails more than a little pure exposition, but it's chilling exposition, delivered with style plus an un-expository level of gore. If only all villain grandstandings were so thrilling. It is a climax of sorts, orchestrated with, if anything, even more skill than that used during purely action-oriented climaxes. Hinamori's reunion with Aizen is a masterwork of raw emotion and subtly implied potential violence, while Ichigo's confrontation with him is a beautifully tailored reversal of the usual tropes of the genre (including possibly the most memorable use of silence ever to grace a shonen series). Perhaps even more remarkable is the skill with which the series weaves a plethora of unresolved personal issues into these final episodes: Hinamori's devotion to Aizen, Hitsugaya's concern for Hinamori, Rangiku's conflicted feelings about Gin, Gin's reasons for turning on Soul Society, Tosen and Komamura's reasons for joining the Thirteen Court Squads, and perhaps most of all, Orihime's inward agony at being unable to help Ichigo. And that's just a sample of the highlights. There are more potentially interesting personal developments in these final five episodes than the entirety of the story arc to this point, and tellingly not one of them is resolved, despite episode 63 spelling the official conclusion of the arc. This is the final leg of the series' longest story arc, and Noriyuki Abe obliges with a full complement of visual fireworks. Ichigo's fight with Byakuya is positively rife with imaginative touches and memorable images, and his loss of control to his dark side is a study in weirdly cool distortion. The other fights, as brief as they are, include highlights such as the runaway ice-trains of Hitsugaya's bankai and the swirling metal snake of Renji's zanpakuto as he makes a desperate last bid to stop Aizen. The raw quality of the animation is a step or two above the series' norm, and Tite Kubo's hard-edged designs are as immensely appealing as they have ever been. This is, far and away, the most emotional stretch of the series, and for once Viz's English adaptation begins to show some cracks—if only because of the emotional load placed on unsuspecting secondary characters. The superb Michelle Ruff has hardly any lines as Rukia, and Ichigo has surprisingly little screen time given that he is ostensibly the main character (though Johnny Yong Bosch does get to stretch a little while voicing Ichigo's dark side). Instead the heavy emoting falls to supporting players like Karen Strassman, whose Momo is plenty tragic though hardly a match for Kumi Sakuma's painfully earnest rendition, and Steve Staley, who can't quite put the fine point on Hitsugaya's cold rage that Romi Paku, veteran that she is, can. And then there's Kyle Hebert, who handles Aizen's shift from gentle to heartless well enough, but simply can't compete with Shō Hayami for sheer tonnage of slime. The flaws in their work are hardly lethal, and are balanced by equal strengths elsewhere (Stephanie Sheh's grasp of Orihime's speech patterns and emotional undertones is positively eerie), but the English version is, for the first time in many, many volumes, noticeably less intense than the Japanese. It is, however, as loving as ever in its preservation of the original dialogue and shinigami lingo. In spite, or perhaps because, of the relationship threads left tantalizingly unresolved and the irresistibly open-ended conclusion, this is a strangely satisfying volume, full of meaty drama, nasty surprises, bloody triumph and humiliating defeat. Never before has the series so successfully combined both fulfillment and breathless anticipation. Even the light-hearted wind-down episode is riddled with both healing (physical and psychological) and portents of personal and plot developments to come. Savor the air up here; it'll be eons before the series scales these heights again. |
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Grade: |
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Overall (dub) : B+ Overall (sub) : A- Story : A- Animation : B+ Art : B+ Music : A- + Plot twists, emotional developments and fights galore as the Soul Society arc draws to a close. − Lengthy expository speeches; lots of sad back-stories given sad flashbacks with sad music. |
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Production Info: |
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Series Composition: Tsuyoshi Kida Kento Shimoyama Masashi Sogo Script: Kazuyuki Fudeyasu Miho Imamura Mio Imamura Rika Nakase Masahiro Okubo Masao Ōkubo Kento Shimoyama Masashi Sogo Natsuko Takahashi Michiko Yokote Genki Yoshimura Storyboard: Noriyuki Abe Masami Anno Koji Aritomi Tetsuya Endō Manabu Fukazawa Kiyomu Fukuda Shigeki Hatakeyama Yasuyuki Honda Masashi Ishihama Satoshi Ishino Shigenori Kageyama Jun Kamiya Rei Kaneko Akio Kawamura Masahiko Komino Chiaki Kon Junya Koshiba Masashi Kudo Hodaka Kuramoto Toshihiko Masuda Tadahito Matsubayashi Hitoyuki Matsui Yasuhiro Matsumura Yukihiro Matsushita Yuzuru Mitsui Shigeyuki Miya Kazunori Mizuno Yūji Moriyama Minoru Murao Takehiro Nakayama Yasuto Nishikata Hiroaki Nishimura Satoshi Nishimura Mitsutaka Noshitani Tetsuhito Saito Masami Shimoda Ogura Shirakawa Yoshifumi Sueda Natsuko Suzuki Hideki Tachibana Yuzuru Tachikawa Jun Takada Hiroki Takagi Motosuke Takahashi Takahiro Takamizawa Shinichi Tōkairin Sanzou Tsuyukida Shigeru Ueda Atsushi Wakabayashi Shinichi Watanabe Hideyo Yamamoto Minoru Yamaoka Episode Director: Noriyuki Abe Eitarō Ano Koji Aritomi Matsuo Asami Kiyomu Fukuda Shigeki Hatakeyama Tomoko Hiramuki Tetsuo Ichimura Akane Inoue Yasuo Iwamoto Akira Iwanaga Taiji Kawanishi Takushi Kimura Chiaki Kon Harume Kosaka Junya Koshiba Masashi Kudo Hodaka Kuramoto Yasuhiro Kuroda Keizō Kusakawa Tadahito Matsubayashi Nobufumi Matsuda Yasuhiro Matsumura Yuzuru Mitsui Ryo Miyata Kazunori Mizuno Geisei Morita Eiko Nishi Yasuto Nishikata Hiroaki Nishimura Kazuo Nogami Mitsutaka Noshitani Yoshinori Odaka Rokou Ogiwara Yukio Okazaki Masaya Sasaki Kazuma Satō Yuji Sekimoto Akira Shimizu Kazunobu Shimizu Ogura Shirakawa Yoshifumi Sueda Yuzuru Tachikawa Hiroki Takagi Takeshi Tomita Shigeru Ueda Takeshi Yamaguchi Minoru Yamaoka Mitsue Yamazaki Unit Director: Noriyuki Abe Masashi Kudo Shingo Ogiso Yuzuru Tachikawa Original creator: Tite Kubo Character Design: Masashi Kudo Art Director: Natsuko Suzuki Sawako Takagi Art: Tsuyoshi Fukumoto Masaya Hamaguchi Yuki Kasahara Hideaki Kudo Katsusuke Okamura Mayu Shirai Sawako Takagi Shinobu Takahashi Mayu Usui Norihiko Yokomatsu Animation Director: MANASITA Chiaki Abe Yoshie Anzai Shigemi Aoyagi Eiki Arasato Eri Baba Bum-Chul Chang Manabu Fukazawa Akihiro Fukui Yeong-Hun Han Daiki Handa Kenji Hattori Yūri Ichinose Shin Jae Ick Hidenori Igari Hiroaki Imaki Keiichi Ishida Masashi Ishihama Tomomi Ishikawa Nobuyuki Iwai Gil Soo Joo Akio Kawamura Toshihiro Kikuchi Gi Nam Kim Hyon Ok Kim Hyun Ok Kim Il Bae Kim Sang-Yeob Kim Seong Beom Kim Yong Sik Kim Yoon-Joung Kim Seiji Kishimoto Akemi Kobayashi Ryo Kobayashi Yukari Kobayashi Ryou Kodama Makoto Koga Masahiko Komino Atsushi Komori Mitsuki Kosaka Fumiaki Kouta Tsuguyuki Kubo Masashi Kudo Manabu Kurihara Shinichi Kurita Boo Hee Lee Sung Jin Lee Shuji Maruyama Ippei Masui Tamami Miura Shuuji Miyazaki Kazuya Miyoshi Joo Yeon Moon Minoru Morita Yūji Moriyama Tsutomu Murakami Keiya Nakano Shingo Ogiso Masaya Ōnishi Shigetsune Ōsawa Chang Hwan Park Hye-Ran Park In-Hee Park Jong Jun Park Tomoko Satō Yang Kwang Seock Sanae Shimada Makoto Shimojima Jae-Ik Shin Kim-Young Sik Sayuri Sugitou Natsuko Suzuki Shin'ichi Suzuki Shinichi Suzuki Yoko Suzuki Hiroki Takagi Motosuke Takahashi Akira Takeuchi Yukari Takeuchi Masaya Tanaka Seiki Tanaka Takashi Uchida Miyuki Ueda Tomomi Umemura Masaru Yamada Asuka Yamaguchi Keiko Yamamoto Osamu Yamamoto Yoshimitsu Yamashita Naoki Yamauchi Teruhiko Yamazaki Takeshi Yoshioka Director of Photography: Toshiyuki Fukushima Katsufumi Sato Producer: Shunji Aoki Ken Hagino Kyoko Kobayashi Mai Nagai Yutaka Sugiyama Jun Takibuchi Yukio Yoshimura Full encyclopedia details aboutBleach (TV) Release information aboutBleach - The Rescue (DVD 15) |