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EP. REVIEW: Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War


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SHD



Joined: 05 Apr 2015
Posts: 1752
PostPosted: Thu Dec 22, 2022 12:39 pm Reply with quote
freebird1994 wrote:
I mean, on the one hand I agree that it was a little tone deaf to have Uryu get this really cathartic feeling fight with Mayuri with the whole thing feeling like "revenge" and "justice" then the next time they meet it's turned into a comedy skit. You could argue that he did get his "revenge" by beating him, though I feel via your comment you wanted more "eye for an eye" level justice.

It's not what I, personally wanted. It's how the whole thing was set up. Are you really going to argue that after how the whole situation was handled, it's fine how Mayuri, someone set up as a genuinely deranged, sadistic psychopath who lacks any morals whatsoever, is rebranded as a "lol creepy weird" character that everyone is fine with, even those who are supposed to be heroes of justice and who stand up and fight against characters who have done much fewer and/or less terrible things? Or that his brutal torture and murder of a (supposedly) main character's most beloved family member is treated as "yes, that happened but water under the bridge y'know" and the two are rebranded as "hilarious comedy duo", their past never to be mentioned again? Or how Mayuri's brutality and psychopathy are toned waaaayyyy down after that arc? Are you seriously saying that it's naivete or childishness to find this bad writing?

This is Bleach. It's not that deep (it's not deep at all, really). Kubo liked Mayuri and wanted to keep him around, so he did, and he just ignored the part where he tortured and murdered people, as well as Ishida's connection to him, so he wouldn't have to deal with it, because that would have been too much of a bother. That's all.
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freebird1994



Joined: 12 Dec 2022
Posts: 72
PostPosted: Thu Dec 22, 2022 2:40 pm Reply with quote
SHD wrote:

It's not what I, personally wanted. It's how the whole thing was set up. Are you really going to argue that after how the whole situation was handled, it's fine how Mayuri, someone set up as a genuinely deranged, sadistic psychopath who lacks any morals whatsoever, is rebranded as a "lol creepy weird" character that everyone is fine with, even those who are supposed to be heroes of justice and who stand up and fight against characters who have done much fewer and/or less terrible things? Or that his brutal torture and murder of a (supposedly) main character's most beloved family member is treated as "yes, that happened but water under the bridge y'know" and the two are rebranded as "hilarious comedy duo", their past never to be mentioned again? Or how Mayuri's brutality and psychopathy are toned waaaayyyy down after that arc? Are you seriously saying that it's naivete or childishness to find this bad writing?

This is Bleach. It's not that deep (it's not deep at all, really). Kubo liked Mayuri and wanted to keep him around, so he did, and he just ignored the part where he tortured and murdered people, as well as Ishida's connection to him, so he wouldn't have to deal with it, because that would have been too much of a bother. That's all.


For starters, who are these "heros of justice" you are referring too? During the soul society arc, the only characters I remember spouting stuff about "justice" was Kaname spoiler[Who may I remind you was one of the bad guys that teamed up with Aizen. So not exactly the best example of a "justice warrior" ]. Our main cast, Ichigo and gang, are just trying to save Rukia during that arc. And while that makes them the "good guys" in our eyes cause we know the context and seen what has happened, they aren't going up against explicit "bad guys" in the soul society. spoiler[Again, except for Aizen, Gin, and Kaname who set this whole thing in motion.]. The Soul Reapers are tasked with protecting the Seireitei, Soul Society, and Human world. Which is kinda why the people preforming that task are characters that can range from Honor-bound elite types like Byakuya, Lazy slacker like Shunsui, Battle nuts like Kenpachi, and Mad Scientists like Mayuri. While this can create tension and inner conflicts, they all have one purpose, Protect the 3 things I said. As we have learned in this season, the Gotei 13 was literally founded by a band of brutal murderers so they aren't exactly picky with who they take as members.

As for his relationship regarding Uryu, I don't actually agree that Mayuris character became more goofy or cartoonish, just that now instead of being a dangerous enemy he is a tentative ally. Apart from their first fight, the only other interaction they even have is during the fight with Szayelaporro, so we actually don't have much interactions to go off of with regards to their relationship. But the thing is nothing feels out of character, at least for Mayuri. Remember the situation now is that instead of being sent out to hunt ichigo and the gang, he's being ordered to go and help them. So he's going to do that. And because he doesn't view any living thing as more than test subjects, he doesn't bear ill will for his earlier defeat, cause he doesn't care. So as far as Mayuri is concerned, its not really "water under the bridge" cause he didn't consider it an issue worth caring about in the first place, he just brought it up during the fight with Uryu because he's a sadistic SOB and that aspect of him hasn't really changed. (Remember how Szayelaporro was defeated?)

So IMO, yes I do find it somewhat childish that you still are "bitter" about how Uryu's past was handled with regards to Mayuri. Mostly just because nothing fundamental about Mayuri changed between those 2 points. He is still the sadistic mad scientist we knew back then, it's just now he's not pointing those mad scientist tendencies explicitly at our main cast. Again, we still see that sadistic, mad scientist personality in the fight with Szayelaporro and later in this arc when spoiler[he literally turns dead soul reaper characters into zombies to fight for the soul society before eventually bringing them back to normal. I mean if I told you that "a character brought back the bodies of his comrades as zombies to fight" you wouldn't attribute that to something a good guy does right? Especially since one of the quincys does the same thing and they are the "bad guy"] I don't find this bad writing because nothing felt out of character to me. Despite how much Uryu probably hated Mayuri, what do you think he could do in that situation in Hueco Mundo? Refuse help? Scream at him about how he will have revenge like a glasses wearing Eren Yeager?
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MFrontier



Joined: 13 Apr 2014
Posts: 11224
PostPosted: Fri Dec 23, 2022 4:37 pm Reply with quote
Color me a little shocked they actually brought Quinton Flynn back to reprise Kon in the English dub when they recast Vic.
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KaidoYuji8Shinji



Joined: 15 Mar 2016
Posts: 118
Location: Manchester, NH
PostPosted: Sat Dec 24, 2022 11:16 am Reply with quote
MFrontier wrote:
Color me a little shocked they actually brought Quinton Flynn back to reprise Kon in the English dub when they recast Vic.


Meanwhile there have been a ton of recasts and the dub just seems…. “Blah” to me. There’s something missing vs the dub of bleach prior.
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freebird1994



Joined: 12 Dec 2022
Posts: 72
PostPosted: Mon Dec 26, 2022 12:07 pm Reply with quote
At the end of the day, I think if there is one thing Bleach does better than pretty much any other shonen, yes even One Piece IMO, it's generating that feeling of pure, unfiltered hype. You can criticize pretty much anything you want in this series and probably have the merit and reasons to do so, but there is just nothing more hype inducing than hearing Number One start playing over Ichigo and you know what, that's enough for me. See you all when the war continues and the hype follows it.
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7777ale7777



Joined: 13 Nov 2017
Posts: 105
PostPosted: Mon Dec 26, 2022 9:42 pm Reply with quote
Fun fact, way back in ep 19 when "Zangetsu" first appeared in the anime and Ichigo couldn't quite hear what his name was one can still make out just about the last syllable and it sounds a whole lot like "HA", as in Yuhabaha.
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MFrontier



Joined: 13 Apr 2014
Posts: 11224
PostPosted: Mon Dec 26, 2022 9:56 pm Reply with quote
Whether it was intentional or not, it's really cool how much of Bleach pays off retroactively in ways you never expected.

Masaki and Isshin were adorable together.

Significant characters getting their training arcs in!

Katagiri deserved better. Well, Masaki too. I guess that gives both Ichigo and Uryu more personal stakes in this and connects them more, even if Uryu seems to have taken the surprising alternative in this war between the Quincies and the Soul Society.

The scene of Ichigo forging his true Zanpakuto to end on (well, not counting the Uryu scene) was absolute hype.
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BlueBeast33



Joined: 09 Jul 2015
Posts: 151
PostPosted: Mon Dec 26, 2022 9:57 pm Reply with quote
I could be misremembering, but I'm fairly sure the gigai Urahara had for Isshin was the same one we saw Yoruichi get for him at the end of the Turn Back the Pendulum flashback. Plus he was already researching hollowfication back then, so I don't really think there's anything that's off here.
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Nonaka Machine Gun B



Joined: 03 Feb 2009
Posts: 819
PostPosted: Mon Dec 26, 2022 10:08 pm Reply with quote
There's so many dangling scraps about the Quincies I don't quite think we'll get answers to, but they're interesting nonetheless. I was feeling confident last week that Ryuken's rejection of the Quincies stemmed a lot from Masaki's words, and that his tortured relationship with Uryu could be traced here. But now with a decent portion of the bigger picture, it seems more like a deep resentment of Katagiri comes into play. It's all so messy.

And what of Soken Ishida? Seemingly never around until Uryu is born. Was Ryuken aware he was being killed by Hollows? And exactly how tough were these guys if a pure Quincy was having trouble? Masaki was "supposed" to be able take care of Grand Fisher until Yhwach Charlie-Brown-footballed her abilities.

I don't think it takes away from the thematic weight of everything, but there is a time goof in regards to "the Quincy King regains his strength in 9 years." It's not actually 9 years since Masaki died. Once you do a little retrofitting of Bleach's timeline, it comes out to 8 years. That's what happens when a story is stretched many years beyond what was planned.
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flamemasterelan



Joined: 17 Apr 2022
Posts: 448
PostPosted: Mon Dec 26, 2022 10:47 pm Reply with quote
Nonaka Machine Gun B wrote:
And what of Soken Ishida? Seemingly never around until Uryu is born. Was Ryuken aware he was being killed by Hollows? And exactly how tough were these guys if a pure Quincy was having trouble? Masaki was "supposed" to be able take care of Grand Fisher until Yhwach Charlie-Brown-footballed her abilities.


I could be remembering wrong, but I thought Grandpa Ishida was teaching a more pacifistic co-operation-based philosophy to Uryu, and thus wasn't killing Hollows since it meant erasing the human souls rather than purifying them. If that was the case, it's not hard to imagine him getting overwhelmed by the numbers eventually. Again, I could be wrong, but I explicitly remember Uryu describing Quicies as first-responders to protect the civilians and stave off the damage of the Hollow while Shinigami would be the ones to actually kill it.
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jr240483



Joined: 24 Dec 2005
Posts: 4378
Location: New York City,New York,USA
PostPosted: Mon Dec 26, 2022 10:57 pm Reply with quote
MFrontier wrote:
Color me a little shocked they actually brought Quinton Flynn back to reprise Kon in the English dub when they recast Vic.


thats because flynn have zero baggage unlike vic whose basically the anime industry's version of kanye west at this point

KaidoYuji8Shinji wrote:
Meanwhile there have been a ton of recasts and the dub just seems…. “Blah” to me. There’s something missing vs the dub of bleach prior.


im more shocked that bosch is actually continued voicing ichigo when no one would have blamed him for taking a hiatus considering that his IRL best friend JUST died last month!
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flamemasterelan



Joined: 17 Apr 2022
Posts: 448
PostPosted: Mon Dec 26, 2022 11:17 pm Reply with quote
jr240483 wrote:
im more shocked that bosch is actually continued voicing ichigo when no one would have blamed him for taking a hiatus considering that his IRL best friend JUST died last month!

No, there's a good number of people who would have blamed him. It wouldn't have been fair to, but the majority of people watching the dub wouldn't have known why JYB didn't reprise his role, and there are a decent number of entitled people besides.
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malvarez1



Joined: 17 Nov 2008
Posts: 1677
PostPosted: Tue Dec 27, 2022 1:48 am Reply with quote
Masaki and Isshin are now the best ship in Bleach, btw.

The animation in the second episode was so good. It really felt like they put their all in it.

The wait until July is gonna be a killer. Sad
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Unculturedman



Joined: 01 Apr 2022
Posts: 57
PostPosted: Tue Dec 27, 2022 10:44 am Reply with quote
I really don’t understand the insane praise I’ve seen for this. Maybe it’s just because I’m not a big fan of the series and haven’t been waiting for the return for 10 years, but this hasn’t been very good. Not bad, but I’ve been rereading the manga alongside it and there really aren’t many substantial narrative additions. The new Uryu scenes were incredibly weak, the new scene with Halibel was weak, and the original gotei 13 reveal (which everyone was going crazy over) was meh at best. 7 years ago I actually cared and wanted to see that in the manga but the series lost me and now I don’t care. Also, much of the comedy and fanservice was cut for some reason, many small details were cut, the pacing was breakneck so they could cover 6 volumes in 13 episodes, the Kenpachi segment was ruined by the awkward juxtaposition of the scenes with the silly zero squad adventures, and the art and animation, while good, is extremely overrated. I think fans just want to love the anime so much just because it’s the return of their favorite show and aren’t really looking at it with a critical eye, because there are all sorts of problems with this along with how the anime failed to address the flaws of the source material. I don’t have much faith that the next seasons will somehow remedy the narrative disaster the manga becomes from this point until it ends. Probably just more impotent minor scenes that only do anything for extreme super fans who somehow already thought this was a masterpiece.
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AksaraKishou



Joined: 16 May 2015
Posts: 1410
Location: End of the World
PostPosted: Tue Dec 27, 2022 11:39 am Reply with quote
Think of it like this. When the vast majority thinks something, usually they have a point. Not always, but most of the times.

SAO is good. Fate is not hard to get into. Bleach was good.
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