Bleach 453 review...

benelori · Jun 23, 2011

Hello, hello dear MH members and Bleach fans. It has been long since I’ve written a review, and even longer since I’ve written a Bleach review. Very long. Thought I posted that in the chapter discussion thread :amuse

. Man I was such a noob :tem

.

So I will fill in for The Underscore this week, because he is enjoying well deserved vacation, so I hope to rise to the challenge. With this occasion I will try to setup the intro for next week’s review, so as you can see the poll contains both a normal question and the rating process, so be sure to vote for both as it is a multiple choice poll.
Before we jump in the chapter, I will continue the tradition and comment a bit on last week’s poll as well.
5 people told us that they wash their teeth, however in different moments of the day, and 1 person just found out that there is a tool called tooth brush, so we have 6 people in total who care or going to care about their hygiene

The rest are fans who only care about their favourite manga, even if two people couldn’t tell what are the important things in the last chapter. :imslow

In the first two places we have people who managed to notice that Tsukishima is somewhat important, but 4 people believed he was indeed family, while the rest, 5 people in total were spot on. So cheers to all who voted! Come back this time as well!

Please gather around the fire and let’s start the chapter.

In every review I try to approach the title first, but this time no thank you. Mute your breathe friendship? :blink

…well it’s pretty weird to say at least, but no worries, since this is Kubo’s engrish we are talking about. I will search for a better translation in different scans, or in the end I will consult the raw when I get my hands on it. So instead of commenting on the title I would like to address some of the similarities that I noticed in this arc with the Shinigami arc.
First of all the genre is pretty much the same. We have ghosts on one hand and mysteries on another. We see Ichigo in the same predicament. He wants power, because he is desperate, so he gets power(from Rukia, from Ginjou). Then Ichigo arrives in a situation where he thinks he is powerless and that all is lost(meeting with Byakuya, Tsukishima this chapter).
So until now it’s pretty much the same. And the continuation or expansion of the plot will probably lies with Urahara this time as well, because this entire battle with Fullbringers, this conflict with Tsukishima is a conflict in which he got dragged into, pretty much in the same way he was dragged into the battle against Aizen later on.
But let’s not waste any time and identify some of these elements in this chapter as well.

The events resume from the moment where Ichigo enters the room and the long lost cousin is there chillin’ on the sofa. We’ve all been wondering if he is really Ichigo’s cousin or not, but Ichigo didn’t recognize him the first time they met, so the most obvious suspicion was that he is just using his ability. However we never thought that he would possess something to this extent.

Things turn out to be quite troublesome, as Ichigo takes Tsukishima by his collar and demands answers. The family is quite shocked by Ichigo’s behaviour, but Tsukishima is quite calm, he even manages to find a suitable explanation for Ichigo’s actions.

We can notice the first clues that Ichigo is shocked and he is slowly entering that powerless, desperate situation I mentioned earlier.

But this is not all, because the guests arrived and we hear familiar names. We are notified that Keigo and probably more of Ichigo’s friends are those guests, and even they have come to meet Tsukishima.

The shock is quite great as we can see from the panel, and it’s not just shock, because by now we can clearly see a hint of desperation on Ichigo’s face. The thing is that Karin, and his friends know about his troubled past, or at least they are able to grasp the fact that Ichigo was always surrounded by the supernatural. So Ichigo could go against Shuu-chan right there. but Yuzu is also nearby, not even mentioning that he doesn’t know how to handle the situation, I mean he has no clue how could something like this happen, and what can he do to revert it, so I think the desperation has pretty obvious reasons. His helplessness is unbearable.
This reminds me of Aizen of course. With this mind-control, brainwashing ability Tsukishima resembles Aizen even more, not even mentioning the reaction that he can get out from out beloved hero, which are actions of a man who is powerless and afraid of the things he cannot understand.

However as The Underscore stated last week, his methods are even more daring, he sort of hides in the open.

However Kubo does not stop here. During the discussions last week, some people, me included, said that there is a possibility that beings without or with little power/reiatsu are weaker in front of Tsukishima and his ability, so of course that Yuzu and Karin are completely brainwashed. I think the panel I chose doesn’t completely contradict this, because we’ve seen that both Inoue and Chad showed some resistance in the beginning. But what we are shown this week is that even they fell completely under this ability, so what I can conclude is that Tsukishima’s ability gets stronger as time passes.
This is not a very unbelievable concept. We know that in real life there is the notion of suggestion or hypnosis.. The notion of introducing a tiny idea which I time becomes strong enough to influence a person. This is in relation with the subconscious of the brain, which is controlled or slightly influenced by Tsukishima. A topic which by the way the central idea in the movie Inception

.

However I recognize another thing that I’ve been seeing in movies or read in books. Do you know the classic scene where a little child sees a ghost and talks to it, then tells this to the grown-ups and the entire idea is discarded as joke, or the imagination of the child? This happens in mystery-thrillers, which is the main genre of current Bleach.
Ichigo is in a similar situation. He knows the reality, he knows that Tsukishima is not a real family member, and he also knows that Tsukishima approached him via his beloved people. So he is in a position where he lives in a completely different world than the one known by his nakama, so the predicament I mentioned is the same.(living in a world with hollows and shinigami/living in a world that is not influenced by Tsukishima’s lies)

This situation is perfectly portrayed by this panel, and can be summed up in one phrase. WTF??!!

Ichigo decides to run for the reasons I’ve mentioned earlier. Helplessness, fear of the unknown, the fear of involving people who have no connection with this. This last idea is emphasized even more as Ikumi, his employer is in the neighbourhood(coincidence?) and picks him up. The situation is pretty dire and Ikumi notices this, so she decides to shelter Ichigo under her wing(literally :hurr

), and take care of him.

This can be seen as a little character development for Ichigo. He reacts quite well to the pressure of the comfortable pillow he is given, so from the shy teenager who nearly drowned at the sight of Yoruichi in her splendor, he reached a point where he is pretty comfortable. Of course the distance between what Ikumi did and what Yoruichi did, is like from earth to heaven, but still the situation is handled pretty well by Ichigo, so I will enlist this in the character development department :lmao

What’s more important though is that we see that the reason of not involving people is expressed by Ichigo. And this is quite reasonable in my opinion and there are no explanations required on why he decided this. However Tsukishima manages to corner him and he denies him even this decision, as he manages to involve Ikumi in this whole affair.

We might think that Tsukishima was done with Ichigo’s family and friends, but no he manages to involve Ikumi, so that we can realize that Ikumi driving by in Ichigo’s neighbourhood wasn’t exactly a coincidence. This is a very rough spot for Ichigo from pshychological POV as all his routes of escape are severed. First he is attacked via his beloved ones, which provides the initial shock, but with this Shuu-chan managed to corner him completely by involving his employer.

Of course this just adds to the desperation and Ichigo is on the run again.

Things are rolling in this chapter, the pace is pretty incredible, considering Kubo’s reputation, so we Ichigo already meets up with the last hope(?): Ginjou. The latter informs him that all the other Fullbringers were caught by Tsukishima.
For me, this is pretty unbelievable, I mean they could’ve at least escape Tsukishima together. The thing is that after seeing that Ikumi was under Tsukishima’s influence and she casually made it a coincidence to just drive by Ichigo, now it’s Ginjou’s turn to find him in a random place. :notrust

Now this smells fishy to me, and it could be that Ginjou and co. are still under Tsukishima’s leadership, and they want Ichigo to achieve recovering his shinigami powers.

Overview

In this part I will go over the main aspects of the chapter, and in the end rate it based on some requirements.
The first is plot development and this chapter mark quite a high score in this category. Compared to the sluggish development of the past chapters, in this one, the are rapid scene changes, the trouble for Ichigo just got multiplied, and he finds himself in an almost hopeless situation. Somehow even a goal is formulated in the mixt of all these events. And I will return to the similarities with the Shinigami arc again. This time he will have to defeat Tsukishima in order to save his friends and family, who are prisoners, let’s be honest even if they don’t know anything about it.

The second is character development. This is shared by Ichigo and Tsukishima in an equal amount. Ichigo’s characterization consists in his facial expressions, his reactions towards Shuu-chan’s actions. His thoughts reflect the fact that he has no clue what is going on, and he wanders around without a precise aim all around Karakura town. And the last element is pretty much what I already mentioned, which is the absence of panic when confronted with the body of a woman.

Tsukishima however is exactly the opposite. His gestures, the way he lets himself be beaten up by Ichigo, his facial expressions transmit that he is calm, he is in control. I mentioned that he is a pretty impressive clone of Aizen which in my opinion adds to his character development process, even more as he proves to be quite daring, but playful at the same time, as he clearly enjoys driving Ichigo in the corner like we would do with a mouse trapped in a maze.

I don't know how many times I said this in the review, but the main idea or theme of this chapter is helplessness. So the structure of the chapter reflects just that. There are abrupt changes in the scenery, the pace is really alert, and transmits to feeling of chaos to the reader, who shouldn't be able to deal with this fast pace after the first read. It did happen to me to be honest, each time he just picked him self up and went jogging, I had to pause and think about what happened for a brief period.

The action, as in fighting, is pretty much absent in this chapter, even though Kubo manages to insert a few cool scenes with Ichigo beating up Tsukishima. However the alert feeling is there, as Ichigo is trying to escape his enemy’s grasp, so the conflict is portrayed quite well.

The art is exceptional as always. And the most obvious examples are the mug shots with Ichigo. All his facial expressions transmit an obvious state of mind, and in some occasions the background helps as well. The short fighting is clear, there is a good choice of angles for these scenes, and the paneling has a good flow, even though there are abrupt changes of scenery. But these aren’t mistakes, these are planned changes and just shows that the evolution of the chapter is in 5th gear.

So based on this 5 categories the chapter gets a pretty good mark 8.5/10 by my count.

Predictions/Want to happen

I think the most obvious prediction is that Ginjou will explain the entire situation to Ichigo, and will explain how in hell did Tsukishima manage to get to all the Fullbringers in his crew.
Whatever that explanation will be, I still don’t believe in Kuugo, yet, because of this random appearance he made. I think this entire chain of events is orchestrated by Tsukishima in order to draw out Ichigo’s power as soon as possible. With that said, the logical course of action in my opinion is for Ichigo to continue his training. And I have no doubt that Kuugo will propose the exact same thing. Get your powers back sooner, to save your friends sooner.

In addition to all this, I hope that Isshin will appear somewhere in the chapter. I think it is pretty convenient that Isshin is away and not under Tsukishima’s influence, so I think that both him and Urahara know about Tsukishima, so they will be the ones to aid Ichigo in the end.

Now this is another similarity with the early days of Bleach. Back then everything seemed pretty logial and normal. Ichigo had a bond, so he wanted to protect that bond, so he ventured into SS, to save Rukia. But by doing this he managed to be dragged into SS’s conflicts, so a whole new world opened up for him and of course with that new battles.
I have a feeling that Tsukishima is just a minor character in all this, or if we want to entertain a conspiracy theory, then we can say that Kuugo is the first minor villain. Anyway Ichigo is presented with the opportunity of getting his powers back, and with that he will be dragged into another conflict, which he has no connection with. Of course the link with that conflict will be reinforced by Urahara and is actions.

So that’s it, I hope this review didn’t turn out to be as rusty as how I feel it. If it did, then excuse me, it’s been a long time. Either way, enjoy the chapter and be thankful to these guys!

However if these random ideas that were written down are okay, then please comment away, I’m curious about your opinions.
The most important questions are:
Is the recipe of this arc same as the recipe of the Shinigami arc? Do you agree with the similarities and the potential outcome that these similarities will generate(mainly the fact that the story will develop into a bigger one, with the help of Urahara)?
Do you think Kuugo is on Tsukishima’s side after reading this chapter?
How will this develop into a bigger arc, into a bigger story?

Thanks a lot for the patience, enjoy the forum and see you around!
Mata ne!

---------- Post added at 08:16 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:23 PM ----------

PS: so I checked another scan, where the title was left in Japanese...
These words are actually separated, so it's like: Mute-Your-Breathe-Friendship...I would understand this title if it werent' for the word your in there...so I'm actually curious about how you guys interpret the title

MonsterEnvy · Jun 23, 2011