BLEACH: THE RESCUE (ANIME VOLUME 12)
April 26th 2009 22:56
Category: Videos
Based on the original Bleach manga by: Tite Kubo.
Director: Noriyuki Abe.
Screenplay by: Masahi Sogo et al.
Producers: Noriko Kobayashi (TV Tokyo), Yutaka Sugiyama & Ken Hagino.
Starring: Johnny Yong Bosch (Ichigo Kurosaki), Michelle Ruff (Rukia Kuchiki), Wally Wingert (Renji Abarai), Karen Strassman (Momo Hinamori), Kyle Herbert (Captain Aizen), Doug Erholz (Gin Ichimaru), Megan Hollingshead (Rangiku Matsumoto), Michael Lindsay (Urahara), Michael Sorich (Tessai) Liam O’Brien (Captain Ukitake), Dan Woren (Byakuya Kuchiki), Steve Staley (Toshiro Hitsugaya) Richard Epcar (Zangetsu), Terrence Stone (Yoruichi cat form) & Wendee Lee (Yoruichi human form)
Produced by: TV Tokyo, dentsu & studio Pierrot.
English version produced by: VIZ Media LLC.
Released by: Madman Entertainment.
Running Time: 100 minutes. Rating: M.
Wandering around the food court of the local mall, you the other one that is apparently more trendier now than the original mall, I happened to pop into the local music/video shop to just have a bit of a gander and see if there was anything worth while on the shelves. It must have been the will of the force, as we all know there is no such thing as coincidence, for I found this particular volume sitting there waiting for a serious anime fan such as myself to come along and liberate it from the confines of such a mainstream place. Naturally such liberation came at a cost, but even though my wallet was somewhat lighter as a result I felt a sense of satisfaction at performing a good deed in a dark world…ok maybe I’m overstating my case here…
Once I managed to get home, have a bite to eat along with a relaxing, refreshing can of amber fluid, the first order of business was to sit down and watch this disc. Into the machine it went and I sat back in my chair to enjoy hopefully what would be action packed anime goodness. I have to say straight away that Bleach very rarely disappoints on that count, there is drama, pathos, action, intrigue aplenty in this volume all accompanied with some truly fantastic music that just matches the mood down to a tee. Nothing can quite kill a show, regardless of whether it is an anime, a live action feature, a soap opera, a police drama etc than inappropriate music. In fact I would go so far as to say that even inappropriate music in a trailer can turn you off a film and you’ve only seen a few shorts of it whilst waiting for the main feature to show. And an overly intense voice over accompanying a trailer frankly is the kiss of death for any film regardless of who directed, produced or is starring in it. But I digress; let me get back to the twelfth volume in the Bleach anime series…
For those of you who have not come across my reviews of previous volumes of the Bleach anime series, and no doubt there are a heck of a lot of you out there in the great wide world a bit of run down might be in order. In the Bleach universe there exists what is known as the Soul Society, the afterlife that a soul upon the point of death usually ends up going to, assuming that they are someone who hasn’t caused all manner of atrocities in which case the soul could end up being a hollow or going to Hell. What’s a hollow I hear you ask – good question young padawan, a hollow is a soul that has been transformed into a monster either through its actions in mortal life or by being fed upon by a stronger hollow. Usually these spirits manifest as monsters that have a hole where their heart once used to be and they exist solely to feed on other souls or mortals. Now there exists a particular type of individual known as a soul reaper who deals with hollows as well as helps souls who have not found their way to the Soul Society.
Ichigo Kurosaki, the protagonist of this series, inadvertently finds himself becoming a soul reaper after Rukia, a genuine soul reaper transfers her powers to him in order to enable him to fight a hollow that is about to destroy his family. What Rukia and Ichigo cannot foresee is just what kind of impact this will have on them both. Naturally when he finds out that he’ll have to do the job of a soul reaper whilst Rukia regains her powers Ichigo isn’t to impressed yet nonetheless he realises that he owes Rukia and accepts this mantle. This sense of obligation goes so deep that when Rukia is taken back to the Soul Society as a prisoner for disobeying a recall order as well as for illegally transferring her powers to Ichigo he is determined to rescue her no matter what.
Thus begins an epic adventure in which Ichigo, his friends Chad, Uryu and Orihime, aided by the enigmatic talking cat Yoruichi break into the Soul Society to attempt to save Rukia from whatever fate the Soul Reapers have in store for her. And it seems that the Soul Reapers have a decidedly gruesome fate in store for her, execution via sokyoku which strangely is rather extreme for someone who is not captain let alone a lieutenant. Kind of like cutting someone’s hand off because they took one of your fries from your value meal at the golden arches, that is in my opinion over the top something shocking.
It seems though that there is some kind of method to all this madness, by executing a soul reaper, even one so lowly ranked as Rukia the sokyoku will increase in power exponentially and theoretically an individual can seize this bladed weapon and use it to destroy the entire Seireitei and Soul Society. Gasp the Horror, the Horror. Captain Sosuke Aizen, leader of Squad Five implies this very thing to Lieutenant Momo Hinamori in a letter to her, implicating her former friend Toshiro Hitsugaya, the leader of squad 10. But is there any truth to this claim, certainly it seems to drive a dagger into the heart of poor Momo who has been Captain Hitsugaya’s friend in the days when they were kids and she had just started attending the Soul Reaper academy. Toshiro himself is disturbed by the contents of such a letter, not because Aizen has implicated him, he is innocent, but he cannot believe that such a letter would have been written by someone like Aizen who had such a high regard for Momo.
Meanwhile Ichigo is training hard with Yoruichi attempting to achieve the Bankai release, suddenly in the midst of his training Renji Abarai comes upon the training facility that he and Yoruichi are using to achieve this objective. Bankai is apparently a process whereby a soul reaper can actually cause his zanpakuto to fully manifest in the material world and aid him/her. With the sudden appearance of Renji all of Yoruichi’s time scales are completely thrown into disarray, the execution is scheduled in a day’s time and so far Ichigo has not managed to achieve the Bankai release, things look grim indeed. But as Ichigo points out he has no intention of giving up, what this change means is that he needs to finish and achieve what they have set out to do by days end so he is ready to rescue Rukia, no questions asked. Bleach Volume 12 was simply fantastic, I loved each episode and each moment in its unfolding drama, frankly this anime is well worth getting your hands on and watching.
Director: Noriyuki Abe.
Screenplay by: Masahi Sogo et al.
Producers: Noriko Kobayashi (TV Tokyo), Yutaka Sugiyama & Ken Hagino.
Starring: Johnny Yong Bosch (Ichigo Kurosaki), Michelle Ruff (Rukia Kuchiki), Wally Wingert (Renji Abarai), Karen Strassman (Momo Hinamori), Kyle Herbert (Captain Aizen), Doug Erholz (Gin Ichimaru), Megan Hollingshead (Rangiku Matsumoto), Michael Lindsay (Urahara), Michael Sorich (Tessai) Liam O’Brien (Captain Ukitake), Dan Woren (Byakuya Kuchiki), Steve Staley (Toshiro Hitsugaya) Richard Epcar (Zangetsu), Terrence Stone (Yoruichi cat form) & Wendee Lee (Yoruichi human form)
English version produced by: VIZ Media LLC.
Released by: Madman Entertainment.
Running Time: 100 minutes. Rating: M.
Wandering around the food court of the local mall, you the other one that is apparently more trendier now than the original mall, I happened to pop into the local music/video shop to just have a bit of a gander and see if there was anything worth while on the shelves. It must have been the will of the force, as we all know there is no such thing as coincidence, for I found this particular volume sitting there waiting for a serious anime fan such as myself to come along and liberate it from the confines of such a mainstream place. Naturally such liberation came at a cost, but even though my wallet was somewhat lighter as a result I felt a sense of satisfaction at performing a good deed in a dark world…ok maybe I’m overstating my case here…
Once I managed to get home, have a bite to eat along with a relaxing, refreshing can of amber fluid, the first order of business was to sit down and watch this disc. Into the machine it went and I sat back in my chair to enjoy hopefully what would be action packed anime goodness. I have to say straight away that Bleach very rarely disappoints on that count, there is drama, pathos, action, intrigue aplenty in this volume all accompanied with some truly fantastic music that just matches the mood down to a tee. Nothing can quite kill a show, regardless of whether it is an anime, a live action feature, a soap opera, a police drama etc than inappropriate music. In fact I would go so far as to say that even inappropriate music in a trailer can turn you off a film and you’ve only seen a few shorts of it whilst waiting for the main feature to show. And an overly intense voice over accompanying a trailer frankly is the kiss of death for any film regardless of who directed, produced or is starring in it. But I digress; let me get back to the twelfth volume in the Bleach anime series…
Ichigo Kurosaki, the protagonist of this series, inadvertently finds himself becoming a soul reaper after Rukia, a genuine soul reaper transfers her powers to him in order to enable him to fight a hollow that is about to destroy his family. What Rukia and Ichigo cannot foresee is just what kind of impact this will have on them both. Naturally when he finds out that he’ll have to do the job of a soul reaper whilst Rukia regains her powers Ichigo isn’t to impressed yet nonetheless he realises that he owes Rukia and accepts this mantle. This sense of obligation goes so deep that when Rukia is taken back to the Soul Society as a prisoner for disobeying a recall order as well as for illegally transferring her powers to Ichigo he is determined to rescue her no matter what.
Thus begins an epic adventure in which Ichigo, his friends Chad, Uryu and Orihime, aided by the enigmatic talking cat Yoruichi break into the Soul Society to attempt to save Rukia from whatever fate the Soul Reapers have in store for her. And it seems that the Soul Reapers have a decidedly gruesome fate in store for her, execution via sokyoku which strangely is rather extreme for someone who is not captain let alone a lieutenant. Kind of like cutting someone’s hand off because they took one of your fries from your value meal at the golden arches, that is in my opinion over the top something shocking.
It seems though that there is some kind of method to all this madness, by executing a soul reaper, even one so lowly ranked as Rukia the sokyoku will increase in power exponentially and theoretically an individual can seize this bladed weapon and use it to destroy the entire Seireitei and Soul Society. Gasp the Horror, the Horror. Captain Sosuke Aizen, leader of Squad Five implies this very thing to Lieutenant Momo Hinamori in a letter to her, implicating her former friend Toshiro Hitsugaya, the leader of squad 10. But is there any truth to this claim, certainly it seems to drive a dagger into the heart of poor Momo who has been Captain Hitsugaya’s friend in the days when they were kids and she had just started attending the Soul Reaper academy. Toshiro himself is disturbed by the contents of such a letter, not because Aizen has implicated him, he is innocent, but he cannot believe that such a letter would have been written by someone like Aizen who had such a high regard for Momo.
Meanwhile Ichigo is training hard with Yoruichi attempting to achieve the Bankai release, suddenly in the midst of his training Renji Abarai comes upon the training facility that he and Yoruichi are using to achieve this objective. Bankai is apparently a process whereby a soul reaper can actually cause his zanpakuto to fully manifest in the material world and aid him/her. With the sudden appearance of Renji all of Yoruichi’s time scales are completely thrown into disarray, the execution is scheduled in a day’s time and so far Ichigo has not managed to achieve the Bankai release, things look grim indeed. But as Ichigo points out he has no intention of giving up, what this change means is that he needs to finish and achieve what they have set out to do by days end so he is ready to rescue Rukia, no questions asked. Bleach Volume 12 was simply fantastic, I loved each episode and each moment in its unfolding drama, frankly this anime is well worth getting your hands on and watching.
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