Bleach is a reasonable Shonen Jump property that makes for a reasonable anime. Animation-wise, while it doesn’t reach the highs of Naruto, it also doesn’t plummet to the lows. Noriyuki Abe, directed the thematically similar Yu Yu Hakusho in the 90s and he’s a steady hand for this sort of thing.

The manga suffers at little from the fact that it seems that Tite Kubo wasn’t expecting it to be this popular, and so after going through what now seems to be the pacing of a SJ property (opening that could be a one-off story, then gradual lengthening plot arcs, and slow to introduce main antagonist) it’s fallen into a holding pattern of repetition of story beats. And obviously the anime inherits that, along with the added problem of inserting filler arcs into a story that is now just one interminable drawn out fight.

Unfortunately the one main thing the manga has going for it – the sense of design – doesn’t survive the translation to animation that well. We get some of it in the openings, but the episode animation tends to be meat and potatoes work.

That said, if you like shonen action shows, it’s worth watching the up to the end of the Soul Society arc as the pacing is very strong on those episodes. Those episodes clear through source material at least twice as fast as Naruto or One Piece would.

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Just the one this week.

Bleach: Series 2: Part 1

In which we get to the third phase of a Shonen Jump manga’s life and we find the start of the “big plot”. Often you get a few trial chapters where the series introduces the characters and series concept, then a longer story where it finds it’s feet, before moving onto the main the story. Shaman King did it, Naruto very clearly did it, One Piece did the first two steps, but then kept the rest of series to multiple arcs similar to Dragonball. And talking of Dragonball, Bleach’s big plot owes a lot the Red Ribbon Army arc (and to be fair, One Piece similarly raided this for it’s Enies Lobby arc).

The biggest plus for the series is that adapts the manga at a pace quite unlike it’s peers. These episodes clear through manga material at least twice as fast as Naruto or One Piece typically do. This gets the series into trouble later, but here the series is refreshingly light on typical time stretching devices such as long reaction shots and lengthy recaps and flashbacks.

The cost of this is that you don’t get the occasional dazzling animation display that Naruto has, instead Bleach maintains a solid level of competency throughout.

The eleven episodes here can be picked up from online merchants for around £15, which is a decent price in the current DVD market, though I’d argue that just buying the manga would be the better way spending of that cash, as it’d get you three volumes and change. But it’s only better by a margin, as this boxset pretty much cover volumes 9, 10 and 11 of the manga. Yes, 31 episodes in and they’ve covered nearly 11 volumes of manga, that’s how pacey the adapatation is.

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I think I can now pinpoint the problem I have with Soul Eater, and it’s a problem I have with some other shonen titles to various degrees. It’s the Adult Authority Figures.

I mentioned some time ago the difference between Sgt. Frog and it’s antecedent, Urusei Yatsura, in how they treated adulthood. Sgt Frog treats adulthood as being just as fun as childhood, Urusei Yatsura portrays it as some kind of living hell.

Now the difference between Soul Eater and what is obviously my favourite shonen series, One Piece, is also a difference between how they treat adults, but rather than a difference in a philosophical view of adulthood (Soul Eater seems to side more with UY, given Maka’s father’s characterisation), it’s in the use of Adult Authority Figures.

Soul Eater, like many shonen series has the main characters firmly placed as students of older, wiser, characters, who know more than they do. Naruto is an exemplary case of this format, for all the goofing off and disobeying orders that Naruto does, he’s never shown to be smarter than Kakashi. In Soul Eater, no matter how goofy Dr Franken Stein or the Grim Reaper are, they know more than the main characters, and at the current time, the main characters ultimately have to bow to their greater knowledge.

In One Piece, however, all characters who feasibly have authority over the main characters are wrong. Even if, in theory, they are right. Regardless of common sense, fact or circumstance, Luffy’s decisions always end up being the right one in the end. It’s resolutely anti-authority. It’s a bunch of kids having adventures, doing what they want, without adults telling them what to do. Even if some of the kids are 27, 34 and 100+ years old. Part of what turned me off Bleach was the slow turn of the main characters from being anti-authority, to doing what the series’ “grown-ups” want them to do.

The lesson is: if you are going to write an adolescent fantasy, go the whole hog and STICK IT TO THE MAN!

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Is this the most modern thing in this list so far? I think so.

Until it hits it's filler Bleach is arguably the best Shonen Jump anime adaptation in terms of pace. Clearing a number of pages of manga in half the number of episodes that say Naruto or One Piece took, the first 60 or so episodes of this show are a breathless, fast paced action show.

There's obvious deficits in terms of plot that it inherits from his manga progenitor. First among them is the sudden gear change after the first few story arcs, but this this is evident in many Jump stories where the first few stories are written to test the water. Compare the change to the Soul Society arc to the change you see in Naruto after the Haku/Zabuza arc.

The other main flaw is it's sudden introduction of so many characters in such a short time (something else Naruto does). As later manga chapters reveal, this seems to be creator Kubotite's way of moving the story forward, rather actual plot development. It's like Chandler's claim that whenever he ran out ideas he had a man walk into the room with a gun. Kubotite seems to create another 5 or more characters every time he runs out of ideas.

After the storyline based on the manga, the anime falls into a dull holding pattern as it needs to allow the manga to get ahead of it again. While it doesn't reduce itself to the juvenile stupidity of much of Naruto's filler, it doesn't have One Piece's luck in having a storytelling device that allows filler to be paced out through the series.

The whole filler issue is emblematic of the problem with animation in general. Too much animation produced today, in particular TV animation, is enslaved to script. And Japanese animation, where a large percentage is literary adaptation of one form or another, often suffers for this. Too often the actual animation of a show comes in second to the story when a viewer approaches it. Sometimes it comes in third or fouth, to the soundtrack or cast… And the makers of shows based on existing material are always going to be judged against that material rather than just on their own merits.

So lets do that!

Bleach is a good adaptation of the manga of the same name.

And now let's judge it on it's own merits!

Bleach is a solid, workmanlike anime series with a good sense of pace for the bulk of it's first 60 episodes, but little in the way of visual flair.

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