Customer Reviews

Bleach, Volume 3: The Substitute (Episodes 9-12)

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Bleach is the best anime/manga series I've come across in a very long time. The characters are well developed and lovable. The story has a real plot and keeps moving forward while other anime series simply fall apart in the middle leaving you feeling cheated but Bleach keeps you coming back for more. While I can't wait to see how this story ends I must admit that I will also be very sad to see it go. I've grown attached to this funny, charaming, exciting group of characters.

Ichigo Kurosaki is one of those many anime heroes that takes his fights very, very personally.

And in the third volume of "Bleach's" anime, he's called on to defend his pride not once but twice -- first by his mother's killer, and then by a new rival. In the meantime, the anime also serves up some backstory on Ichigo's gentle giant pal Chad, and an unabashedly goofy spiritualist who makes Ichigo's duties just a little harder to perform.

Ichigo is enraged by Grand Fisher's attacks on his little sisters -- and the realization that this Hollow killed his mother six years ago. Telling Rukia not to interfere, he charges in with the intent of killing the Hollow even if he is killed in the process. Unfortunately Grand Fisher has a dirty trick up his sleeve -- but the trick might turn on him as well.

Then the hit TV show "Spirit Hunter" comes to Karakura -- and though Ichigo loathes the show, he gets dragged along by his family and Rukia. Unfortunately flamboyant host Don Kanonji has a unique method for disposing of ghosts -- and it happens to turn "bad spirits" into Hollows. Now Ichigo must somehow dispose of the new froggy Hollow without endangering the crowds.... and on live TV.

Then Rukia starts receiving Hollow signals, only to have the signals vanish by the time she and Ichigo arrive. Turns out it's prickly classmate Uryu Ishida -- who also turns out to be a Quincy, the mortal enemy of Soul Reapers. He ropes Ichigo into a Hollow-slaying contest, deliberately causing Karakura to be overrun. And across town, Chad is attacked by one particularly large one as he tries to defend Ichigo's little sister Karin -- and calls on a new power of his own.

The third volume of the "Bleach" anime is something of a crossroad -- the plot is obviously about to blow out in every direction, with more Hollows than ever before. And additionally, it's pretty obvious that soon more Soul Reapers will be entering the scene -- and it sounds like this might be a bad thing for Rukia.

In the meantime, we get plenty of slam-bang, gory action -- Chad's punching power, Ichigo's vengeful duel with Grand Fisher, Uryu's glowing spirit bow, and even our hero haplessly being dragged up the side of a building by a giant frog. Additionally, we get the gruesome details of how a Hollow is made, and a flashback of Rukia's that hints at her own darker past.

But there's a lot of comic relief. The Don Kanonji episode is full of it ("BOWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"), right up to the end. Even the grimmer episodes have their funny moments ("Noooooo! I'm friends with a NERD!" Keigo howls upon discovering that Ichigo is No. 23 in their class), especially when the writers start mocking Ichigo's memory problems ("Icky... bow... icky-bow... METAL-SU! Ichy... ichy-armadillo!").

And Ichigo reaches a sort of catharsis for his feelings of guilt, particularly in a touching scene where he hears her last thoughts. Fortunately then it's back to goofy pals and Hollows to provide the usual levels of stress. And we finally see Isshin acting like a real dad for once -- his graveside talk with a grief-stricken Ichigo is both touching and rather cute.

Additionally, these episodes introduce Uryu, a sort of anti-Ichigo -- he's prickly, chilly, sews like a maestro and hates Soul Reapers. It's not clear why yet, but perhaps it has something to do with the old man he thinks about. And we get to see some fleshing out of Chad's personality, particularly since we see a pep talk given to him by his kindly old grandfather.

The third volume of "Bleach" fleshes out the characters, introduces a new one, and inserts some laughter before veering into a deadly Hollow-killing contest.

Bleach continues to be an incredibly strong series. With solid action, mostly clever writing and dialogue to go along with characters that continually show why they are earning their fan base. If you haven't picked up this series yet, it's more than worth checking out.

You may just want to wait to purchase the box sets. This series has 139 episodes and is still going in what is called the Hueco Mundo arc, and if you think Ichigo is a bada** right now, you haven't seen jack! Every time I talk about this series, I just shake with excitement because it's so good. Definitely will be worth the investment!!!!!

this is one of my favorite shows in long while. (I cheated and watched all of the japanese episodes so i want to tell you that it only gets better, as hard as that is to believe this show could get any better!) this is definatly worth every penny you spend on it!