Bleach Is Ending

Bleach is the name of a manga / anime which I began watching (for I started with the anime) at around the age of 14 or 15. It was introduced to me through a friend, and was my first ever anime… though to this day, I’ve not branched out into many others. But as immediately taken aback as I was by the exaggerated emotions and actions that are often found in anime, I’d soon found myself hooked onto this ridiculous idea of this character leading a double life, attempting to maintain a typical teenage lifestyle at school whilst running off every 5 minutes to slay monsters (Hollows) with his oversized sword (Zanpakutou).

If this sounds like it might appeal to you, then you live in the wonderful age where the entire series is viewable for free on Crunchyroll. Bear in mind that some story arcs detract from the manga in order to give the manga a chance to get further ahead in the plot, before the anime caught up with it. If you’d like to only watch canon material, your guide to avoiding filler episodes is here. What an enlightened age you live in.

So, back to my personal Bleach experience. Whenever I watch the first few seasons of Bleach (often referred to as the Soul Society arc), I’m catapulted back in time to when I was going through my GCSE’s, and the sense of wonder, entertainment, and non-reproducible exploration into the culturally varied tropes of anime plot never fails to make me smile. The idea of swords having their own souls and magical abilities greatly appealed to me, and is something that has stuck with me to this day when considering any fantasy character’s possible magical range of abilities. While this theme, alongside the overall narrative of people with swords fighting demonic monsters, is not exactly the most original basis for a story, it was my first encounter with such material and I therefore escaped any disillusionment because of this. In other words, I managed to enjoy the material instead of going “typical Shonen plot lol”.

Many will tell you that after the Soul Society arc, Bleach began its decline, and honestly, as much as I love the series, I wouldn’t argue with that. What I would argue with is the idea that it’s no longer worth watching. I believe that the subsequent ‘Arrancar arc’ is still enjoyable and engaging, although the climax of this arc certainly does feel like it would be an apt place to finish the entire series. It is after this point that almost the entire Bleach community is in agreement that the manga began its sheer decline. With the ‘Thousand Year Blood War’ arc, the manga (the anime now cancelled) began to descend into an over-saturated mess of characters, ill-explained abilities, one-note enemies, retcons out the wazoo, awful pacing and just a general lack of a cohesive or believable narrative. The fights spiralled into a playground world of “my ability is more suited to kill you than yours,” and the deus-ex-machina grew so out of control that the word ‘asspull’ now gets your comment automatically removed from r/Bleach, more from an exasperated “WE KNOW” than as an overly offensive or unfair remark.

But even the Thousand Year Blood War arc managed to give us some awesome moments and character revelations. Whilst the arc as a whole hasn’t made sense (and still won’t, unless the final 20 pages have the depth and cohesion of a hundred issues), individual fights and moments have still ignited my now mostly forgotten feeling of hype and anticipation for the next week’s issue. It’s something I’ll sorely miss.

I’m not just here to slam the final story arc, though. Bleach as a whole actually contains some expertly crafted leitmotifs and character relationships, as well as a plethora of unique and enticing abilities and fights. The anime in particular has some very well animated fight scenes, and had I the option of experiencing it all for the first time again, I wouldn’t shy from it at all – even the final story arc. It’s been an absolute pleasure to follow the story of this cast of characters over the years, and whilst it’s sad that the manga is ending (presumably) with a whimper rather than a bang, it’ll always hold a place in heart.

Game of Thrones Season 6 Review / Reaction

To read this post, click here, for the post is lengthy and full of spoilers.

This does not count as today’s weekly blog post, which is still scheduled to go live five hours from now.

This is the solution I’ve come up with for being able to post a spoiler heavy review on something on my blog without passerby scrollers getting spoiled. It might not be a regular thing! I considered writing it in a shareable Google Doc and sharing the link, but this way it’s all still hosted on this blog, and relies on no external aid. Enjoy!

Boscastle

I’ve always lived in the city, so my visit to Boscastle was a nice change.

I’m not stranger to quaint villages such as this one; some of my relatives live in the middle of nowhere, and my sister got married in a pleasant little village called Stedham. This is, however, my first time staying at a village without family. I’m on a Writer’s Retreat with some friends at university, so I’m not exactly on my own, but having to pay attention to getting my own food and certain other necessities within this one village is a new experience.

There are certain signifiers I keep pointing out that remind me I’m in Cornwall. For instance, it seems that the only general store in Boscastle is a small Spar corner shop, and one of its main advertising points is the possession of an ATM that doesn’t charge you when you withdraw money. I’ve not seen another cash machine so far. Other signifiers include the sheer friendliness of everyone we encounter, everyone’s familiarity with each other, the word “Cornwall” being proudly plastered on most shop signs and the uneven ratio of the amount of tourists to the amount of locals wondering around. (Tourists win that one.)

One of the intentional features of this Writer’s Retreat is the lack of Wi-Fi and less-than-abundant phone signal. I mentioned in a previous blog post that being away from Wi-Fi for too long incites a strange loneliness in me, but that hasn’t been the case during my stay here. Or, so far, at least; I’ve only been here for a day. I’ll be posting this when I return. I think it’s the communal atmosphere of the hostel that prevents the Wi-Fi withdrawal. It’s relaxing and calm, but talkative and fun all at once. I’ve read a lot of the fifth Song of Ice and Fire book already, but there’s been Mario Kart 7 tournaments, a walk along the coast and just general nitter-natter. It’s cosy and comfortable and I wish it didn’t have to end.

We went on a walk at one point, out to the cliffs. The only place in the whole of Boscastle that had halfway decent phone signal was on the cliffs, so that was one reason we went there. Mostly, though, it was to brave the fresh air and hope that the sun doesn’t take vengeance on me for shunning it. It was nice. The waves crashing up against the rocks below reminded me of cream running down a portion of chocolate gateau. This may seem like a random observation to make, but chocolate gateau reminds me of when I was younger, when I took trips up to my nans’.

At one point, a third year read out a piece of writing for their dissertation. This was when I noticed that I still have a lot of work to do as a writer. Many people say that they have the problem wherein they abuse the show-don’t-tell rule by telling the reader too much. I’m entirely the opposite; I overestimate people’s imaginations and write my stories as if they were scripts instead. I think this has come from lack of practice, but quite often a character will pop up out of nowhere with no description but plenty of dialogue. I’ve found a frighteningly large number of times in which I hardly establish setting at all. This third year student, however, had perfected the balance between showing and telling and reminded me where I was going wrong.

I’m back home, now. I never quite finished this blog post, and reading back over it makes me want to go back to Boscastle. I feel like I’m living in a bit of a rut at the moment, and Boscastle was a brilliant way of getting out of that. But here I am again.

I miss the youth hostel. It had heated flooring.