User blog:Lemursrule/My gift to you

Merry Christmas to all that celebrating, and to those who don’t, happy Tuesday! I decided this year that I was going to give the wiki a very special gift. I know “I shouldn’t have,” but considering all the insanity around the world lately, a little distraction is nice. I was going to do this sooner, but life happens. Without further ado, here is my present to the wiki (drumroll)...

 Lemursrule's Bleach

Movie Breakdown

 So basically I will be reviewing each of the Bleach movies more on a technological standpoint and as a fan. I am not really going to concentrate on the languages, because (A), my opinion of the Japanese and English are pretty much equivalent (Hell verse Blu-ray review will be coming soon), and (B) I am one of those odd individuals that likes to watch movies in every language, and I have no access at this point in time to a region B Blu-ray player, therefore I am unable to review the French, German, and Italian dubs of the Bleach movies. So in my opinion, it would be unfair for me to rate a movie on language, since I have not seen every version available (trust me I have watched 20+ dubs of The Lion King, so I take this seriously). Hey, if you live in any European territories, please pick up the Blu-rays from Kaze, and tell me how they are. Also, I am not going to be too critical on picture quality for movies 1-2, because they have only been released in the U.S. on DVD, and DVD has a far more compressed picture than Blu-ray, and I cannot play region B Blu-rays at this time. This will be broken into parts, and will be updated over the next few days. Also, the spoiler alert will be shown before each movie breakdown. Now, let's begin!

 Bleach:

Memories of Nobody

 If you don't know, here's some basic info on the film. Released in December 2006 in Japan, Bleach: Memories of Nobody is the first full-length animated film based on the Bleach Anime series. Without giving too much away the plot goes as follows. A mysterious incident has occurred in the Precipice world, in which several members of the stealth force are killed. Meanwhile in Karakura Town, Substitute Soul Reaper, Ichigo Kurosaki and Rukia Kuchiki find masses of strange, unidentifiable spirits. While attempting to deal with these strange souls, Ichigo Kurosaki and Rukia Kuchiki meet Senna, a mysterious Soul Reaper who wipes out most of them. Senna refuses to answer any questions, so Ichigo is forced to follow her while Rukia tries to find out what's going on.

 SPOILER ALERT

 Considering that this was the first theatrical release for the Bleach anime, I thought it was decent, especially considering other films based on shonen television series (Looking at you Naruto). I actually think that "most" of the Bleach movies are decent (we will get more on that later). While I don't think that Memories of Nobody is the best "Bleach" movie, overall I think out of the four it works the best as a film on its own. While "most" of the movies are decent popcorn flicks, in terms of overall writing, storytelling, music, and art, Memories of Nobody overall is a better film than the other Bleach movies.

The story is very generic, but is stable and easy enough to follow. The director of the film, Noriyuki Abe, said that his intention was to make this a film for anyone, not just Bleach fans. The sequence of Ichigo chasing the Hollow was placed there to give non-Bleach fans the basic premise of the series: A teenage boy helps fight monsters and helps the dead find peace. I found this to be a very intelligent and well-executed concept. Instead of having a long, overdrawn clip show, this scene introduces our main protagonist, tells the audience what he does, and basically tells the audience the basics of Bleach so that they can follow the film. Unfortunately, the hollows and souls never really appear again, which kind of negates the objective of the scene. The film is very different from the TV series, while the scene had good intentions, in the long-run its kind of pointless and doesn’t really add anything to the film. My biggest issue overall with the story is that the pacing is very slow, even by Bleach standards. While the pacing does pick up at the start of the second act, there are points where is story moves painfully slow, and by the end you feel like you have been watching a movie for nearly three hours, when the film (including credits) is only 90 minutes. The final battle is also very boring, and with all the build-up to that point, the conclusion is very unsatisfying. After this, it sounds like I despise this movie, well its quite the opposite. What the movies lacks in engaging story lines, it more than makes up in “heart.”

In reality, the characters (not so much the villains) are the saving grace of this film. The characters and their development is really what makes Memories of Nobody stand out from many shonen anime films. Memories of Nobody to me is not so much an action-film, but a drama. While there is drama in Bleach, Memories of Nobody is a nice change of pace from the normal “Hollywood style” action scenes of Bleach. In fact, the slower and more casual moments are my favorite parts of the film. Senna, is one of the most beautiful “anime-only” characters that I have seen. It is almost impossible not to fall in love with her over the course of the film. Yes, she does get a little “bratty” at times, but her kindness, humor, and humanity overshadow that. Senna is a very human character, and you really do feel for her. Senna could have been very Mary-Sue-ish, but she is very self-reliant and sacrifices herself to save everyone. When Senna “dies,” you legitimately become heart broken. I don’t think anyone cannot sniffle just a bit when Senna starts to fade away. Even though you’ve only interacted with this character for a little over an hour, you feel like you’ve known her forever, and when she sacrifices herself, you’re devastated. Ichigo is also very strong with the film, yeah he does act super shonen generic hero at times, but again the drama scenes are the strongest aspects of this film. Ichigo goes through all this trouble to save Senna, and even after all that, he still couldn’t save her. This is one of the few times Ichigo actually fails and isn’t the big hero, and you feel bad for him, but at the same time it reminds everyone that Ichigo is human and is not perfect all the time. The Soul Reapers appear so briefly, that they are there only for fan service and are not developed beyond that, and the villains are very generic and one-dimensional.

The music in the film is absolutely breath taking, and its a real shame that some of the most beautiful tracks (example: Into the Fire) are not utilized in the TV series more. I love the very operatic score, and it really enhances the breath taking scenery of Karakura Town. In my opinion, its one of Shiro Sagisu’s best.

The animation itself is... okay. Its not by any means horrible, but its nothing to write home about either. The animation looks more suited for a direct-to-video release than for a full-length theatrical animated feature. I wonder if was the first time animating in a 16:9 aspect ration for many of the young animators working on Bleach at the time (at this point the TV series was still animated in a 4:3 aspect ratio). The animation does improve greatly in the last 15 minutes of the movie though. The backgrounds more than makeup for the somewhat lackluster character designs and animation. The backgrounds, especially those in Karakura Town, are complete eye candy. When you look at the Karakura Town arial shots, it looks like Japan, and they are just so visually pleasing. It is a virtual field trip for the eyes, and I wish that the characters followed this art style more.

Overall, Memories of Nobody is a very enjoyable film, and I still enjoy it after multiple viewings. Is Memories of Nobody a great Shakespearian or Hugoistic piece of work…no, but the film still does have very heartwarming moments, and does something different from the TV series, that makes more the worthy for a viewing. (This concludes part one, part two will be added later)

-- 18:52, December 25, 2012 (UTC)