User blog:Lemursrule/BLEACH 356 Review: Donuts and BLEACH 239 English Dub Review (I am lazy)

Hey Bleach fans its Tuesday and its time for new Bleach. If you have noticed, I am combining both the new sub and new dub episodes into one blog. Why is this you may ask, well I happy to announce that I have been promoted to the P&S Committee, and I checked my edit stats and let's just say I really need to get my non-blog edit count up. Also I am being incredibly lazy to make two separate blog posts, so there you have it. First, new sub episode, then dub episode.

After last week's "interesting" episode, we get back to the main storyline. Overall the episode was nothing spectacular, but it was a very solid episode. The animation was consistent, the music selection was decent, and overall I didn't have any major problems with the episode.

The highlights in this episode for me were the performances of Yuki Matsuoka and Megumi Toyoguchi as Orihime and Riruka. Both Yuki and Megumi had excellent onscreen chemistry as well as very good acting on their own. The Donut scene was very well done. The Omake was also very funny, and I felt bad for Chad. I'm just going to do a little nitpicking here, but today Mazukazu's screaming felt a little...off. While it wasn't horrible, it just felt that Morita wasn't at his usual best. Maybe it's because he is getting older (the man is almost 40) and I have heard more of Bosch's (Bosch just turned 36 on January 6th, happy belated B-day Johnny :) ) screaming as Ichigo, but I felt for someone who just had their eyeballs cut with a sword, the screaming would have had a little more "umph" to it. Again not really a complaint, just really nitpicks.

As I stated earlier, the episode was very solid, and I can't wait for next week.

Final Rundown

 * Story 7.5/10
 * Art/Animation 8.5/10
 * Sound Effects 8/10
 * Music 7/10
 * Acting 9/10
 * Omake 8.5/10

I give Bleach 356 a 8.1 out of 10.

As I said last week, I don't care about how and why iTunes is adding new Bleach episodes early. My current theories is that this will at the latest only last while the filler arc is going on (Which is great for me, because I will be out of the country for almost 2 weeks in late June), and perhaps the reason why Viz is doing this is to still make money from Bleach and avoid as much impact from tv rating suicide. Other than that, I have no official reason to why this is occurring, but again I don't care, so let's move on to the actual episode.

One thing the dub has really brought to my attention is how out of character many of the characters in this arc are. Maybe it's because its been awhile since I have seen this arc (and maybe the fact I possibly did not watch a few of the episodes, I don't remember for sure though), but the characters of Momo and especially Rangiku are really out of character. In my opinion, they took two really complex characters and watered them to two basic female archetypes: Femme fatale and The Waif. Basically Rangiku only cares that she is being called old by Haineko, which really I don't understand, because Rangiku to me physically looks about 24, at the most 29, and in my opinion Haineko actually looks older (normally I would say that it was made to be ironic, but I don't think Pierrot would be clever enough to think of that). Momo on the other hand (her character already being watered down by Pierrot) is too calm. Even before the whole Aizen fiasco, Momo also had a little fight in her, while not being as intense as Rukia, she can get pretty intense. I just think that when you're fighting someone who brings up bad memories and past mistakes in a fight, you still want to stay calm, but you have to have a little more reaction than I sigh and a tiny bit of screaming. Plus GOD ARE HAINEKO AND TOBIUME ANNOYING! I mean MY GOD, I have never seen two filler characters so annoying in a long time. They are not relatable, obnoxious, and I agree with everything Rangiku and Momo said in the last few episodes.

Moving on to Tōshirō and Hyōrinmaru fight. Overall the dubbing was excellent both Travis and Steve did a great job with their respective characters. The only real "complaint" I have is more of a technical one, but I think the sound engineer should have pitched up Steve Staley's voice up maybe 1 or 2%. I know Steve tried to sound younger (he has in the past), but Steve is getting up there along with other Bleach cast members and his voice just can't go as high as it used to. I think pitching it up a bit would have helped, and I don't think it would have been "cheating," because a lot of studios do it as actors get older (a good example is Avatar: The Last Airbender, where Zach Eisen's voice was pretty much pitched up for all of season 3).

Overall ok episode

Final Rundown

 * Story 8/10
 * Art/Animation 9/10
 * Sound Effects 10/10
 * Script adaptation 9/10
 * Music 8/10
 * Acting 9/10

I give Bleach episode 239 a 8.8 out of 10.

Join me next Tuesday when I review Bleach 357, and I will review 240 whenever it comes out.

Until Next Time!

--Lemursrule (talk) 15:54, January 17, 2012 (UTC)