Kubo Tite - Bleach, vol. 01-07 (Eng. trans.)

[oyceter]

I started reading Bleach because rilina kept blogging about it. Then I watched eps. 1-9 of the anime. Then I stalled out for a while. Then I saw it at the library. Ahhhh, library, how I love you! How you are such a portal to new and addictive series!

Anyhow, Kurosaki Ichigo is just your normal teenage manga guy -- he has bright orange hair and as such, is teased at school, is extremely grumpy, and, oh yeah, he can see ghosts and has a Tragic Past with regards to his dead mother. Somehow, he gets the powers of Soul Reaper Kuchiki Rukia, and she basically stays to train him to use them to defeat Hollows, dead spirits who have become malicious. Rukia illustrates various fine points of the Soul Reaper universe with bunnies. Rukia is gruff, no-nonsense, honorable, grumpy, and extremely cool, and does a hilarious impersonation of a standard shoujo heroine when she wants something from Ichigo or his classmates. Rukia is possibly the least shoujo person ever.

I adore Rukia.

I like Ichigo well enough, but I actually like most of the supporting characters better, particularly his sister Karin, who routinely tries to beat up their dad. And I didn't think that I would like D-cup class airhead Orihime, except she's airheaded in a very peculiar way, and I like her oddness. And I adore Tatsumi, who is very attached to Orihime and very protective of her. I also adore Chad, who is large and muscular and scary-looking, except he has such a soft heart that he will rescue doomed parakeets.

The story arcs themselves aren't actually that interesting, but I adore Kubo's artwork. It's somewhat angular and rough, but still stylized, and he does the best grumpy chibis ever.

Oh, also, there's a teddy bear/lion plushie that thinks he's in love with Rukia. Rukia, naturally, reacts to this by ignoring him and taping him to toilets.

Have I mentioned I adore Rukia?

I've actually had a hard time getting into Naruto because of the art, despite the fact that Kishimoto's story and characters are more interesting to me. But Kubo draws fight scenes that I can actually follow, and even if I do get bored during all the fight scenes, there are usually enough funny moments that I am thoroughly entertained.

Also, I adore Rukia.

I actually love watching all the characters, particularly Urahara of the somewhat illegal storefront, and there's something about the zany energy among all of them and the extremely expressive faces that totally gets to me.

I do realize I am entering a somewhat problematic arc of the manga now, but.... I can't help it! The chibis, they kill!

Comments

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

You will be happy to hear that I have Bleach through volume 13.

I love Urahara and everyone else you mention. Unfortunately, that's why... ack... I can't explain at all what frustrates me about the upcoming arc without getting horribly spoilery, except to say that while Bleach starts out much stronger than Naruto, the things that bugged me in the latter improve as it goes along (the non-spoiery one is how easy it is to follow the fights), while in the former, some of the things I loved most from the get-go end up fallin by the wayside.

[oyceter]

Whee!!! I think I will actually go through all of the upcoming arc, despite many warnings about it, just because... it totally cracks me up!

I actually keep getting confused in Naruto's fight scenes, largely because I can't keep any of the ninja apart yet, with a few exceptions. I think part of this is just me and my bad facial recognition skills (I have re-introduced myself to several people I have worked with, which was immensely embarrassing). Frex, I kept not being able to tell Sakura and Ino apart!

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I couldn't keep track of all the ninja until after they emerged from the Forest of DOOM DEATH, but after that I never mixed them up again. (Luckily, Sakura gets a haircut soon.)

You may like the Soul Society arc more than I did. There actually is a lot of really good stuff in it.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

I also couldn't keep track of the ninja who weren't on Kakashi's team until after the Forest of Death bit. I definitely didn't have a good sense of which genin was on what team until my second time through though. (Watching the anime helped there.)

I've noticed that I tend to read fight scenes too fast, especially in scanlation, which means I'm often like, "What just happened? How did he do that? Eh? Help?"

[oyceter]

Yeah, me too! Which is why I'm still haunting bookstores for hard copies instead of reading the scanlations. I think I just read everything too fast in scanlation, and then I totally don't remember what happens.

[rilina.livejournal.com]

Obviously, I like the SS arc of Bleach much more than a lot of people on our f-lists, though I certainly acknowledge that it has pacing and gender issues. I suspect your reaction to it might depend on how much you like the many new characters who are introduced in the arc. I liked some of the new characters enough that I didn't mind taking some time away from the characters who had already been introduced.

The chibis are indeed adorable.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I am liking SS better as I'm re-reading it in hard copy than in scans, because the characters are easier to track on the second go-round, and the things I don't like are at least no longer surprises. I also think I wasn't paying as much attention to a lot of what was going on as I should have because half my mind was always on, "What is so-and-so doing? Why are we on these guys when we don't know what's going on with so-and-so? Get back to so-and-so!" ("So-and-so" not necessarily just one person.)

[oyceter]

I'm actually looking forward to it, just because... more Soul Reapers!

Also, I just love Kubo's art. Love. Love love love.