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- Dissecting Where It All Went Wrong
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| Dissecting Where It All Went Wrong | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 12 2013, 05:19 AM (621 Views) | |
| Copy_Ninja | Aug 12 2013, 05:19 AM Post #1 |
Novacane for the pain
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Firstly check out Kyouka's blog post that's kind of about this: http://dbzf.co.uk/blog/entry/4115163/3624/ So I'm going to just go through exactly what went wrong with Bleach to make it go from one of Weekly Shonen Jump's flagship series (it was the first to get three colour pages in a row) to basically nothing for them (gets no promotion anymore, hasn't had a colour page or the cover in well over a year). Oh where to begin with what happened to the plot. Soul Society is generally considered the best arc in Bleach by a long way because it had both action and mystery with a lot of suspense and unpredictability. Would Ichigo rescue Rukia before her execution? What was the conspiracy with Gin and Captain Aizen's death? What's the deal with Byakuya not trying to save his sister and even going to the point where he'd actively stop her escape? It was also intriguing to learn about all the new characters, how they interact with each other and how Soul Society itself operates. The arc slowly built up with the stakes getting higher and higher, battles against gradually stronger opponents, Rukia's execution time being moved around, the mystery with Gin coming to the fore through Hitsugaya and how all the other Captains were reacting. Then finally it reached a crescendo, Ichigo went Bankai and settled his grudge with Byakuya which was fully explained and explored, Captains fought each other, Aizen re-emerged as the true villain behind it all and made his intentions known. It was well crafted and generally a lot of fun to read and I still look back on it fondly and re-read it every now and then. However, it wasn't without its problems. Pacing was beginning to become an issue, with some chapters being all fighting with little to no plot progression (or even that much progression with the fight itself). This wasn't helped by having so many simultaneous fights going on with all of them having significant panel time even though some of them didn't matter to the plot at all. There was also the mass introduction of a lot of characters, with 13 divisions of Shinigami, each showcasing at the very least a Captain and Vice Captain we have to learn the names of and care about. This can get a little overwhelming and not to mention confusing. Now, Kubo has said that he hadn't intended for Aizen to be the main villain of the arc until after he had killed him off. Now while he pulled off the twist quite well in the arc, it did leave some problems for him. What is Aizen's goal then? How is he going about accomplishing it? Where did he go to when he left Soul Society and what is he doing there? What's more is that Ichigo had supposedly already reached the peak of Shinigami power by attaining Banaki rather early in the series, so he also had to find a way to make him grow. With the rigours of making a weekly manga series in a demanding magazine such as Jump, he had little time to resolve these things. So what he seemed to try to do was fall back on what made Soul Society so successful. Unfortunately, instead of re-using the positive aspects, which is very difficult to pull off for the second time in a row, the negatives got turned up to eleven. The next arc introduced Aizen's Arrancar, an expansion on the hollows that had been the previous villains pre-SS. The premise was good initially at least, Aizen needs to have his own threat and hollows were already well established in the story at this point. However, after an opening to the arc with Shinigami coming to the human world, which was at least more original and not too big a problem, Kubo straight up copied the previous arc with slightly changes of detail. Ichigo went to Hueco Mundo instead of Soul Society to save Orihime instead of Rukia. The Espada were the threat instead of the Captains, with the Fraccion replacing the other Shinigami. The repetition is rather uninspiring, and you can't help but think "but I've seen this all before." But that isn't the main problem with this arc. The pace slows to a crawl from here on out. The plot became congested with almost nothing but fights, all of which were unnecessarily long and many of which really didn't matter (Privaron Espada anyone?). The positive points from Soul Society are basically lost here. Ichigo's rivalry with both Grimmjow and Ulquiorra are not even close to as compelling as those of Renji and Byakuya. The mystery with the Hogyoku devolves in to a plot holed mess of confusion. The Espada, while being cool and fan favourites, are rather one note and bland as characters for the most part, with the possible exceptions of Ulquiorra and Starrk. The tension is gone, Orihime is "needed" by Aizen, so there isn't so much a threat to her, it's not the same race against time as it was for Rukia. Also, and this is more subjective, but I found Rukia's pondering in her cell about her life to be more fascinating than the relationship between Orihime and her captor Ulquiorra (though it was still a positive of the arc, it doesn't hold up as well to what came before). By the time we move out of the "Soul Society Mark II" territory, with Aizen arriving in the Fake Karakura town for the final confrontation with the Gotei 13, other problems are becoming apparent. The threat of the Espada is becoming a joke at this point. Yammy has been foderized by everyone. Aaroneiro was beat by Rukia, not even a vice captain. The Captains that arrived in Hueco Mundo owned their Espada opponents way too easily (Byakuya won while missing an arm and a leg, Mayuri pretended to be on the back foot while dominating the entire fight, Kenpachi just had to use another hand to win). Ichigo beat Grimmjow with mere resolve. Ulquiorra was the only one to actually seem a credible threat, losing only to Ichigo's Deus Ex Machina. We then have to sit through fight after fight in FKT, with Kubo trying to hype the top Espada but not have them actually do anything to anyone of note. Eventually the Visoreds (who I'll get to in a minute) arrive and the Espada are defeated with no losses to the good guys. This leaves Aizen with basically all his enemies left to defeat and no allies on his side. So what happens? Aizen beats everyone on his own, because of course Kubo needed to have Ichigo and Aizen's one on one even though Ichigo was established as being so much weaker at this point. So, this means that everything Aizen had done to this point was pretty much pointless. Why bother with the Espada when he could get it all done by himself? Eventually Ichigo's father arrives on the scene with the twist that he too is a Shinigami, which the audience knew before now but Ichigo did not. Yet this twist, and Aizens speech about planning everything, aren't really expanded upon after they are initially brought up. Just to be complete, he also uses Urahara and Yoruichi, just so they can be defeated and Ichigo left as the only hope. Yet, Aizen has gotten even stronger by this point, so once again came another asspull as Ichigo goes in to the Some more general comments: There were just too many characters and backstories and story lines to fit in one arc. Instead of dropping some, Kubo basically gave all of them sub standard development and focus. Ulquiorra's conversion to wanting to understand feelings happened in about 5 pages, Gin and Rangiku's backstory received no real explanation despite the fact it was used as justification for what Gin did. Many characters were just sort of there, fighting and doing little else. The only thing I felt that worked for a time was the Visoreds. They had a very interesting back story which was explained in an entire volume's worth of chapters, they were tied in to the main plot well and we at least got to understand Shinji and Urahara more. Yet afterwards they too were mostly brushed aside as Kubo whittled down Aizen's opponents. Explanations for things also became hurried and not very well thought out. Yammy was suddenly the strongest Espada even though he got beat fairly handily off panel after this revelation. The Hogyoku didn't get much explanation even though it was the most relevant in this arc. Mayuri was ultra prepared for his battle with Szayel just because. Nel's entire purpose in the plot is unclear and feels very fillerish. The arc dragged out over such a long time and was so unfulfilling for the most part that the fanbase began to falter, and of course the Fullbring Arc basically killed off anyone who was still interested. And no I'm not going to talk about it here, because it's too painful to even think about... Closing Comments: Overall, Kubo failed to emulate his earlier successes and instead further pushed the inadequacies in his storytelling. The pace was too slow, there was too much focus on unnecessary things, the story contradicted itself and continually changed direction and it was overall missing what had previously made it one of the best of modern Shonen. While the current arc is more promising than what came before, it too still suffers from many of the same problems (though it has more highs). The series can't recover from the damage that has already been done to it's reputation, which is a shame but Kubo did bring it on himself. Edited by Copy_Ninja, Aug 12 2013, 05:28 AM.
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 We'll never be those kids again
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| Cal | Aug 16 2013, 03:18 AM Post #2 |
I may not deserve to live, but I will protect those in my reach with my reverse blade!
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I think a major problem is simply his style too. His method of less background and more depth for characters was great in the beginning when we got tons of new interesting characters but now it's sort of meh. Really enjoyed the post copy. You need to work for crunchy roll or something no joke. |
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| + supersaqer | Aug 17 2013, 08:19 AM Post #3 |
Transcendent
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WHERE THE f*** DID YOU GO??? |
 Speed-o'-Sound Sonic | |
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