Bleach the Movie: Memories of Nobody [2006]
So I've recently been gifted a stack of old anime movie DVDs, and over the next few months I'll review them. It's neat -- anime movies are a very weird way to tie into an ongoing anime, but at the same time remaining blissfully non-canonical yet at the same time probably enjoying a bigger surge of popularity in the fandom compared to the actual story arcs, if Dragon Ball's Broly is anything to go by. (Speaking of whom, his movie is one of the stuff I just got)
Anyway, the first of these movies is Bleach the Movie: Memories of Nobody, the first-ever feature film for Bleach. Poor, poor Bleach -- overstayed its welcome and continued well after its supposed ending, or taken from us too soon and aborted during its climax, depending on who you ask.
Anyway, this movie has the plot of your typical anime movie (essentially a filler arc played across one or two hours with absurdly high production quality). A new threat threatens to destroy the entire setting, our hero and all the fan-favourite side characters show up to beat him and his army of colourful goons up. Also, an anime-exclusive supporting Mary-Sue-esque character shows up to befriend the cast and be unexpectedly important to the plot.
And this movie is... all right? It runs at a little over 90 minutes, and doesn't actually have that much to go on. We also spend a gigantic amount of the first arc being introduced to our main characters, and a mysterious girl called Senna shows up and starts blowing up Hollows as well. We spend so much time with Senna at festivals and whatnot, but beyond being 'mysterious and sweet', she never grows out beyond that shell. The plotline goes off to establish the main villain, the 'Shinenju', which is an entity formed in the in-between world between the mortal realm and Soul Society (it does sound kinda similar to the Vandenreich, huh?) and sending out totally-not-Hollows called Blanks to retrieve Senna.
Oh, and Soul Society suddenly realizes Senna is the Shinenju (or part of it) and wants to execute her, causing Ichigo and his allies to fight and try to kill the Shinenju themselves, only to find out that the Shinenju is being controlled by a group of Dark ones, exiled members of Soul Society, which is our bad-guys-with-quirky-minions, and their plan is to cause the two realms to collide. Ichigo is all off to save her, but his most beloved allies (read: most popular in the fanbase) show up and help him out, and we have a pretty energy-pumping climax as I can't help but smile as see old characters like Hitsugaya, Ikkaku, Byakuya, Renji and Soi Fon do stuff and kill the annoying fools who has been pontificating throughout the movie. Ichigo Getsuga Tenshou's the leader, Ganryu, and Senna has to sacrifice herself to protect both realms, and we get a bittersweet ending at it all.
Overall it's... it's okay? I never got invested in Senna as a character at all due to the fact that she's a walking plot device, which makes the entire first two acts of the movie feel very bland for me. Add that to the irritating efforts to shoehorn all the backstory behind the Blanks and the Valley of Sorrows (with diagrams!) ends up making the movie feel like it went into production right after a first draft, and they intended for the movie to look visually pretty and not work well as a standalone story.
Which I guess is what anime movies are in general, and to be fair -- Bleach's bankais and shikais and whatnots make for a very fun slashy-slash blasty-blast final 10-15 minutes. It's a predictable blast of everyone's signature movies, with some really great vocal delivery by the dub team (can I say how much I appreciate that they kept names like Hihio Zabimaru in the dub instead of redubbing over them? I don't mind them redubbing some terms like 'Soul Reaper', but I appreciate keeping the names of the weapons at least). None of the bad guys are memorable, however, and they try to put too much stock in our getting invested in Senna... who herself is just a damsel in distress with no personality and a convoluted backstory (that involves our heroes forgetting her after her death because of the unique circumstances) that would've worked so much better if it was shown and not just told in an exposition dump.
It's overall a fun little break, but ultimately a pretty bland and forgettable movie feature.
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