The Director and Screenplay: Shinsuke Sato
Bleach is a movie adapted from the popular Japanese Anime series titled bleach. The movie is an excerpt from the animation series and depicts the early events of the animation series.
The series focuses on the adventures of Kurosaki Ichigo; a teenager who has the gift/ability to see and interact with the wandering souls of people that lived in Karakura town.
Kurosaki Ichigo met an injured Shinigami(Soul Reaper) called Rukkia, who got injuries from her battle with creatures called hollows(evil souls). Rukkia was shocked that Ichigo could see and talk with her. In a desperate attempt to save Ichigo’s and his family’s life, she granted the teenager Shinigami ability by plunging her Zampakutou(Katana infused with soul energy or reiatsu) through his heart.
After gaining Shinigami ability, Ichigo was plunged into a world beyond his imagination. The power granted to him gave him super strength, speed and agility. It also made him very durable and capable of withstanding strong hits; evident during his battle with Renji Abarai.
Byakuya and Renji were depicted as the villains in this story; with Rukkia referring to Byakuya as her elder brother and Renji also stating that he grew up with Rukkia. According to the story, Rukkia broke the rule by interacting with a human and further incurred the wrath of Soul Society by giving a human her ability.
As an anime aficionado, I must commend the effort of the producer to make sure the movie keeps to the theme of the anime series. Ichigo and Rukkia’s personalities mirror those in the series quite well, however, Byakuya and Renji seemed darker than they should be, considering they’re not exactly bad guys in the series.
I also have an issue with Byakuya’s voice and the likeness to the anime character. The character that played Byakuya didn’t have the required cockiness and mannerism of the anime character. Byakuya is a man with pride that doesn’t speak much and cuts down anyone that breaks the rule. Considering Byakuya’s reputation, it also didn’t make any sense why he had to cut the already injured Ichigo numerous times.
I also don’t like the fact that Ichigo somehow managed to go toe to toe with Renji. According to the timeline, Renji has at least 200 years of training and should easily defeat Ichigo who only had a few weeks or months of training
If you haven’t seen the animation series before, I suggest you watch the first 100 episodes before watching this movie to help you appreciate the effort or else, it’ll seem like a bunch of grownups wearing gowns and playing samurai. Overall, my rating is based on the premise that I have seen all episodes of the series
Rating: AA
Moviedb link: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/420426-bleach?language=en-US
Trailer: