I haven't reviewed Bleach in a while, so here goes. Tite Kubo seems to be doing a reasonable job of tying up loose ends, though at times it seems a little rushed. I didn't like, for instance, how quickly Unohana's battle with Zaraki ended. It was more than an anticlimax, considering that they had been hinting at Unohana's awesome powers pretty much since the start. She was placid and kindly on the outside, but everyone was afraid of her. Kyoraku and Ukitake were uneasy around her, since she was the oldest Soul Reaper after the Head Captain. Everyone expected that it would be she who would fight Yammy when he revealed himself to be Espada 0. After all that foreshadowing, after all that seductive suspense, what we get is a contrived backstory involving - Kenpachi Zaraki, his powers blown up unreasonably in a cheap deus-ex-machina move. Protagonists in mangas have always had an infernal tendency to get powerful without limit as the series progressed, and the challenges they faced became tougher, but this is the first time I have seen a non-protagonist undergo the same miraculous transformation. Needless to say, I disliked Zaraki intensely after that.
What is weirder is that there seems to have been some sort of bizarre sexual tension between him and Unohana - bizarre, variously, because Unohana was centuries older than he, Zaraki wasn't supposed to care about anything besides fighting, and it just seems wrong to have half-baked romances litter the plot in times of war. But we haven't gotten to the strangest part yet. The great battle that took place between them, the battle sanctioned by Central 46 with the object of realizing Zaraki's full potential, was over in a matter of pages, with Unohana making bizarre deus-ex-machina observations about Zaraki's getting palpably more powerful with every setback as she fell. Great, now we have two infinitely irritating protagonists and their frankly uninteresting stories of struggle and triumph to sit through. I can't see myself appreciating any part Zaraki may play in the upcoming chapters, however significant, that would vindicate killing Unohana just like that. It was a fucking cheap move, and everyone should dump generous amounts of hate on Kubo and Zaraki for it.
It's bad enough that Ichigo exists. His little moments of crisis are amusing to watch, in a bitter way. What a poor, miserable child he must be! To be part Soul Reaper, part Hollow, and now part Quincy - to be possessed of enough power to bring the Soul Society to its knees - to have defeated Aizen - to be waited on obsequiously by Urahara and Yoruichi. He is a such a Gary Stu that it's nauseating. I refuse to believe that he isn't aware that it will be he who will win the war, after all that he has done. I refuse to believe that he can be so oblivious of his manifest superiority to everyone else. I hope he just gets mauled in the next battle - wiped out of existence, just like that. It would be a fitting end to a protagonist as odious as he.
Now to abruptly change the topic. Unless I am forgetting something, War and Peace is the only movie I have watched this year. It was three and a half hours long, and starred Audrey Hepburn (which, I confess, was the only reason I watched it). It wasn't bad. Quite on the contrary. The words I wished to say were dropped somewhere along the way, and are lost. I shall only say that the acting in the movie was reminiscent of theater acting, quaint and charming, and unlike the modern obsession with representing reality exactly, a work of art. How I make that judgement is left as an exercise to the reader.
Now to abruptly change the topic. Unless I am forgetting something, War and Peace is the only movie I have watched this year. It was three and a half hours long, and starred Audrey Hepburn (which, I confess, was the only reason I watched it). It wasn't bad. Quite on the contrary. The words I wished to say were dropped somewhere along the way, and are lost. I shall only say that the acting in the movie was reminiscent of theater acting, quaint and charming, and unlike the modern obsession with representing reality exactly, a work of art. How I make that judgement is left as an exercise to the reader.
I shall finally explain the inside joke that prompted my changing my blog layout to what you see now. It's Spinda, from the third generation of Pokemon, a useless Normal type with an irritating move called Teeter Dance that confuses its opponents. Spinda happens to rhyme with Cinda, Cinda Heeren being my data structures professor in my third semester. I don't think she was a spectacular professor, but I was fascinated with her for some reason. Her name feels interesting on the tongue, too. It seems to pirouette down its length insouciantly, which is what she almost did in class. Long story short, Spinda Heeren is what this is called.
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