Tag: Shonen

The Things I Loved, Liked, Disliked and Hated about: Bleach

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The first post was a success so I want to keep the thing going! Welcome back to ‘The Thing I loved, liked, and disliked,” where I go over a longer running series, or just any series really and tell you what worked, didn’t work, or was just plain bad or good. Last time we discussed Naruto, and I thought we should keep going with some other shonen series! So after the cut, let’s take a dive into the always fun to talk about, Bleach!

Spoiler Alert for the entire series. Be warned.

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Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero: Cue Nickleback Song

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As a child of the 4kids/Toonami generation, Dragon Ball Z is a landmark series regardless of whether or not you actually enjoyed it. A cornerstone of my generation, it is something that has a massive fanbase and helped shape the outlook of millions of anime fans. In recent years we’ve been given a bit of a Dragon Ball renaissance with a new anime series and a bunch of canon films. Last time I looked at Broly and quite enjoyed myself, but what about the next installment? Well after the cut, let’s take a look at Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero and find out!

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BLUELOCK: Go Super Strikers!

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Hey, remember when I said in a previous post that I don’t watch sports anime? How I find them too similar and uninteresting? Well when you have a girlfriend who likes looking at cute anime boys, you end up watching stuff you might not have wanted to. Case in point the series I am talking about today. We marathoned the entire first season in two sittings and I got some stuff I want to discuss? Did it break my distaste for the genre? Well after the cut let’s take a dive into BLUELOCK and find out!

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Quick Thoughts on Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: World Tour: Cryfest 2022 now in 2023

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I was lucky enough this week to catch the Demon Slayer World Tour, aka: The premier of the first episode of season 3! There is not enough to really get into a proper blog post, but I did want to take a moment and give some quick thoughts on the entire thing. My thoughts are right after the image!

  • The ‘film’ if you can even call it that, is really just the last two episodes of the second season, with the hour long first episode of the third at the end. There is no editing or attempt to try and make things feel like a ‘film’ ; it really is just the three episodes put together in a playlight.
  • And honestly, while there is nothing wrong with that, I kinda wish that they had taken the time to make things a bit cleaner. It just felt that if you are going to have this in the theater, there should be effort to make things flow far better. The last two episodes of season 2 are great of course, but man there are some scenes that they could have trimmed down. Mostly the crying, the endless amount of crying.
  • Or honestly? Just show the entire first episode of season 3. It was only an hour, but it was honestly a damn good hour that it could have stood on its own two feet.
  • It is mostly a ‘bridge episode’ that connects the two arcs together, getting Tanjiro to the Swordsmith village, and introducing the two new hashira. But the real scene stealer is the introduction of the upper ranks. Both in terms of animation and story, it is Demon Slayer firing on all cylinders.
  • They are both menacing and somewhat comical, striking a good balance in contrast to Muzan who just oozes command and power with every word. You can tell instantly that this isn’t the person you want to cross and that he could kill every single one of them easily if he could.
  • This is helped by again, the introduction which is just Ufotable showing off at this point. The infinity castle is absolutely mesmerizing and is far far bigger than I expected. Considering the final arc takes place in that location, it’s gonna be doozy.
  • Aside from that, it’s still Demon Slayer and everything that comes with it: fantastic animation, fun characters, stellar opening theme, comedy that you can run hot or cold on, and the promise of some genre defining action coming up. Way too early to give a real feeling on season 3, but the opening gambit is solid.
  • Though for those who are eager to get to the season, I would suggest waiting until it comes out via crunchyroll. I enjoyed my time in the theater, but it is probably only for people who are like die-hard fans with a capital ‘D’. 

Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War First Cour: The Bronze Medal Shines

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The era of the Shonen “Big 3” was a golden age for the genre and the anime world in general. Three massively popular series that were running side by side for well over a decade. They were the shows that influenced an entire generation of anime fans. Anyone who grew up in the fan-sub era knows those three shows, and their legacy is marrow deep. 

Yet out of those three, there was a clear hierarchy when it came to their strengths and weaknesses. For Bleach, it was always and forever the bronze medal, the distance third to the titanic One Piece and the beloved Naruto. Yet it was also the one most damaged by the era it was made and whose cancellation left a bad taste in many fans’ mouths. However a second chance has come with a new anime adaptation of the final arc. Will it serve as a rebirth for this beloved series, or would things have better been left in the past? After the cut let’s take a dive into the first cour of Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War and find out.

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