Anime Bleach

[Dan Rugh]

Bleach started in Japan today. This is an anime that I've been looking forward to since they announced it was coming to TV. I think the manga is in Shounen Jump so I was surprised that there aren't any threads about it here.

Well, Bleach is about a 15 year-old boy named Ichigo that can see ghosts. He meets Kuchiki Rukia, a shinigami, one day and her powers are accidentally transferred to Ichigo. Then the two of them begin their journey. I just downloaded the promo on BitTorrent and the animation, done by Studio Pierrot, looks pretty good, but the music they have playing is horrendous. Most of you probably know where you can find this...

This anime reminds me of Yu Yu Hakusho and The Sixth Sense wrapped up in one. A lot of people are saying it's better than Naruto also, which could be a big plus for me since I love Naruto. Anyone plan on checking out Bleach when it gets subbed? By the way, does anyone know of any groups that are going to sub it?

[COLOR=DarkRed][B]Useful Links: [/B][URL=http://www.j-bleach.com/]Official Bleach Site[/URL][B] | [/B] [URL=http://pierrot.jp/title/bleach/]Studio Pierrot's Bleach Site[/URL][B] | [/B] [URL=http://www.tv-tokyo.co.jp/anime/bleach/]TV Tokyo's Bleach Site[/URL] [/COLOR]

[Sword Breaker]

Well, I know many groups that probably gona Fansub em', problem is... i'm not aloud to give "Illegal" links in a post, so, if you want to know, just PM me. The groups will probably be Anime Hevan, or Anbu and Anime01. Ok, but I still tihnk bleach OWNS hard, even though I only read the spoiler in my monthly Shonen Jump, i still loved it, (it was really funny how his dad beat the **** out of him at the begining... lol...)

[Dagger]

Animax, DeathSquad, A-Keep + ANBU, A-Flux + Anirupt, TW + Naisho and Dr. Jackal have all announced plans to fansub Bleach. Shinsen released the promo, so chances are they'll jump on this show as well. Whew! Talk about oversubbing... ^_^;;

Mark my words, Bleach is going to be incredible. I'll admit right off the bat that I don't know too much about it, but I loved Yu Yu Hakusho's irreverent portrayal of the afterlife and I can't wait to see another shounen action series which tackles similar themes. The artwork looks great--I have the feeling that Rukia will quickly become one of my favorite female characters. She just seems really interesting and unusual; refreshingly different from the typical token girl.

~Dagger~

[Dan Rugh]

:Repost:

Wow, Dagger, thanks for the knowledge! Looks like I'll be getting ANBU/A-Keep since I already know that they work well together. Too bad Samurai 7 got licensed. T_T
-----
Well, Lunar looks to be the first group to release episode 1 of Bleach. I'm gonna download it as soon as I can clear up some space for it.

EDIT: Ok I watched it and it was even better than I expected. The opening and ending themes aren't that great, but I can deal.

EDIT 2: ANBU/Akeep have now released their version of Bleach 1 so I deleted Lunar's and am now getting this one. I just don't like how Lunar puts all kinds of slang in their subs. Same thing that turned me away from their Samurai 7 subs.

(OB has gotten really slow... no one posts anymore)

[Dagger]

Well... you have to keep in mind that not very many people here download fansubs.

I just finished watching Lunar's version of episode 1--and find myself I agreeing with just about everything you've said. It totally exceeded my expectations. The background music, though unorthodox, is fantastic and (like certain other elements of the show) feels very modern. Rukia looks even cuter than I'd hoped; the character designs in general are sharp and unique, while the animation makes surprisingly good use of short-cuts like motion backgrounds and so forth. It's high-quality enough to please action fans, but not flashy enough to make me fear it might become inconsistent in later episodes.

Anyway, this episode was hilarious. The physical comedy reminded me a lot of Fruits Basket... I'm already psyched for the next installment.

~Dagger~

[Dan Rugh]

I forgot that most of the posters were Adult Swim watchers... woops!

I've now watched both the Lunar and ANBU/AKeep version and I must say that ANBU/AKeep definitely has my preference. The only thing that I don't like is that they translate Shinigami as "Soul Reaper"... which isn't even close to the real translation of "god of death." Surprisingly enough, the opening theme has really grown on me which is good since I'll be listening to it at least 3 times a week. =P I still don't really like the ending, though. The English part at the beginning just doesn't sound right for some reason... Then there's that song that they had playing during the promo that I find terrible. It was playing during this episode close to the end behind many sound effects and yelling. It reminds me of corny late 80s/early 90s kids mystery music. Maybe something you'd find in the dubbed YYH or even Scooby Doo... ugh

Like you said, Dagger, the comedy is great. Ichigo and his father's fight had me cracking up over and over again. The way Ichi kicks people in such close quarters is hilarious. Also, those little drawings that Rukia had drawn out for Ichi were hilarous, especially when Ichigo [spoiler]said they sucked and she had the -_- face[/spoiler]. I think the funniest part of the whole episode, though, was when [spoiler]Rukia sent that male Plus to Soul Society with the touch of her hilt. The "haa~" noise that he made makes me laugh hysterically everytime I watch the episode[/spoiler]. Oh, and did you notice how the two Hollow looked a bit too much like Ikari Shinji's Evangelion Unit 01?

The character design and animation so far have been great. Ichigo is a very cool-looking character... if I was a cosplayer, he would definitely be on the top of my list to go as. Another boy that will be introduced later, named Uryuu, looks eerily like Jin from Samurai Champloo and will have the voice of Sasuke from Naruto. Not a bad combo haha. For animation, the opening sequence is very well done with bright colors and some kind of 2D CGI (when the camera flies to the different characters and when it's circling Ichigo). I also really love how they draw the lines thicker when the character is close to the camera, too, similar to how it's done in Champloo. It gives it a lot of style. :)

I'm impatiently awaiting the next release.

[QuincyArcher]

hmmm well i've been reading the manga for over a year now, and i just watched the first episode and i have to say that i was seriously disappointed. to me the animation looks a bit off and whoever does the music should be shot in the face.....twice. and its only the first episode yet so many things have changed from the core story of the manga. i hope that it gets better as the show goes on.

[Dan Rugh]

[quote name='QuincyArcher']hmmm well i've been reading the manga for over a year now, and i just watched the first episode and i have to say that i was seriously disappointed. to me the animation looks a bit off and whoever does the music should be shot in the face.....twice. and its only the first episode yet so many things have changed from the core story of the manga. i hope that it gets better as the show goes on.[/quote]
What exactly do you mean about so many things have changed from the core story?? All you mentioned were the animation and the music, both of which aren't in manga... Care to explain yourself better?

[QuincyArcher]

well first off, in the manga there were never any random explosions caused by the hollows to cause an upstir in the town. in fact throughout the entire course of the manga, most common people in towns were oblivious to the existance of hollows or any actions associated with them. and there was only 1 hollow as well in the beginning, not 2 and it was the one that attacked the kurosaki house. another thing that bothered me, was in the manga, it was karin who came up to ichigo's room to warn him, not yuzu. i dont see why they would change something like that.

and when i say "the animation looks a bit off" i mean the art in general, most of the characters look much different then they did, especially ichigo (mainly his face just looks kinda wierd). its as if Kubotite does not have a role in the artwork anymore.

as for the music, the intro music was fine i like Orange Range. but some of the music during the episode bothered me, especially when ichi was fighting the hollow, it really just didnt fit.

maybe its just me, but being a long time fan of Bleach, i just feel that the show isnt quite living up to my expectations.

[Lynn Luck]

[QUOTE=Dagger IX1]
Mark my words, Bleach is going to be incredible. I'll admit right off the bat that I don't know too much about it, but I loved Yu Yu Hakusho's irreverent portrayal of the afterlife and I can't wait to see another shounen action series which tackles similar themes.
[/QUOTE]

[COLOR=Blue]Yeah, it also reminds me of Shaman King alittle bit. (Well, sort of.) I also think it's going to be good. Then again, I've always liked ghosts. Anyway, I'm going to look for it tomorrow. Can't right now, gotta get off soon. -_-;;[/COLOR]

[Dan Rugh]

[QUOTE=QuincyArcher]well first off, in the manga there were never any random explosions caused by the hollows to cause an upstir in the town. in fact throughout the entire course of the manga, most common people in towns were oblivious to the existance of hollows or any actions associated with them. and there was only 1 hollow as well in the beginning, not 2 and it was the one that attacked the kurosaki house. another thing that bothered me, was in the manga, it was karin who came up to ichigo's room to warn him, not yuzu. i dont see why they would change something like that.

and when i say "the animation looks a bit off" i mean the art in general, most of the characters look much different then they did, especially ichigo (mainly his face just looks kinda wierd). its as if Kubotite does not have a role in the artwork anymore.

as for the music, the intro music was fine i like Orange Range. but some of the music during the episode bothered me, especially when ichi was fighting the hollow, it really just didnt fit.

maybe its just me, but being a long time fan of Bleach, i just feel that the show isnt quite living up to my expectations.[/QUOTE]

I just read somewhere about these little changes that you mentioned and they were saying that it made sense to switch Yuzu and Karin at the end. The Hollow was looking for someone with strong spirit energy, right? Well, it was stated by the two girls themselves that Karin has more than Yuzu so why would the Hollow go after the weaker one? For the explosions, the people had no idea what was going on. They didn't know that there were ghosts wrecking the buildings and that's why they were calling them explosions in the first place. No problems there.

I agree with you on that one song like I said before. It doesn't fit in with the show, but at least the rest of the music is good. I really like that song that was playing when Rukia came in Ichigo's window and the opening is great. Animation-wise, I have no complaints. Everything looks good to me. Maybe you're just paying too close attention??? :)

Although he most likely has nothing to do with the artwork, KuboTite probably has more say in the anime than most mangaka do on the anime adaptations of their work. Did you know that he is the voice of Kon, the little bear guy? For all we know, he may be the reason that those changes were made. People have a problem with anime directors changing little parts of the manga or adding stuff in and I don't see the point in getting all worked up about it.

[QuincyArcher]

yeah, i guess i can see your point on some of that. but if anyone liked the first episode i would highly suggest checking out the manga. you can find scanlations of the first 15-16 volumes on manga-rain's irc

shonen jump released volumes 1 & 2 in english, but the translation quality isnt as good.

[Dan Rugh]

SaiyaMan now has the raw of Bleach 02 being that it is Tuesday. I've never downloaded a raw episode before, but for some reason I am. O_o

I have since read the first chapter of the manga after seeing the first episode. I thought it was really weird that the skateboarders at the beginning could see the little dead girl when Ichigo pointed to her. I'm kinda glad they took that out, but they also removed the blood from the little girl's head for the anime. It was strange how they took Isshin out of the episode after he and Ichigo fought. He and Yuzu came into Ichigo's room while Rukia was in there, but that was all taken out. The next morning, Isshin didn't leave for the day, he was actually attacked by the hollow and almost killed. Weird. I still think the switch they did with Karin and Yuzu made more sense, though. Mostly good changes. :)

Can't wait for this to finish and then for a subbed version to be released.

[VP-Master]

I too recently jumped onto the Bleach bandwagon and hearing loads of positive reviews from anime enthusiasts. I usually start following most anime after it's done airing in Japan or after it has been airing for a while. For example, Naruto was already on Ep 82 when I started watching. Newaz, I've heard such good things about Bleach that I decided to start watching as soon as the first ep came out.
My first impressions of the show are a mixed bag. The OP music has kinda grown on me now and I really like the "retro" sort of look they put on the intro. I haven't gotten into the ED so much which reminds me a little of country music IMO (not one of my favorite music genres). As for the story itself, I must admit that I'm not completely sold on the story yet but I'll have to wait at least a few more eps to see how much I'll like it. After all, I can't really base my opinion on the plot on just the first ep.
Some parallels: I got a feel of YYH and Shaman King (no surprise there) after watching this. The hollow Ichigo was fighting at the end looked a lot like an angel from Eva.
It'll be interesting to see where this story heads.

[Dan Rugh]

I just finished watching the raw version (no sub-titles) of episode 2 and it was just as cool as the first one. We get to see a lot of Ichigo's classmates like Chad, two other boys, Orihime, and Tatsuki. The episode is mostly about [spoiler] Orihime's dead brother's (at least I think he's her brother) soul gets turned into a hollow by some creepy huge thing and he comes after Ichigo.[/spoiler] This is gonna spill over onto the 3rd episode a bit (maybe more) from what I see in the preview for the next one.

I'll write more after I see it with sub-titles.

EDIT: [Lunar] Bleach 02 is out. I'm gonna wait until I'm done with classes and hopefully [AKeep/ANBU] will be out by then.

[Dagger]

I actually like it when there are significant discrepancies between a particular show and the manga it's based on (or vice versa, depending on the circumstances). This encourages me to read the manga if I haven't taken a look at it already, and honestly I just don't find it that exciting to see the exact same story repeated in different mediums. Obviously not all changes are positive or will be universally liked, but by the same token I think it's a little hasty to assume all changes will ultimately be negative in nature.

Anyway, I'm in the process of acquiring episode 2. I'll post here once I've seen it subbed. :)

~Dagger~

[Dan Rugh]

[ANBU/AKeep] Bleach 02 is now out. I'm currently downloading it, but it probably won't be done for about 2 hours so I'll have to catch it tomorrow before class.

*kicks router for not giving me high BT speeds*

[AzureWolf]

[QUOTE=Dan Rugh][ANBU/AKeep] Bleach 02 is now out. I'm currently downloading it, but it probably won't be done for about 2 hours so I'll have to catch it tomorrow before class.

*kicks router for not giving me high BT speeds*[/QUOTE][FONT=book antiqua][SIZE=2][COLOR=blue]Mr. Non-AS 1337 Anime Viewer, the router isn't going to significantly slow down your connection, unless you actually configured the thing wrong (or never configured it at all). :rolleyes: And are we allowed to just post about what we are doing and not say anything about the topic at hand? Dude, you don't have to try and act all amazing that you are grabbing this or d/ling that: it's really nothing special and doesn't need mentioning, IMO.

Anyway, the art team on this anime is simply incredible: colorfully vibrant, lively motion, and chibi comic relief. When I think of anime, it's this style of artwork that comes to mind.

The first episode left me with mixed feelings, though. There was too much derived from the Naruto series (and more specifically, Naruto himself), and it is really hard to not notice it. As a fan of Naruto, this seriously skewed my opinion of Bleach right at the beginning. Whenever an obvious rip occurred, I would twitch and be pulled out of the show. I'm not even referring to Ichigo's looks! The themes of the series did not seem to be originally conveyed at all!

The second episode was much more deviated from Naruto, and a welcome relief. I'm a bit more optimistic and interested after seeing this one, but essentially, I'm ambivalent about the show at this point. I can see why people who hate Naruto for the wrong reasons would like or love this show, but I haven't seen enough deviation to have a unbiased opinion. The show certainly may have started as a Naruto rip, but if the second episode was any indication, it'll evolve enough to stand on its own two feet.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]

[Dan Rugh]

Shut it, Azure. If you didn't notice I was posting about the ANBU/AKeep release of episode 2 and planned to add more into my post after I saw it if no one else posted...
My router was never configured and I don't know anything about doing it so it'll probably stay that way unless someone else does. Sorry I don't know everything about computers, your 133tness. :rolleyes: And as an added note, I watch Adult Swim as well as download anime. I don't think I'm better than anyone just because I watch fansubs... No wonder I don't like you anymore. You are the one that sounds like the 1337 anime viewer by trying to scold me. :(

Anyway... I watched the second episode this morning before going to class. It made a little more sense with the sub-titles but the raw wasn't hard to follow at all. I didn't pick up from the raw that Orihime [spoiler] lived by herself because she has no family anymore.[/spoiler]
Oh and the glove thing that Rukia does is really cool. haha

The ending song is starting to grow on me. I don't like the beginning part where she sings in English, though. It sounds unnatural...

[Dagger]

While I understand that you were going to edit your reply, it's probably better to just post once you've seen the episode in question--that way new members won't get the wrong idea.

[quote name='AzureWolf][FONT=book antiqua][SIZE=2][COLOR=blue]The first episode left me with mixed feelings, though. There was too much derived from the Naruto series (and more specifically, Naruto himself), and it is really hard to not notice it.[/COLOR][/SIZE'][/FONT][/quote]

Although you clearly know much, much more about Naruto than I could ever hope to, I would venture to suggest that any similarities between the two series are primarily a function of the fact that they belong to the same genre. At this point many of the characters and events in Bleach are also highly reminiscient of Yu Yu Hakusho; for example, it seems like Ichigo and Yusuke have the exact same personality, and Rukia could be described as Botan's cheerless twin. Almost all shounen action anime share a number of elements with earlier series, but I'd argue that this occurs [i]because[/i] they are shounen action anime.

~Dagger~

[PainfulLife]

I'm really interested in this after reading all this... But being the pathetic computer person I am... -_-'' I have no idea how to get fansubbing at all... *_* Would anyone mind helping me out so I can see what you all are talkingabout!!!

[Billy Shears]

:wigout: YES, YES, YES!!! God, this is great news! Ahh, I love Bleach! :wigout:

The manga has to be my favorite out of the small amount of titles I've read. If they have released it in Japan already, I hope it'll be coming stateside soon. Dagger (I feel lke this has happened before, but oh well) you shoud defintley consider reading the manga, too. If anybody has any info on U.S. release dates, it would be GREATLY appreciated.

My favorite character is Rukia. She's a tomboy (me likey to a certain extent), and the ways she tries SO hard to fit in as a human is hysterical. [spoiler] It is so funny in the manga where Rukia and Ichigo are sitting at lunch and she can't figure out what to do with the straw and the juicebox. Cracked me up. :laugh: [/spoiler]

I would download the episodes, but my computer is extremly slow and I'll probably get kicked off dial-up before it finishes. Grrr...

I liked the trailer. The animation is great, and like many have said, the colors are beautiful. Thats what makes the art stand out. And, the music wasn't [I]that[/I] bad.

[Dan Rugh]

There are over 150 chapters in Japan right now and I think 3 or so volumes have been fully translated and released by Viz in America. There ya go. I thought a big fan would know that sort of stuff :p

[QuincyArcher]

second episode was a bit better than the first. but one thing i didnt like was in the manga, Inoue's brother becomes a hollow because of the pain and loneliness (and a few other things that i shouldnt spoil just incase) that he feels after [spoiler]his death[/spoiler], not because he was attacked by some other hollows. it also sounds like the hollows were telling him to [spoiler]go kill ichigo too[/spoiler], so it seems like they're starting to take the series in a much different direction than the source material already, which i suppose isnt a bad thing i guess.

they also cut out/shortened a lot of really funny scenes involving Inoue which bummed me out.

[COLOR=#503F86][SIZE=1][b]Added spoiler tags, heh. -Solo[/COLOR][/SIZE][/b]

[Dagger]

All in all, I very much enjoyed episode 2. The comedy is perfectly timed and neatly manages to avoid falling flat; I couldn't help cracking up at all of the Rukia-centric jokes. She's such a unique and amusing character. So far I've been impressed by all of the seiyuu in this series, especially the two who play Ichigo and Rukia. I almost died laughing when Rukia whipped out her "I'm really trying to sound like a typical teenage airhead" voice.

On a different note, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the action sequences haven't dropped in quality--if anything, they look better than those in episode 1. It seems as though this show will turn out to be a great example of its genre.

~Dagger~