Bleach 300-301 Aizen Pwns the 3 Best Captains ( Spoiler )

Isshin Trains Ichigo

Sōsuke Aizen

For those who watch Japanese Animation, and specifically Bleach, this post is for you.  So Aizen finally has done away with all the riff-raff of the leiutenants and scrub captains and even his own Vasto Lorde.  Suddenly, the three most enigmatic Death Gods show up: Shihoin, Yoruichi former captin of 2nd division a.k.a. the Onmitsukidō a.k.a. special forces, those who are in charge of investigating and bringing all the other captains and their divisions to justice; Kisike, Urahara a.k.a. Sandal Hat, ( due to him wears a bucket hat and traditional japanese sandals, "geta"), and exiled "candy shop" owner, and is the former captain of the 12th division which is the Shinigami Research and Development Institute; and finally Kurosaki, Isshin the father of Kurosaki, Ichigo, more on him later.

The surprise was that Aizen killed his own Vasto Lordes at the end, before taking on the other captains.  Noone could have foreseen that switch.  But, we are talking about the most pompous, arrogant, megalomaniac this side of the spirit world.  He said that the Vasto Lordes were a disappointment to him, and he regretted ever having created them.  It appears that Gueco Mundo's preparations to fight the Vasto Lordes was successful, because one by one they started to fall.  We even got to see Hitsugaya, Tōshirō's ultimate attack, Hyōten Hyakkaso (literally "frozen sky-hundred flowers funeral"). This attack causes 100 snow flakes to fall from the sky, freezing anything they touch in a flower like shape. When all 100 flakes fall, the life of the one trapped by the attack is ended.  He launched this attack against Harribel, Tia, who unfortunately, for Toshiro, got out of it, only to be killed by Aizen, talk about having a bad day at the office.

We were also briefly graced with the capatain commander, Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto fighting Aizen, briefly, as in if you blinked you would have missed it, no bankai, no super duper techniques.  Those who watched the fight, might disagree with me here.  But, the thing is, there was all this build up that the captain commander, Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto, was THE oldest and most powerful death god in the entire spirit world and that his zanpakto was the oldest and most powerful fire element.  It is even said that his zanpakto has more attack power than all others in the spirit world. And, yes he used Jōkaku Enjō "Fortress Blaze" which creates an immense wall of flame that surrounds the target and then forms a huge contained sphere of flame in which to imprison enemies. It is shown to be immensely powerful as it was capable of imprisoning three Captain-level Shinigami, Aizen and his two flunkys.  And, yes he used Ennetsu Jigoku "Flames of Hell" which creates seven or more immense pillars of flame that surround an area. The intent of this technique is to trap the opponent in the caged inferno and destroy him. The power of this technique is lethal enough to destroy everyone caught in its vicinity, even Yamamoto himself. But, we got no bankai, no ultimate technique and he used kido as much as he used his zanpakto.

After dealing with the riff-raff Aizen is able to concentrate on Ichigo. After he allows Ichigo to take a couple of swings he is nonplussed at his power level and his "progress".  Yes, progress!  Aizen then goes into a diatribe telling Ichigo that he is an experiment, OF HIS.  When Ichigo claims to be just a human, Aizen is about to reveal that, in fact, he is not. But, he is cut off by the appearance of ...

Kurosaki Isshin

Kurosaki Isshin as a Shinigami

We are blind-sided by the appearance of Kurosaki Isshin, Ichigo's dad, in full Shinigami clothes.  However, if you have been paying attention, he shows up in the Grand Fisher arc, as a Shinigami to protect Kon of all people, although the initial introduction of Ichigo's modified spirit was more powerful than him, he is relegated to comic relief in the form of Kon, the stuff animal lion.

Isshin uses shunpo, flash step, a movement technique that allows the user to move faster than the eye can follow, to get Ichigo far away from Aizen to explain to him who he is and how he was born.  However, Ichigo shuts him up and says that he doesn't blame him for not telling him, and that he knows when Isshin is ready he can tell him.

All we know of Isshin is that for a majority of the animated series, he has been the comic relief when Ichigo returns home.  We do know that Isshin has been "training" Ichigo all his life to fight, via surprise attacks.  Isshin really doesn't hold back when launching into a surprise attack against Ichigo.  Upon many occassions we see Isshin execute a full fledged front-snap-kick to Ichigo's face, or send him crashing into a table.  Ichigo is not slouch himself, he takes it and dishes it out just the same.  We are not aware of what is going on, until Ichigo first goes to train with Urahara and he informs him he's been trained by his father.

We also know that Isshin used to be a Death God.  We do not know which division he was in nor his rank, however, he does wear what looks to be white captain's robes slung over one shoulder.  It is also revealed that he had captain level attack power.  But, we learn all this before Bleach 300 - 301.  So in the heart felt conversation between Ichigo and Isshin, nothing new is actually revealed.  Awww, sad-face!

Aizen vs the Enigmatic 3

Aizen in Crysalis Stage

Aizen starts to attack Isshin when he returns from his Father / Son chat, only to be ambushed by Urahara and Yoruichi.  Aizen explains that the Hōgyoku actually materializes the hearts around it. In other words, it materializes a persons inner desires. It was invented roughly 101 years before the main events of the story.  Meaning Urahara was exiled shortly after invention and Kuchiki, Rukia was assigned to watch over Ichigo's town.  He specifically states that Chad and Innoe both developed powers due to their proximity ot the Hogyoku.  (I thought it was their proximity to Ichigo, but apparently it was due to them being very close to Rukia)  If you recall, Rukia lost her Shinigami powers when, after being nearly mortally wounded by a Hollow, she transfered her powers to Ichigo.  She then received a gigai or physical form, so that she could interect with humans, since she was a spirit.  This gigai sapped her of her Shinigami powers.  And, the reason?  Because Urahara had hidden the  Hogyoku inside of her, and by sapping her of her Shinigami powers, noone in the spirit world could detect her, nor it.

The 3 try different techniques and combinations to take down Aizen.  All of their efforts are in vain however.  They cannot compete with his power level.  His spirit power is so huge that they cannot even detect it.

Meanwhile, Ichigo squares off with Ichimaru Gin.  Ichimaru, Gin finally shows off his bankai.  I was not really pleased at it though.  It's just more of go go gadget extendo sword. *sad face*  They try and build it up by Ichigo making a big deal that as quickly as it extends, it shrinks even faster.  Big whoop!  To me, they just really dropped the ball on coming up with ideas for Gin having an even cooler bankai.  So Gin and Ichigo come to a draw, and they are constantly interrupted by Aizen anyway.  However, it's fairly quickly obvious that Gin doesn't want to really fight Ichigo, as much as keep him busy while Aizen beats the crap out of the other two and Ichigo's father.  This is finally revealed when Aizen shows up and demands what the hell Gin was doing.  Gin sheepishly says he was just testing the boy.

Isshin to Teach Ichigo the Real Getsuga Tenshō

Getsuga Tenshō, Moon Fang Heaven-Piercer - During his battle with Aizen in the Fake Karakura Town, Isshin uses Getsuga Tenshō by gathering spiritual energy in his Zanpakutō's blade and slashing down his opponent. When used against Aizen, Isshin's blast was able to demolish a large radius of the fake Karakura Town and leave behind a huge crater.  During their fight, Ichimaru, Gin notices it and tells Ichigo that apparently the Getsuga Tensho has reached its limit of how much power it can do, since it did not kill Aizen, and the one Ichigo threw at Gin didn't even scratch him, since he blocked it with his super fast extendo sword.

However, putting two and two together, the problem is Ichigo doesn't know the full form of Getsuga Tenshō.  Also, Isshin alludes to the fact that Ichigo is on a whole other power level than the rest of them, and is possibly equal to the spirit power of Aizen.  Therefore, the real Getsuga Tenshō in Ichigo's hands might prove to be and immeasurable attack.  Isshin promises to teach Ichigo the attack, since Aizen and Gin leave the fake Karakura Town to go get the key to Heaven.

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Movie Review: Dragonball: Evolution

Dragonball: Evolution

Goku

Dragonball: Evolution is a 2009 American live-action film extremely loosely based upon the Japanese Dragon Ball media franchise. It was directed by James Wong, produced by Stephen Chow and released by 20th Century Fox. The story centers around the adventures of the lead character, Goku, around his 18th birthday, as he is asked to gather seven Dragon Balls to save the world from evil alien forces. On his journey, he meets several different characters who all join the quest and help him in his task. The film stars Justin Chatwin as Son Goku, Randall Duk Kim  as Grandpa Gohan, Emmy Rossum as Bulma Briefs, James Marsters as Lord Piccolo, Jamie Chung as Chi-Chi, Chow Yun-fat as Master Roshi, Joon Park as Yamcha and Eriko Tamura as Mai.

Let's be honest, this film had nearly no resemblance to anything in the Dragonball franchise.  I've heard of artistic liberty, but this takes the cake.  This was a complete rewrite of the entire Dragonball world.  My only theory is that neither the director, nor producer nor even the security guard on set, saw any of the Dragonball anime episodes.

They literally should have renamed all the characters and slap the title "White Ninja" on it.  It would have been far more believable.  For any Dragonball fan, this was a complete slap in the face.  And, I don't understand why Hollywood continues to do this.  They take a franchise, with millions of core fans, and bastardize it for some unknown viewer and ruins the entire series.

Lord Piccolo

This movie, in a word, was terrible.  The acting was just, so bad, that it wasn't even laughable.  Chow Yun-Fat delivered a career ending performance.  If they say that the acting was done to mimic the anime, they are wrong.  There is a difference between an animaniacs style of acting and this travesty on film.  Randall Duk Kim  as Grandpa Gohan started off the entire movie with the most wooden delivery of lines I have ever seen.  Maybe he didn't have his prunes for the day, but he was rather stiff, if you know what I mean.  James Marsters as Lord Piccolo couldn't have pulled off a worse performance, in my opinion.  Maybe he should stick to vampires.  It seems like it's his forte.  Justin Chatwin as Son Goku, leads the show in "line please".  It was just aweful.

Sometimes you cannot blame the actors, well not completely.  You have to take into account what they're working with.  The script was just poor.  It was so poorly laid out that one has to piece together what it all meant.  That is the main reason I said it should have been simply named "White Ninja".  The Dragonball world was never laid out in prain engrish.  I don't mean treat me like a child and spoon feed me narration, but don't be so terrible at storytelling that I have to guess what you mean.

Master Roshi

Casting was terrible.  No actor fit any role, with the exception of James Marsters as Lord Piccolo.  For a heavy martial arts film, there was little to no martial arts in the movie and Chow Yun-Fat, whom we all know can deliver in martial arts, did little to no martial arts.  After about one scene of him throwing Goku around, we get little to no action.  I know he's getting long in the tooth, but if he going to be in a martial arts movie, he better damn well deliver me from karate chops and judo punches damnit.  The star of the show is a white boy with an adolescent body.  I'm sure many of you probably saying he was cute or some rubbish like that.  Dragonball has to be THE quintessential Japanese anime.  It is Japan.  Goku is supposed to have 30 inch pythons [arms] on his worst day, and be very japanese.  A majority of the characters in Dragonball are drawn with the extreme epicanthic fold, or Asian eye fold.  Clearly they wanted the characters identified as Asian.  And, lastly, again with the Black monks.  As I said in The Last Airbender, I am glad Black people are getting work, but this is just too weird.  Why Black monks?  Is that the new pimp for Hollywood?  "Oh, we need a Black guy, should we make him the monk?"  I just don't get it.  And they had to paint extremely white hair on his  mustache and beard, because Black people do not age.  It was pure comedy.

I knew going in this movie was going to ... in a word ... suck.  But, to not even be recognizable as Dragonball is just astonishing.

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Bleach: Aizen Says "Let's Begin"

Lord Aizen Sosuke

Aizen (center), Gin (left), Tousen (right) [Yes Tousen is Black]

So we find in Bleach Episode #284 that we have Lord Aizen Sosuke walk up to Arancar #3 Tia Harribel (ティア・ハリベル, Tia Hariberu), the only female Espada, and slash her across the stomach with his sword, ending her life.  But, of course this is anime, and we must do a complete background story on Harribel, which covers the entire episode.  So let's talk about the episode a bit and Harribel, more specifically.

Harribel, Tia

[ I find it amazing that white people in America, and the animators, all draw Harribel as a white woman.  While that might not seem amazing to you at first glance, let me show you her real description. ]

Orochimaru: Worst Change of Mind in Writing Ever

Orochimaru was Too Powerful

Orochimaru of Naruto Anime

For those who do not know what Naruto is,... well have you been under a rock?  Ok seriously.  Naruto is a Japanese anime.  It is a run away smash hit in Japan.  It is watched during prime time t.v. in Japan and entire families sit and watch it.  It had a brief airing in America.  But, due to the Americanization of the anime and the horrible,  HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE voice acting and script rewrites, it was nearly immediately ditched to overwhelming audience backlash.  In fact, while the American version of Naruto was completely shut out by fans, views of the Japanese version of the series nearly doubled.  Apparently anything Americans touch is crap, is the message I guess.  That aside, let's assume you are an avid watcher of the Japanese version of the anime.  We will be discussing the ultimate villain in any anime ever: Orochimaru.

The author of the series wrote Orochimaru to be the complete antithesis of Naruto.  Naruto is:

• kind
• believes in the goodness of everyone
• believes he can conquer even the worst self imposed demons he has
• believes he can conquer even the worst self imposed demons in others
• believes that everyone can be redeemed
• believes that one day everyone will recognize him as their leader and protector
• believes he can lead his village into peace and prosperity one day

So in the series, the author throws obstacle after obstacle at Naruto, which he overcomes.  He throws monstrous villains at Naruto, who either beats them up or gets them to recognize the goodness in their hearts.  Orochimaru was written to be the embodiment of complete malevolence.  His character has absolutely no redeeming qualities.

Orochimaru Evil Incarnate

Orochimaru Snake Master

Where Naruto is ultimate goodness, Orochimaru is ultimate evil.  But, Naruto isn't just a kid with ninja fighting training.  In true Japanese larger than life, earth shattering fashion, Naruto has a demon trapped inside of him, that is on par with a force of nature.  It is named the 9-tailed fox.  This demon has the power to annihilate entire cities with its roar.  It can smash mountains.  It can engulf whole forests in flame.  All of this is trapped inside of Naruto.

So Orochimaru, who was originally written to be opposite Naruto, had to be equally if not more powerful than a force of nature.  How could that be accomplished?  Easy!  Orochimaru was written as one of the 3 legendary ninjas of all time.  On top of that, he was more powerful than the other 2.  He knew every jutsu [ninja power and spell] ever known [even the forbidden jutsus] and invented more powers on his own.  So where Naruto was sheer brute force, and an awesome force indeed, Orochimaru was the equal and opposite power of the mind.

The Beginning of the End

The Nine Tailed Fox

It often happens in writing.  The author dreams up the ultimate villain or even just a really good villain, then he realizes that the hero of the story cannot overcome him, because he did not make the hero powerful enough.  So they then set out to detract on the villain.

This is exactly what happened in Naruto.  Instead of building Naruto up, the author decided that Orochimaru would not be the focus of being the arch nemesis to Naruto.

Why?  Because of the way he wrote the Naruto character.  Remember the list above?  All of this is housed inside a little boy.  Even when the anime progresses and naruto is now 12 years old instead of 6 years old, he still has little boy qualities.  These little boy qualities cannot overcome an Orochimaru character.

You would have a scenario where the two would come up against each other and Naruto would have to transform into this logical thinking character, with a penchant to utterly destroy Orochimaru, i.e. Orochimaru would have to be killed.  Why?  Because, Orochimaru has no redeeming qualities and therefore would not ever be remorseful of the things he has done, i.e. human experimentation, torture, murder, mass-murder, etc.  Naruto does not kill people.

So the Orochimaru character was written too perfectly, as a villain.  And, instead of going back on the Naruto character and making him into more of an adult, with the ability to straight up kill someone, the author took the low road and just emasculated Orochimaru.  All of a sudden other villain type characters were able to beat the Orochimaru character and virtually take him out of the picture.

The idiocy of this bad writing is apparent from anyone's perspective.  Here you have a villain so powerful that he can beat the other 2 legendary ninjas singlehandedly, but two teenagers on separate occassions beat him without effort?

I despise this vehemently.  It happens in movies a lot: The Jackal; most vampire movies.. etc [ I can't think of more off the top of my head ]  They always start out with a super villain, but by the end of the movie he cannot tie his shoelaces correctly and a fluffy bunny attacks his jugular and he dies in 3 seconds.

This is what was done to this character Orochimaru.  Instead of making the series really interesting and making a coming of age story, i.e. we watch naruto grow up, train and become more powerful than the most powerful legendary ninja, Naruto instead, is kept acting like an imbecile and can barely beat Star Trek red shirts.  It is just plain awful.

Orochimaru: Best Villain Ever

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Anime Rant: Why I Hate the Writers of Naruto Punking Orochimaru

Creating the Fall Guy

In America, because Americans are all children and have the brains of infants, Hollywood tests and tests and tests and come up with the same result, "the bad guy can never win." Regardless that congress rapes us daily. Regardless that Wall Street pillages the land of tax payer dollars and we take it, day in and day out, we can never be presented with even the hint of reality in a movie. Test groups can't even tolerate the bad guy even getting the upper hand during the movie. They are so childlike that it is enough that you say "this is the bad guy" and then proceed with the movie.



In Asia it is no problem to present a movie where the bad guy walks away scott free. However their reality is quite different. Over there bad guys don't get away with it. So to see a bad guy win, IS the fantasy. Over here, we are surrounded by incompetent police incompetent leaders, incompetent military. They lock up regular citizens and give the excuse that they broke the law. The actuality is that 75% of the time the law was an infraction that is so inconsequential that locking a citizen up for it, IS the crime. But, they do that to hide their own incompetence, their own inability to stop real crime.

For 50 years they have claimed they needed to lock up 20 times the Americans they used to lock up, all in the name of our safety. When in fact 90% of those they locked up were no evil to begin with and the real criminals are free to do whatever they please. The police know they can't get to them. The criminals know the police are incompetent, and no one can change that.

Knowing this then, why can't Americans tolerate seeing a bad guy win? Because they are children and can't handle the truth. The people they pay to keep them safe have failed and they do not want to be reminded of it. And, the powers that be will not show it to them and avoid it, al all costs.

So what's my anime rant about? In Naruto they presented the ultimate bad guy as Orochimaruo. Orochimaru was the most powerful ninja. He knew every jutsu there ever was. He even invented his own. He even knew the forbidden jutsu. He used to belong to the all powerful band of outlaw nijas known as the Akatsuki. In fact he was so beyond them that he left them and truely went on his own. He was so powerful that he attacked a country, with his army, all by himself, something normally a whole country would have to do, to even be assured of success. He also was and is one of the 3 legendary ninja in all of the world of Naruto.

With all of that said why oh why would they all of a sudden make him look like a chump? I mean, the guy can bring people back to life. The guy discovered the immortality jutsu. His own retainer even said he could literally take over the entire Naruto world.

Now my problem isn't that the author wants to all of a sudden go with a different bad guy. My problem is, don't build up Orochimaru to not just be a powerful bad guy, but build him up to be a god and then make the new bad guy just have an illusion power.

The problem is they already explained in the series that one illusion user cannot ensnare another illusion user. One would have to be superiorly more powerful to best another illusion user. Now, under normal circumstances that wouldn't be impossible, but we're talking about Orochimaru vs and Uchiha.

Yes, it's great that the Uchiha have an illusion power, but Orochimaru is now on his 3rd body. The other 2 legendary ninja are also facing the ravages of time. The female legendary ninja, now the leader of the Hidden Leaf Village, has been shown to use potions to keep herself looking young well beyond her years. So all 3 of them have lived probably 2 generations of a normal human, if not 3. Also, Orochimaru put an entire country under his illusions. He defeated ninja leaders of multiple countries, all at the same time, single handedly. So excuse me if I think it's ridiculous that some 20 year old and his younger brother, 14 years old, put the legendary ninja Orochimaru under an illusion. It's like Hitler or George W Bush fighting Jesus. I mean, they're both bad guys and super powerful, but ... come on, it's Jesus we're talking about.

I thought the Japanese wouldn't fall for the "the bad guy loses" shtick. First of all we're talking a world filled with nothing but ninjas. None of them are "good guys" in any objective sense. There are countless ways to write out and all powerful character anyway. They could simply say he got bored of the world and went somewhere else. Isn't that what gurus do anyway?

Just stop it with the "Bram Stoker's all powerful Dracula is killed by a toothpick from some 3rd rate cop that can barely read". The world doesn't work like that and don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining.

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