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cornerofmadness 's review for:
Bleach, Vol. 36: Turn Back the Pendulum
by Tite Kubo
I can admit when I’m wrong. I was definitely wrong about Bleach 36 being nothing more than 3 seconds of plot and endless fight scenes as I predicted in my review of #35. This reminds me of when the series was young. The fight scenes feel organic and don’t take away from the plot. This was entirely plot driven and interesting.
Where it left of in 35 was Aizen and his men going to Earth to wreck havoc and the Soul Reapers trying to stop them. Instead of picking up there, 36 takes a century-long detour into the past and we see a lot of the arrancars when they were still Soul Reapers and some of the other Soul Reapers when young (i.e. Byakuya as a boy).
Urahara is a brand new captain but doesn’t really know how to be one nor is his team happy to have him. There are hints of secret organizations within the society. We see the beginnings of Aizen’s long plan. There is also a secret prison for the truly dangerous former Soul Reapers and from there Urahara recruits Mayuri. To make things worse, people have started disappearing leaving nothing but their uniforms behind.
This is the sort of volume that doesn’t make me long for the good old days. I really enjoyed Bleach in the beginning but for far too long it’s been mostly fight scenes with a mind-boggling large cast with too little characterization and plot. I know this brief burst of storytelling probably won’t last but it’s enjoyable in the short term.
Where it left of in 35 was Aizen and his men going to Earth to wreck havoc and the Soul Reapers trying to stop them. Instead of picking up there, 36 takes a century-long detour into the past and we see a lot of the arrancars when they were still Soul Reapers and some of the other Soul Reapers when young (i.e. Byakuya as a boy).
Urahara is a brand new captain but doesn’t really know how to be one nor is his team happy to have him. There are hints of secret organizations within the society. We see the beginnings of Aizen’s long plan. There is also a secret prison for the truly dangerous former Soul Reapers and from there Urahara recruits Mayuri. To make things worse, people have started disappearing leaving nothing but their uniforms behind.
This is the sort of volume that doesn’t make me long for the good old days. I really enjoyed Bleach in the beginning but for far too long it’s been mostly fight scenes with a mind-boggling large cast with too little characterization and plot. I know this brief burst of storytelling probably won’t last but it’s enjoyable in the short term.