And Nanao now gets to step up.
Creative Staff:
Story/Art: Tite Kubo
What They Say:
Ichigo Kurosaki never asked for the ability to see ghost – he was born with the gift. When his family is attacked by a Hollow- a malevolent lost soul – Ichigo becomes a Soul Reaper, dedicating his life to protecting the innocent and helping tortured spirits themselves find peace.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
As is the case in any series that goes on as long as one like this does, there’s a sprawling effect to it that comes into play from time to time. Or, in the case of Bleach, more often than not it feels like. This particular subset of the current arc has had its moments with Shunsui going up against Lille, though Lille has gone off the rails in an uninteresting way on top of the fact that he was already kind of bland, but it’s also taken a weird and unexpected turn here with the Soul Reaper side. With Nanao having come back to help Shunsui, no surprise there, she’s able to get a bit of a history lesson about her own family and connections to it before stepping up to her own level of power.
This chapter delves into the Ise family history a bit with Shunsui filling Nanao in on what’s gone on in the past with her mother and his connection to her through his own brother, which makes their already unusual relationship seem even more odd since she’s essentially continuing to confess her interest in her uncle – if we’re reading it right. There is an interesting story to be told with the Ise family in how they collectively have the one zanpakuto and that the head of the family is the one that controls it. But it gets overly complicated in a way, at least for me since I’ve been out of Bleach for so long, that the more that Shunsui goes into things the more I’m just left kind of scratching my head over it, at least in terms of the swords and Nanao’s connection to them.
The end result though is that she conveniently gets a weapon that can now kill a god as that’s what it’s designed to do. One can see that being useful down the line in this arc. For Nanao, this is her chance to step up and get into things, especially now that there’s more detail about her mother’s past and the importance of it all with the choices made. It’s easy to see her resolve being steeled here to protect Shunsui now that he’s revealed so much and is close to being mortally wounded, so having her going up against Lille shifts the stage just enough for what’s to come. Admittedly, I would have preferred to see Shunsui see things through after all that he’s put in, but since part of this sub arc is all about getting Nanao to be a more capable player in what’s to come, it certainly achieves that.
In Summary:
This installment is going to require me to do so wiki reading to try and piece things together that came about after I stopped with the property several years ago. It’s not bad per se but it suffers from the same problem so many shonen titles do at times. Less telling me, more showing me is what’s needed. I don’t mind exposition laden chapters in the slightest, if done well, but this one is just a lot of material crammed in quickly in order to bring about things that are needed. It feels… unplanned for. And that’s never a good feeling to get in a series unless it’s able to totally amaze you and throw you off of expectations in a good way.
Grade: C
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media via Weekly Shonen Jump’s ComiXology Release
Release Date: November 16th, 2015
MSRP: $0.99
