The Best Part of Bleach is a Tragedy

Video Description

In which I become reasonably emotional about fifteen-year-olds fighting battles they never should have had to fight. Also, I never had a chance to gush about the art itself in this essay, so I’ll make up for it here. It’s obvious that Kubo’s style evolved significantly over the course of drawing Bleach, literally smoothing out its sharper edges, but it’s disingenuous to say it went from bad to good—it was always good, now it’s just pretty. Instead, I want to draw attention to his use of movement and lighting. Sometimes he will use hatch marks to convey something moving too quickly for the camera to track, such as eyes, swords, hands, or entire people. It’s a simple technique, but it takes a lot of skill and consideration to make sure it’s still understandable to the audience. He will also use jump cuts to convey high speed movement, like someone appearing behind an opponent or the moment right before an attack lands. They’re shocking and oppressive moments meant to make you and the fight’s protagonist feel helpless, as with early battles with Byakuya, which is flipped to be triumphant when Ichigo catches Byakuya unawares. Kubo also plays with lighting in very exciting, often non-diegetic ways, again to convey emotions and power imbalances. In particular, I love the close ups with a character covered in dark screen tone but a stark white background, as though the camera has moved in for an intimate shot and coincidentally blocked out the light source. This technique is also used in reverse; the camera pulls out yet the shading remains the same, giving the person a position of dominance as they block out the sun from the camera. Bonus points if there is a reverse shot and their opponent is cast in long, intense shadows, as though the might of their enemy is a spotlight focused entirely on them (see Grimmjow introducing himself to Ichigo). Music: //www.epidemicsound.com/track/Uu4EbZn0rp/ -https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/dzwmZBokvv/ -https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/TbVy6C9oYB/ -https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/o9hi8hLLWo/ -https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/VkGCVBr1ir/ -https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/GeqD3K1Atf/ -https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/4HYPsVdznA/ -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lERdfRBpyeQ 00:00 holy crap do I love bleach!! 1:29 wait...what is bleach again? 8:32 vizards and arrancar 20:32 what happens in hueco mundo, then? 26:28 the princess, the hero, the dark horse, the monster 27:26 orihime character analysis 34:41 ichigo character analysis 40:00 ishida character analysis 46:27 ulquiorra character analysis 55:22 the dome of las noches 59:43 the jugulators (a pointed digression) 1:07:52 these are monsters. they will fight as monsters. 1:19:10 goodbye, halcyon days