Bleach Volume 2
Licensed By: Manga Entertainment
Genre: Action Adventure
Episodes: 13-20
Drop in at any anime convention near you and you’ll not go two minutes without seeing a cosplayer galloping about in a black dressing gown waving their bankai around willy nilly.
Don’t regard these folks with a quizzical stare. They’re just cosplaying bleach style.
Bleach follows the story of Ichigo Kuroskai who, after becoming a shinigami or soul reaper, sets about taking on corrupted souls of the dead called hollow’s.
Bleach started life when it was featured in Shonen Jump in 2001, It was created by Tite Kubo, the creator of the less successful Zombie Powder. Given its enormous popularity Bleach spawned a series, presently (at the time of writing) up to episode 162 in Japan, movies, video games and even musical.
Volume 2 of Bleach covers episodes 13-20 of the series. Orohime’s own powers are revealed, Uryu proves he’s not a total douche bag and fan favourite Renji makes his first appearance along with captain Kuchiki. Most significantly, this all culminates with the gang setting off to the Soul Society to rescue Rukia from certain doom.
The character designs are easy on the eye with the girls looking suitably pert and the lads gloriously tall and bishi-esque. Unfortunately you wont be seeing some of the more flamboyantly designed characters this early on, but its well worth looking at future volumes of the Manga to see the many varied members of the Soul Society.
The openings and closings to the show are very slick and set you up well for each episode. However, although the themes are catchy some of the music within the show is a little on the cheesy side and if I hear that “Main Attraction” song once more, my ears may start to bleed.
The English audio cast is well produced with everything nicely synced up to promote enough diversity between characters. A lot of work has gone into making this a successful dub and it pays off, although I’m not totally sold on Urahara’s English dub and find the original Japanese performance far more satisfying to listen to.
Extras are scant, but it’s a nice novelty to have some production art to flick through and a few trailers to watch.
If your curious about the show that so many folks are into, then I would recommend picking up volume one to see what all the fuss is about, chances are you might find something you like about it, but give it your attention for a little while.
It’s a grower.
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