![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Bleach, WTF?
Uhm. Right. I think that that is my general opinion as I'm catching up with the Bleach Manga as part of my preparation for Twin Souls. It does my heart some good to see a few things that we've done/planned for Winter War are backed up with what happens in canon, but... still... WTF?
I think I'm realizing that part of why I love One Piece so much is that Eiichiro Oda stays true to the characters and to the themes he sets from the very beginning. Every single HUGE REVEAL he's ever done fits into what has happened, characters don't do a 180 without some really solid visceral need/want/wish that stems from exactly what they've been all along. It's integral, it makes sense, and he sets the groundwork (or uses the stuff he DID to make up the new stuff in such a way that it *seems* like he set it all up to start) so early on that I can re-watch every episode AGAIN and go "Oh, wow, he knew THAT from this point HERE!!!"
All of which plays well with Robert McKee's idea of why the big reveal, that closing of the gap between what has happened and what caused it to happen, can be so darned satisfying and is kind of the gold at the end of the rainbow for storytellers. And why the unanchored/unconnected SURPRISE! can be so off-putting.
I think I'm realizing that part of why I love One Piece so much is that Eiichiro Oda stays true to the characters and to the themes he sets from the very beginning. Every single HUGE REVEAL he's ever done fits into what has happened, characters don't do a 180 without some really solid visceral need/want/wish that stems from exactly what they've been all along. It's integral, it makes sense, and he sets the groundwork (or uses the stuff he DID to make up the new stuff in such a way that it *seems* like he set it all up to start) so early on that I can re-watch every episode AGAIN and go "Oh, wow, he knew THAT from this point HERE!!!"
All of which plays well with Robert McKee's idea of why the big reveal, that closing of the gap between what has happened and what caused it to happen, can be so darned satisfying and is kind of the gold at the end of the rainbow for storytellers. And why the unanchored/unconnected SURPRISE! can be so off-putting.
no subject
OTOH... hm. It's not so much that there is no foreshadowing at all, or that there is lots of foreshadowing. But a number of background bits are now coming back to bite us with an unanticipated explanation that casts the whole thing in a much darker light. Why is it illegal to the point of a possible death penalty for shinigami to transfer their powers to the living? Why has Yamamoto always been by-the-book and legalism for as long as we have known him? Why has Ishida Ryuuken always wanted his son to give up being a Quincy? Why are people scared of Unohana? Why did the shinigami apparently kill all the Quincy?
no subject
It's frustrated me because there are so many other things I had hoped to see more of in the Seireitei - especially the Vaizards return and the remainder of the Arrancar and how those new personalities and their complexities coming into the scene would affect everything. It all seems a little haphazard and improvised, to the point that I'm surprised sometimes when he actually works it around to where the plot line actually connects back up with itself! And I have a feeling many of the unanswered questions about Unohana and Yamamoto will end up never being answered, either, which is kind of frustrating, too. (I'm just so relieved he seems to have toned down the whole quasi-Nazi thing with the Quincies - that was beginning to make me kind of squirm..... >_> )
no subject
I'm just wondering if it's necessarily the complete/true story. We've only had it from secondary sources (Ishida Uryuu, etc), after all...
no subject
True! There were some hints that those histories were there and those are excellent questions. Okay, and I'll admit to a very very sophomoric miffedness about being proven so very wrong with the entire tone of the Gotei 13's origins. *laughs*
Though, come to think of it, TK's Zombie Powder *started* in that very dark zone.
no subject
Have you seen the bit with Little Shunsui (aw so cute etc) talking with Yamamoto? If the events referenced were "back in the past" even when Shunsui was just a tiny little nipper, then they are really far back.
(Though it is harder to reconcile Unohana, I admit.)
no subject
I haven't seen that yet, and now I truly want to.
no subject