Bleach, WTF?

[liralen]

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.

Comments

[helliongoddess.livejournal.com]

I thought it was explained way back that the Shinigami killed all (well, almost all) the Quincy over a difference of agreement over the whole balance of souls thing - the Shinigamis wanted to kill all the hollows to keep the balance of souls right, and the Quincies disagreed, they wanted to just extinguish the hollows completely. The shinigami decided they had to kill the Quincy since the Quincy refused to compromise about it, and the safety of the human world was at stake if the balance of souls wasn't maintained.

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..... >_> )

[incandescens]

That is certainly the accepted/received story for why the shinigami killed the Quincy.

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...