But I grew up on Mystery Science Theater 3000, so I have a high tolerance for painful movies. As bad as most live-action manga adaptions are, they aren’t as bad as Horrors of Spider Island, The Screaming Skull, and Track of the Moon Beast. I also promised myself I’d take more time to watch movies and relax (I’m a workaholic). I figured Bleach would be bad, but not the level of bad I am used to seeing.
I was wrong.
Bleach on Netflix was actually decent.
Now I won’t say it was good. It had the usual CG I’ve come to expect in manga adaptations. But the movie surprised me. Because of my background in computer animation (before I went into Library Science and computer programming) I am a computer graphics snob. In fact, I prefer practical effects over CG. I’ve been rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation, and I’m impressed with how well the effects hold up compared to CG from just a few years ago. I prefer CG when it is subtle or handled as in Shin Godzilla.
But the CG in Bleach worked. Hollows are supposed to look separate from the world, and the computer graphics achieves this. I could suspend my disbelief.
The film focuses on the Grand Fisher arc– the strongest arc of the series. The director manages to capture the urban chic of the anime. This pleased me. I always liked the urban feel of the anime, and I felt sad when it was mostly abandoned during the later story arcs. The urbanness made Bleach unique.
The action works well; it’s a fun romp. And the film plays up Ichigo and Rukia’s relationship. I can’t help it. I’ve always thought those two were best suited for each other in the story. Rukia understood Ichigo better than anyone else, and she shared experiences with him that no one else did. The film felt like Bleach, particularly during the action scenes. The anime featured a lot of destruction–which is in abundance here too. There are a few scenes with people who can’t see the Hollows or Ichigo. It’s a nice touch and mark some of my favorite scenes in the film. The film had the chic and attitude that the early seasons of the anime enjoyed. I think, perhaps, that is why I rather enjoyed it.
It’s hard for manga and anime to translate to live action. Some of it is because live action films have to rely on CG to achieve effects animation can hit with ease. This reliance can hurt immersion. It’s expensive for CG to appear seamless. Typically more subtle uses can work better, and most anime stories require more than subtle use. The Hollows in the Bleach film kinda work because they were supposed to be other-worldly. Rukia in her Soul Reaper form looked a little out of place and otherworldly too. So it worked.
The largest issue live action has is the suspension of disbelief. Manga and anime often have such outlandish stories that it makes it hard to suspend your disbelief. Animation works because it already breaks with reality. It makes it easier to accept magic, mecha, and similar mayhem. Live action films come with certain expectations built in. It takes a lot of world building for live action to achieve the level of suspension animation can achieve. The Lord of the Rings series provides a good example. By the time we see magic (at last magic in earnest) we’ve already been immersed with the details of the world. We are wrapped in a fantasy world. Anime stories like Bleach come too close to our modern world.
Anime also tends to fall into melodrama. The medium of manga makes subtlety difficult at times, and shonen stories aren’t known for subtle behavior. The medium reminds me of opera, and have you ever tried to watch opera on television? It just doesn’t translate well. Television primes your mind for certain types of performances. Opera’s drama and bombastic performances tends not to jive with expectations. At least it doesn’t for me. But the performances work on stage.
Likewise, anime’s performances just look awkward when actors and actresses attempt them. At the same time, fans of the series wouldn’t tolerate toning the story and performances down to fit live-action’s tone. I’ve spoken with many fans who get upset when a different story is tried.
Live action films have a more limited run time, which can help and hurt a story. In this film, the Grand Fisher arc felt a little rushed. In other stories, the compressed run time can help. The new Evangelion films provide a good example. It can force cuts to filler and unnecessary subplots that tangle stories. But this requires the movie’s team to risk alienating fans who want to see Don Kanonji in the flesh.
In any case, Bleach isn’t great, but it’s not terrible either. Low-end of the middle springs to my mind. I went in with the expectation that I would dislike it, but I ended the film with “huh, that wasn’t as bad as I thought.” Not exactly a glowing review, but think of the film as junk food. I watched it after a long, stressful day at work (yeah, libraries can be stressful at times–particularly when you are an introvert who has to split his attention too many ways). The film is just a fun helping of a visual Reeses candy bar.
I wrote about the Bleach movie too when I saw the film at Japan Society in NYC (the director was tehre too) over the summer. The crowd (mostly Bleach fans) was really into it. Even non-anime fans in the audience were intrigued.
I don’t know how familiar you are with Gintama, but that to me, is one of the better live-action adaptations. And the Rurouni Kenshin movies are still top. Both really paid attention to what made the series great, though I suppose the more grounded nature of each series made it possible to believe certain elements in their worlds can happen here.
What I find hilarious is that the 2 Gintama live-action movies made more money than any of the recent other live-action adaptations that are more popular in our side of the world (FMA, Tokyo Ghoul, Bleach, Jojo’s) in Japan.
I felt that Bleach was a simple action movie that appeals to casual fans. I do miss the early days of Bleach myself and it makes me wonder how popularity affects certain anime series compared to others.
I’ll have to give those live-action films a watch. The adaptions, much like Hollywood films now, rely too much on special effects. Lately, I find myself gravitating toward classic films. They had to rely on story instead of flash.
It saddens me to see so many stories go off the rails instead of ending at their peak.