Bleach Vol. 6 Review

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              Led by Yoruichi, Ichigo and his team made up of Uryo, Chad and Orihime enter the Soul Society in order to save Rukia from execution. Upon arriving they will have to face a couple of obstacles to even enter the inner circle that holds Rukia including a giant Soul Reaper named Jidanbo and a gang leader named Ganju.

            In the end, all of their plans will instead rely on one person, a woman named Kukaku Shiba while Rukia is now down to just a few days remaining and others inside the Soul Society are whispering about conspiracy.

Good and the Bad

            As with previous volumes, this volume proves again that the characters are what makes this series special. Throughout these four episodes, established characters will get to show new sides to them and new characters will provide just the right amount of levity to keep the episodes moving.

            While Ganju was obviously entered to work as the set up to all of Kukaku's or Ichigo's one liners and abuse jokes, Kukaku feels like more than a simple two dimensional character. While her role in these episodes is small, her dialogue indicates a deeper person beyond the comedic exterior that will be interesting to see develop when she is brought back into the series later. Be sure to remember her.

            Speaking of remembering characters, the staff really does something cool on this volume by bringing back Yuichi, the little boy trapped inside Chad's parakeet from early in the series. I had honestly completely forgotten about Yuichi until he reappeared in this volume. Brought back for just the one episode, this was a great way to tie in earlier events to the present in order to develop Chad. So many things audiences are constantly forced to deal with new characters that have absolutely relevance to the story and have the sole purpose of developing an established character. It's really nice to see that this series didn't fall into the same old routine of ignoring the past in order to foreshadow the future.

            The dialogue and action in this volume unfortunately remain weak. The jokes are quite constant throughout this volume but all of them fall into the same verbal or deadpan visual comedy that we've come to expect from this series. The one bad thing about this story arc is that Rukia has been completely removed from the front line which means the writers have to insert other characters into the ‘straight man' role to Ichigo's punch lines. This doesn't always work but so far this volume has managed to fill in the gaps adequately.

            Seeing established characters get to open up a bit more really does a lot of things for this volume. In particular, Chad and Orihime are both going to get some great screen time on this volume. Chad gets his scene with Yuichi early in the volume which shows a new side to him that audiences are going to feel for. Orihime finally gets to bust out a little and show what she can do in battle situations which bring out completely new sides to her.

Music

            The music on this volume remains consistent with no drops in quality. None of the music on this volume particularly stood out. I actually can't even really pull any scenes out of my head to use as an example right now.              

Dub vs. Sub

            Both tracks are strong picks on this volume with Stephanie Sheh once again turning in a great performance as Orihime. Orihime has been starting to grow a little stale over the last couple of volumes with very little interesting happening to her. That makes the character busting out a little more on this volume that much more fun and Stephanie Sheh does a great job with the role during these episodes.

Extras

            Production art and clean animation.   

Overall

            Twenty four episodes in, I'm still finding myself interested in these characters and what happens to them next. I can't imagine that anyone who has watched this far into the series hasn't been sold on it yet but I know some people who weren't wild about the first story arc so if the series lost you early, this is another great chance to get back into it with minimal information to play catch up on.