Woady Reviews Anime: Bleach the Movie: Hell Verse

So in today's addition of Woady Reviews anime we have Bleach the Movie: Hell Verse. For people who don't know Bleach is the story of Ichigo Kurosaki a boy who one days becomes a substitute soul reaper and must battle hollows. There's more to the story of Bleach but that's a thread for another day really. Today I want to look at the final Bleach movie, Hell Verse.

Hell Verse tells the tale of the Ichigo who must venture into Hell to save his little sister Yuzu from a group of Sinners that have kidnapped her. A Sinner can't leave hell but is instead killed over and over again by the guards or Kushanada. The Sinners need Ichigo to destroy the gates of Hell so they can be free of their chains, kidnapping Yuzu is there way of blackmailing Ichigo into doing it.

Hell Verse is a pretty entertaining and decent film in its own right. Not the worst Bleach movie (have to double check which one that is) but not the best (Memories of Nobody in my opinion). It's got great action scenes and is animated very well. It's also a bit more on the violent side of things for Bleach. A fair amount of limb chopping, blood, and even a skeleton that regrows its skin is shown throughout the movie. The battles between Ichigo and his friends against the Sinners were a lot of fun to watch. The Sinners themselves were pretty cool characters in regards to art style and powers. From the gluttonous Taikon to the tentacles for arms, Gunjo we have unique people in a world full of them. The movie was great until we get to the final moments of the film.

Bleach unfortunately falls into the "Shonen Trap". Which is basically where the writers come up with an out of the blue power we have never seen before to defeat the bad guy of the film. This isn't necessarily a bad thing if executed right. Like in the Dragonball Z movie, Fusion Reborn, Goku and Vegeta do a fusion dance to defeat Janemba. This isn't completely out of left field because we know the fusion dance exists in the show because of Gotenks. Where Bleach fails is because Ichigo gains a power from the aforementioned Kushanada to defeat our villain. The Kushanada and even Hell its self is never seen in the actual show. This is really my only gripe with the film in general. Though I do wish the more "emotional moment" of the film was kept the way it was originally and not how it actually ends up.

Bleach the Movie Hell Verse is an entertaining movie with great action and cool set pieces. That just falls a little flat towards the end by using the Shonen Trap plot device. All in and all the movie is worth a watch for fans of the manga and anime.

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