Bleach

I happened to find the live action movie "Bleach" on Netflix. But I am only familiar with the franchise by its name, as I haven't read the anime, nor have I watched any of the animations. So I sat down to watch "Bleach" with a blank canvas left open to impressions, so to speak.

And not being familiar with the franchise, I have no idea how true the movie is to the animations or anime in general. So I will not even venture there.

I found "Bleach" to be entertaining enough for what it turned out to be. Sure, it had some shortcomings, but it was an overly entertaining enough movie.

The storyline was nice and quite straight forward. It required very little attention from the audience actually to stay up to speed with the movie. Perhaps it was a little bit too simplistic and streamlined. But hey, it made for adequate entertainment, which is why we watch movies after all.

I liked the characters - well most of them anyway. I think they had a good ensemble of actors and actresses to portray the individual characters on the screen.

The CGI in the movie was actually quite good, and that was something that I was really impressed with. Because for a movie such as this, CGI was a make or break situation. Luckily they opted to throw cash into proper CGI and the result was fantastic. They had some great creature designs and the creatures looked very realistic and actually turned out menacing on the screen.

One of the drawbacks of the movie was the music they had in it. It felt somewhat out of place given the presentation and mood of the movie. But music can easily be tuned out, so it wasn't something that dragged the movie down.

Has this 2018 live action movie placed a seed in me that urges me to start delving into the anime or animations? No, not really. It was a good movie, good but not fantastic.

Personally I don't really understand the title of the movie and franchise; "Bleach". It made absolutely no sense to me, and it wasn't explained throughout the course of this 2018 movie.

Taking into account how much live action movies based on manga have disappointed me in the past, I came into "Bleach" with low expectations (probably not the only one). However, this movie adaptation is funny, with acceptable action set pieces and relatable characters (on top of not stretching its running time endlessly and pointlessly (even if it falls a little bit into this trap in its third act)). And, even if you don't know anything about the manga, it is easy to jump into the story, as the movie does a great job of introducing the world and building it up from scratch. Totally worth watching!

The movie focused on the 1st arc of the anime-- it remained loyal to the story, but changed some things too, so there's something to look forward to. Acting was not that great, but decent. Some plot holes and underutilized characters, but those can be forgiven. However those who haven't watched the anime / read the manga will have difficulty in understanding certain parts of the story because some of the explanations were incomplete (I think the writers assume viewers should have at least watched the anime already before watching the movie). When I first saw the trailer months back, I was worried that the CGI will be disappointing, but I was wrong. CGI was excellent and the hollows were awesome! This is a must watch for anime / manga fans!

For a 'Live-Action' adaption from an anime-series, it was in my opinion a very well made movie contrary to my expectations.

Many movie adaptions, be they from games of animes, usually leave me dissapointed. This mainly while they can never really translate the story or feeling behind the original work as well on the big screen. Which made me very dubious about the quality this movie would be when I spotted it on Netflix today.

While Bleach (the movie) is not a cinematic master-piece like 'The Shawshank Redemption, or any other Hollywood movie in that regard, it should actually not be compared to those standards. While Bleach is a 'from-anime-to-movie'-adaption, it had me very sceptical at first. Those doubts where quickly expelled a few minutes in, when I really became engrossed and decided to grab a bag of popcorn to watch it with.

The story and characters were believable, and the typical japanese over-dramatical acting kept to a minimum. The movie tried to put about a seasons worth of anime into roughly two-hours of movie, and I got to say they did it quite well! Within the time constraints a movie is expected to last, and the budget they had available, I can positively say that this is the best movie-adaption of an anime-series I have seen to date.

This may not be the most enjoyable movie for those wanting realism, expecting a cinematic master-piece (or perfect copy/paste of the animes plot), or generally not into asian/anime-themed plots. Everyone else I would definitely recommend giving it a try, and seeing it for yourselves!

This is my first time to write a movie review. Note that I have read/watched all chapters/episodes of Bleach before I watch this movie.

Let's be honest, everything in this movie is excellent in terms of live action adaptation! CGI of the special effects are done very well (the Hollows are too!). But of course there's no such thing as perfection out there especially when we are talking about anime live action movie. I can only complain two things here.

The portrayal of Byakuya and Renji, I think they could be way much better, especially at their hair style. The last from me, and one of the most important aspects of movie success, is the music. Throughout the entire movie, I don't feel the big hype with the music as much as when I'm watching the anime. I really hope they will bring some aspects from the anime OST to the sequel and that will be a huge yes from me!

7.5/10 👏