Back when I was a wee young Starfish and I was studying at university, I binged on anime on my free time…..and when I wasn’t singing karaoke at the local uni bar! Naruto, original and Shippuuden, Fullmetal Alchemist, Death Note, I also started to watch a weird one (which I know is a funny thing to say when it comes to anime) where a female ninja would steal other women’s breast size and add it to her own……….yes……..back to topic, one of my favourite anime series was Bleach.
With the recent boom of live action movies based on anime, we have had two popular franchises made for Netflix, one being Death Note, the other Fullmetal Alchemist. Bleach is the most recent installment, and having only watched Death Note, I feel that Bleach has made a better step into live action based on anime.
The movie focuses on the two main story points from the first series of the anime, the main character, Ichigo Kurosaki receiving soul reaper powers from soul reaper Rukia Kuchiki after an attack from a hollow, and Ichigo coming to terms with the death of his mother. This movie definitely sets itself up as a “one and done” movie, not hinting at a sequel considering the wealthy story that can be found in the entire run of the anime Bleach, but with subtle changes to certain aspects of the story, the movie still maintains the fun aspects of the anime as well as the major story beats and characterization. Certain smaller story points were abandoned to give more room to the main story which was brilliant and I personally feel the appearance of every character was spot on! as well as the battles which were absolutely amazing.
Sota Fukushi plays Ichigo Kurosaki and hits the character brilliantly, showing the anger and aloof style, while also being physically funny along with the comedy the anime normally has. We also have Hana Sugisaki as Rukia Kuchiki, the chemistry between Fukushi and Sugisaki is wonderful and really captured the respect and friendship that Ichigo and Rukia have. With smaller roles Chad, Orihime, Kisuke and Ishida being played by Yú Koyanagi, Erina Mano, Seiichi Tanabe and Ryo Yoshizawa respectively. As well as appearances from Miyavi as Byakuya Kuchiki and Taichi Saotome as Renji Abarai who are amazing with their roles and look incredibly menacing.
Now I personally don’t see many bleach cosplayers anymore, you see the odd Ichigo Bankai now and then but I would love to see a full Bleach group, complete with team captains, bankais and all! I would also love to see some full scale hollows! In the same way you can use stilts for Thanos and Groot, you could use all kinds of material to make the body, and even if you want to do a normal sized one you can still have fun with that. You could even have fun with an original design for the masks that hollows wear. There was once the idea that I wanted to do a Chad cosplay, where he had both his power arms. Hopefully with this movie, we might see a resurgence. Netflix have hit a good beat with the Bleach movie so from here, it would be good to see them stick to the original source like they have with other anime! I look forward to the live action One Punch Man movie!