Bleach: The Sealed Sword Frenzy

One word: Rushed. Seriously, this moved along waay to fast. I felt like it was over before it had properly started.

If I look away from that, this was... well, interesting. I kinda liked the main evil guy, but they didn't give us enough info on him. They also explained things rather poorly, leaving me to guess (alternately read on the Net) what really happened.

I was also mildly surprised, at least, to see Renji with a real gun. I was like "it's Bleach, not some kind of Western action movie!" And how could he fire his gun on a shinigami anyway? Oh, well.

I really liked the ... end, where we got to see almost all of the shinigami captains in real-world outfits. That was pretty cool, and a good plus. Thne theme they used at the end wasn't that, though.

As a whole, Bleach is an excellent anime, with excellent characters, good music, a moving plot, and thus you have a constant desire to find out what happens in the next episode. Everything, from the plot to the characters to the battles gets developed within an arc, which is about 25-30 episodes, give or take.

That's where the biggest inherent problem lies with The Sealed Sword Frenzy. What has to be done in this 25-minute OVA is start and develop a plot, introduce and develop a new villain, and have Ichigo fight and defeat said villain, something that usually takes an entire arc in ... the series.

As a result, the plot has to move quickly in order to get everything accomplished in 25 minutes, and as a result, plot and character development are extremely weak. It also doesn't help that the main villain gets next to no dialogue, but at least his motives are explained.

One can feel that the OVA was made on a strict budget, since the animation quality is at least 2 steps behind the anime series, and the battles extremely watered down, especially the result of Ichigo's first encounter with the villain. The only place where I felt the animators spent time with the art was in executing the villain's special attack in the final battle. And then the plot problem comes back. The problem of having to devote time to explain who the villain is and what his motive is, which makes the battles extremely short and disengaging. And since there is no plot development, the struggle between the two fighting sides isn't gritty and can barely be felt at all.

What exactly is the purpose of this OVA? It wasn't made to be a masterpiece and just uses the Bleach name to promote itself as a reason to watch it. I wouldn't say it's a complete waste of time, but if you choose to skip it, you're not missing much.

This short OVA could've been better developed in a movie format, extending the 33 minutes to an hour, maybe; it might've been funner.

The story is interesting, although it is poorly explained, and too rushed. The newly introduced character, Baishin, is kinda interesting although it's not too original. It reminded me multiple times of Zaraki, since he can barely feel the slashes other people do to him. He has some interesting, unexplained techniques, but his story remains somewhat in the shadows (the basics are explained but with very little details). The rest of the characters are developed just as they are in the series, except maybe ... in the comical scenes, where Renji is dressed up as a "cop", shooting bullets carelessly.

Art is just as good as the series, with very nice fight scenes and detailed characters and surroundings. Most of the sounds and songs, as well, are taken directly from the series; they're fine.

I must say that this short OVA made me laugh a couple of times (Zaraki's train-chasing was pretty funny), and entertained me overall. If you're already into Bleach, I'd say you should watch this OVA, specially if you're just now finishing the Soul Society arch in the series.

For more than half an hour of time at it's disposal, it proved pretty interesting and compact. That feeling was however a little disrupted by the exces Shinigami fit into this time-line, some of them not having any reason to be there in the first place (a good example being Zaraki who chases wild gooses from time to time in the anime). The "antagonist" is portraid rather good, but in practice he lacks most his qualities, "gains" out of nowhere new ones and proves too useless in the end. The atmosphere was however agreable and rather open, and the graphic very good. All in all, ... it deserves watching, even if just for the rather well made humouros scenes throught this "short movie".

STORY: 6

I have to say, the story left a lot to be desired. It seemed to cram in a whole lot into the short period of time that was alloted for the whole episode. Also, battle scenes lasted for a very short period of time, and one of the things I like about Bleach is the action scenes.

Also, the reason I picked up the OVA was because I was wondering how a few characters who hadn't met in the Anime actually knew each other, when I didn't recall them meeting. The OVA explains it, but the time line is messed up as there are certain ... things that get rearanged, but it IS an OVA, no? However, there is a big question of when would this have taken place in the time line... it really can't be awnsered.

ART: 7

This was a disapointment. The Bleach anime has more line quality then the OVA does. The shadows are scethced in with aditional lines. There is no leaving anything to different colors in the Anime. However, here... it is pretty much base color scheme for all of the art work.

On the side, there were a few perks. The special one time showing of the new character... let's just say, his design was very detailed. However, again... there was very little added shadowing that I have come to expect, at least by this time in the series.

CHARACTER: 10

This is what I think the OVA is worth watching for. It gives a tiny little bit more depth to all of the characters. Characters that weren't fleshed out, become more fleshed, and some of our favorite characters are given a nice twist to them.

ENJOYMENT: 9

I have to say, my favorite part of this was the humor, and the utter sillyness of this OVA. That is the other thing that it is worth watching for. It does a very good job of buidling up the humor here.

OVERALL: 7

It could have been definatly better. I was actually expecting something more then this, but it was rather... how to put it... rushed.

Bleach is a weird series, it has so many fans and way too little content, especially compared to the rest of the big three. Out of the only three OVA episodes, this one had it the most with the most boring and convoluted villain of the week that gets both introduced and nerfed in the same episode, somewhat, an analogy of what every unnecessarily long filler arc in the series should have been. Looking at you “The New Captain Amagai” arc.

The animation was inconsistent with what the quality of the art offered, the music is good but utilized badly, sometimes not matching the tone of ... the scenes they were layered on top of. However the comedy was nailed, Renji handling a shotgun at the beginning is now one of the comedic highlights of the entire series.

Bleach OVA: The Sealed Sword Frenzy is just a silly 32 minute special where a guy named Baishin undoes his seal and needs to be either killed or resealed.

While it can be considered an extended filler episode, it has its merits. That being the humor. Despite being portrayed as something very serious, the silliness that was missing in Bleach after the first arc can be seen such as using the lack of understanding of Renji and Rukia about the living world and how Ichigo or others react to it.

A lot of characters are involved mainly just because. Unlike in the movies, there is no massive ... Bankai spam. In total only 3 Bankais are released but only 2 mattered for the story.

The fight against Baishin is entertaining somewhat, certainly more than most Bleach movie fights.

Criticism is that some characters have some plot induced stupidity by not doing the obvious. There is also a massive inconsistency in power jumps like between Ichigo's Shikai to his Bankai compared to other characters. Also the fact there is another enemy that can summon hollows for some reason especially when there is no hint justifying for such ability to exist. Also there is a scene where Rukia in her Shinigami form tries to lead human to safety which is hilarious knowing she is invisible to them.
Finally Baishin's implied motivation why he does what he does makes no sense as we can't sympathise why he wants what he wants.

If you like early Bleach humor, it is definitively worth a watch. Otherwise don't expect too much. The concept of what Baishin is, is also interesting and hasn't been done in Bleach before or after.