Bleach Movie 1: Memories of Nobody

This is the first Bleach movie and I must say it ended up being better than I expected. As far as movies go, you can of course expect far better production values and flashier battles. Yet it has something more than just an excuse for a parade of special attacks. It is by all means nothing more than a filler mission but it had a metaphysical aspect that went beyond the simple plot of “Let’s save Soul Society for the millionth time”.

First of all, if you haven’t watched any episodes, stay away from the movie. You won’t understand the new twist to the cosmology of ... the setting without prior knowledge of the general story and cast. Plus, the action may mislead you, as it hardly gets so good in the series.

Second, if you do know of the series and go for this movie, chances are you watch Bleach just for the battles as neither the story nor the characters are deeper than a rain pond. Still, the main idea behind the Blanks and the Memory Rosary are very good as an extra aspect of the otherwise simplified and polarized good souls – bad souls and it would be quite catchy if they had it inserted in the main story from the beginning. It would leave room for side stories in the Valley of Screams and excuse a lot better those out of place fillers. Too bad they didn’t.

Animation and sound wise, the movie is very good. It uses cinematics, greater than those in the initial episodes (how do I miss those) and makes the story to look dramatic, like a good samurai movie. The level of lining detail is more or less the same, though there is a higher plethora of colors and a much lower amount of static images and repeating frames. I must say that as far as atmosphere in a title like Bleach goes, the movie did a wonderful job.

Of course, most will not care about this as much as the action part. Yes, there is action and it generally good. If you are into superpower battles, you will not be disappointed. Still, don’t expect any realism or decent choreography, as the whole deal was, and still is, just people yelling the names of their attacks and then their swords magically change shapes and spit all sorts of elemental spells. Thunders and lightings fill the screen and buildings crumble and dimensions merge. Still, the showdown was very disappointing as the villains in the story weren’t much of a threat in close combat and only their run-of-the-mill “Let’s destroy Soul Society from afar” plan was their only slight change of winning.

What else… Ah, yes; voice acting. Can’t say it was any better than in the series. It is still mostly one-liners and yelling of the names of transforming swords and spells. The dramatic tension is almost lost because of all that. Thank goodness there were some semi-psychological dialogues around existentialism issues that saved the movie from complete boredom. I never say no to some intellectual flavoring to a fighting shounen.

The characters are, as expected, more shallow and uninteresting than in the series. Not by too much though, as all of us who know of Bleach are aware that there was never much meat around those bones to begin with. It is a filler movie and you get nothing extra, other than seeing all the captains attack and do a cameo parade of special attacks before Ichigo storms in and saves the day in the same fashion as always. The movie villains were all talk and no personality. Unless you consider a “kill everyone as revenge” attitude as personality. Senna on the other hand was quite an interesting character, both as a girl fooling around the serious Ichigo but also as a character with issues around the meaning of life and being. I actually sympathized with her more than almost anyone else in the whole series.

The story has a simple and expected plot. Soul Society is in danger; Ichigo to the rescue, everyone fights the minions and lets the lead take on the boss. But the main idea behind the otherwise simple plot was very interesting. Imagine being given a bunch of memories, not of your own. Are you a different person than before because of them? Are your thoughts the thing that defines your soul? Great food for the mind although it is not really looked upon and you’d probably care more about the battles than this issue. Still, the story overall is quite weak as you hardly believe these Nobodies (literally speaking) were actually a real threat for the captains of Soul Society, with their imba cannon and their imba bankais and the imba lead on their side. By the way, everybody was just trying to deal with the villains that were created by the very misdoings of their leaders and no one seemed to think how getting rid of their scheming leaders would stop bringing their world to the brink of destruction every 2 months. Not to forget to mention that once again Ichigo was fighting to save a chick and not to save the world. Somebody needs to explain to him one day that a random chick he has no real interest in is less important than the rest of the world.

Value and enjoyment ain’t much. I lost interest in shounen that are nothing more than brainless action and lame attempts at drama. There are far more interesting shounen, as there are far more dramatic and realistic samurai movies. So this movie is more or less a quick watch without something to remember it for.

Story: The story is basically about two worlds ending, and its up to Ichigo and co to stop it from happening. Basically, this is an hour and a half filler episode that has some of the same old recycled stuff from any other shounen jump filler. Also, the fight scenes weren't very good either, which is basically what anyone watches Bleach for in the first place, right?

Art: The animation was nice, nothing amazing, but it was better than the tv show which is to be expected.

Sound: It was great hearing "Number one" again, and the ending theme song was pretty awesome too.

Character: Same characters ... from the show along with the stereotypical anime filler villains.

Enjoyment: Hardcore Bleach fans will enjoy this, but for the casual Bleach fan like myself, you'll probably get bored and just want it to end.

Overall: Meh, If you're a hardcore fan, you'll check it out regardless, but if you're just a casual fan, your time is better spent watching something by Miyazaki, Kon, or Shinkai rather than this long, drawn out filler episode in movie form.

One of the things that struck me at point while watching this movie was that certain scenes had very...mediocre animation quality. Overall, it's a pretty good story, your typical characters, though a lot of them get very superficial screen time, but my one major gripe about it is that, being a movie it *CANNOT* interfere with the main plot, and thus they had to pull a "it was all a dream" - style ending. (Sorry if that spoils it, but if you thought ahead you'd realize it had to be the case) Since you know that, you can sort of figure out a few main ... plot points before things even begin.

From this point of view, if you're a Bleach watcher, there is zero room for character development, or really any kid of new information/ability that will be in any way pertinent in the future. If you haven't watched Bleach, well, not sure why you'd want to watch this, you would basically get the idea I suppose, but you probably wouldn't appreciate it nearly as much, and if you have watched Bleach you might end up a little frustrated like me with the inability for any meaningful development.

The overall rating being lower is more or less a reflection of my irritation towards the "OMG we don't remember anything" part of it.

I found myself heavily critiquing this movie the whole way through. I enjoyed the plot, even though it was predictable. It kept me hooked enough to want to finish the movie.

My main issue was the fact that the characters involved seemed to be lacking substance. I feel like some of the characters were just thrown in there just because they've been in the series and not because they had any relevance to the chain of events in the story. Other characters just didn't have enough of a role for them to stick out in my mind. Granted the movie is about 01:40ish long, I ... think the characters could have been better portrayed.

The music wasn't bad--although I would leave out that song that talks about being the center of attraction--I just think the vibe clashes with the action going on, it seems too up beat for taking down a hollow in the middle of town--but I also think the same thing when I hear it in the anime...

Over all it was a decent movie. It wasn't the greatest hour and a half of my life, but it did provide me more time with the beloved Bleach characters before starting on the Bount Arc.

Reminds me of a fan-fiction. The characters were all oversimplified, the plot is nothing special and although the fight scenes were decent, I can't really take this movie seriously. Not a fan of this one

In more detail:
- The story was alright, but nothing to ride home about. It also seemed to me like the movie took no risks and played it safe.

- Like I said, the characters are the biggest issue I have with the movie. All the characters were oversimplified and became caricatures of what they are in the original series, but Ichigo's personality in particular was reduced to him screaming "SENNA!" for an ... hour and a half straight. By the way, senna was generally acceptable

-The soundtrack is a good as you would expect from bleach. It's one of the movie's few redeeming qualities.

- The animation is well... mediocre. It's not bad, but most bleach movie's animation is very bland for some reason, which is a shame when considering the fact that Bleach is widely regarded as one of the anime with the best animation of it's time.

- The fight scenes are decent. Though short, I enjoyed most of them and thus, the movie didn't feel like a waste of time.

Bleach Movie 1 Memories of Nobody is a movie that you can watch immediately after the Soul Society arc in the Bleach manga and right after the Bount arc in the Bleach anime, being the first exposer to Rukia's Zanpakuto. It is the only Bleach movie that can fit into the main continuity without much trouble.
The story is about the worlds about to be destroyed by the enemies called the DARK ONES. Some of the blandest antagonists you will see in Bleach and can be a total turn off for people that are interested in a well written antagonist with a deep backstory. However, they ... do have justification for what they do even if not the smallest effort was put for use to care about them.

On the contrary we have Senna and the story is focusing on who she really is as she has Shinigami powers and a named Zanpakuto. That is the only remotely interesting part of the movie and there is no surprise that non of the DARK ONES made it into video games but Senna did.

Ichigo in this movie takes the role as her guard protecting her from the DARK ONES and Soul Society because that is Ichigo for you. In the movies he is always the character who does and says the right thing while the other characters are just following orders or their selfish desires.

Senna is a playful self-centered girl but cares about finding the truth about herself. Not because she has amnesia, thank god. The movie takes a lot of time exploring her personality, her desires and fears. It will make you believe she needs to be protected.

As for other characters, Urahara does the usual helping out thing. The other main cast members are usually shafted with Orihime only healing once after the battle. Like most Bleach movies it focuses on the Shinigami doing the fighting. And let me tell you there are a bunch of Shinigami eating up screentime with their Zanpakuto releases and BANKAI.
Speaking of fights, they were rather mediocre. Soifon got the best treatment of all Bleach movies in this one by not making her look like an amateur. Some enemies used their energy sources they intend to destroy the worlds with in a clever way in some fight, for example the guy who fights Toshiro Hitsugaya. But that is as far as the compliment goes simply because like in all Bleach movies the Captains just slaughter the opposition with almost no effort.
Some of the enemies weapons are also uber lame and aren't used in an interesting way to make up for the lack of interesting powers.

Overall this movie is the weakest Bleach movie. Senna is the only thing that is interesting but the antagonist don't feel as dangerous as they should since the high tier shinigami are around. If you want to see where the truth about Senna lies, you may enjoy this story and the ending will be hitting you hard emotionally. If you looking for an action packed Bleach movie with interesting antagonists and killer visuals you might want to skip that. Especially if you aren't a fan of Bleach filler since this movie feels like an extended filler episode than a movie.