Bleach 22

Volume22 of Bleach, entitled “Conquistadores,” is early in the third story arch of the Bleach series. Rukia has since been saved andremained behind in the Soul Society while Ichigo and the others hadreturned to the living world. Now, I admit that I am horribly behindin the anime of Bleach, so most of my knowledge of the various storyarcs comes from reading Wikipedia.org to learn some of the new termsI was unfamiliar with. But previously to volume 22, the deputy SoulReapers ran into a new breed of Hollows—the Arrancar, who areHollows that have removed their masks in an effort to obtain thepowers of Soul Reapers as well as their own set of Hollow abilities.Not only that, but it was discovered that Ichigo is what was called a“Vizard,” a Soul Reaper with an inner Hollow.

In thisvolume Ichigo is desperately concerned for his soul as he feels hisinner Hollow growing stronger each passing breath. Not only that, butalso two Arrancar generals—Yammy and Ulquiorra—have appeared andvery nearly kill Chad and Orihime in their first few seconds oftouching down in the living world. Because of the frightful increaseof Arrancar appearances (a supposedly rare event), Rukia, Renji, andthe other Soul Reapers from previous storylines are sent to work withIchigo and the other deputies, as well as watch their backs. The SoulReapers have a tough time ahead of them to prepare for an all out warwith the Arrancar, now, who are lead by an ex-Soul Reaper namedSosuke Aizen and who is creating these super-evolved Hollows at analarming rate with an item called the Hogyoku. Everything becomes arace against time to prepare to defend both the world of the livingand the Soul Society itself.

Presentation:

Shonen Jumpgraphic novels (produced under Viz Media, LLC.) like Bleach tend tohave very simple covers. Bleach 22 sports just a simple illustrationof Ulquiorra, and the stylized typefaces and logos that are prevalentin the entire manga series. Tite Kubo’s artstyle, however, hasalways struck the right cords with me. So often in shonen series, theartwork is so overly developed or fight scenes are so complex that ittakes careful reading of each page to know what’s going on. Thecharacter design is aesthetic and fairly unique in a pop-culturewhere a lot of manga art tends to look so similar you can’t picksingular artists out. Kubo doesn’t not present this problem withhis art style. Along with the main bulk of the comic, little minicomics involving the character Kon are sketched out in between eachchapter as a small touch of comic relief in a book that is largelyserious. Another plus, is that at the very beginning of the bookthere is not only a brief summation of the basic story plot of theseries, but a small summation that catches you up to the story thusfar. I considered this to be a great asset since I’ve not made itpast the first story arc myself, so I was easily able to jump rightin and start reading.

Overall:

I considerBleach to be among the best of the popular manga series running rightnow. It does have your basic “Boy finds power, boy uses power, boygets uber strong” story theme that most shonen stories are knownfor, but what I like is that the series doesn’t throw it in yourface. It focuses more on the human aspect of the characters and theirdevelopment, rather than always be about the next big battle that’salways around the next page. It has a fast progression which keepsthe story moving along from the beginning of the book to the end.