But it can be argued that Netflix isn't trying to market to the hardcore anime community with this strategy. It could very well be possible that Netflix is just trying to buff up their library with shows that they see as worthwhile and are trying to sell them to a more casual audience. And there's value in that. Aiming for mass appeal can lead to the introduction of a whole group of fans, and I'm always okay with more anime fans. But you know what isn't a good way to bring in new anime fans? Live action adaptations that just fail to capture anything that makes the source material great. Fullmetal Alchemist and Death Note have already suffered the wrath of live action Netflix, and recently Bleach has been added to their ranks. So, the question becomes, does Netflix's Bleach break the cycle and actually turn out to be pretty good, or does it fall flat on its face and join the pile of corpses.
First of all, you already know what I think about Netflix's Bleach. It's right up there in the title. I personally like it, but it's a bit of a mess and ultimately, I think it fails to live up to the source material. And honestly, what we got was probably the best possible result. Historically, live action adaptations of anime, whether made in Japan like Mob Psycho 100 and Fullmetal Alchemist or in the west like Dragon Ball Evolution and Netflix's Death Note, have been pretty bad. While there are exceptions, like the western Speed Racer movie and the live action Ace Attorney movie in Japan, live action anime adaptations play out as either an incoherent highlight reel of the anime or a bizarre fanfiction that needlessly changes characterization and ignores the themes that made the source material resonate with audiences in the first place.
Netflix's Bleach (which I will refer to as Bleachflix from now on, because I'm gonna be talking about the original source material a lot in a minute and I want to keep things simple), is more of the incoherent highlight reel variety, but the difference here is that I feel that there is real effort being put in here. Netflix's Death Note and Fullmetal Alchemist were cynical cash grabs that focused more on creating good trailer footage than making a good movie. Fullmetal Alchemist in particular picks up a bunch of random moments from the manga and tries to tell a story with them without any consideration for how those moments connect together or what they mean in the greater thematic sense. Father Cornello's deception, Nina's tragedy, Alphonse's identity crisis, and the undead army are all great moments in the manga, but having them play out one after the other in the anime and skipping over the huge amount of story moments in between just makes no sense. Bleachflix doesn't fall into that trap. Bleachflix focuses on a single story arc at the beginning of the manga and tries to distill eight and a half hours of anime into just under two hours of movie. It has its problems, to be sure, but it doesn't fail because it tries to do too much. Bleachflix shows restraint in its pursuit of trying to make a truly good movie, which is something that can only come from a real appreciation of the source material.
You know what else shows appreciation for the source material? The aesthetics of the movie. The costumes are high quality and are always true to the source material. While extreme hair colors and styles don't always translate (Orihime, Yuzu, and Renji suffer in this regard), outfits are almost always translated perfectly. The overall color palette is a bit different, with realistic muted colors taking place of the poppy, irreverent tone of meshing traditional Japanese costumes and settings with bright colors and strange monsters, but since the film adapts the Substitute Soul Reaper arc, which takes place entirely in the real world before moving into the fantastical settings of the Soul Society and Hueco Mundo, it feels appropriate. What does fail to translate perfectly is a few of the props. Ichigo's sword and Uryu's bow come close to their original designs, but they still are noticeably different-looking to fans of the original like myself. But that's a minor complaint in the grand scheme of things, and it's worth it since the Hollows look so good.
Bleachflix also tries to do something interesting with its presentation in the beginning scenes of the movie. Instead of presenting itself as a clash between the modern teen culture of the human world, the traditional Japanese culture of the Soul Society, and the strange alien world of Hueco Mundo (which I would argue is the whole appeal of Bleach as a property in the first place), Bleachflix presents itself as a cheesy monster movie that wouldn't feel out of place in an old-school drive-in or on a shelf of low budget direct-to-video movies. Ichigo and Rukia are introduced with big text screens that show their names and their character traits like it's a House of the Dead game. Ichigo's punk personality is played over the top to the point of near hilarity, the Hollows moan like giant zombies and talk about how they're gonna "eat your soul" near constantly, and Orihime fantasizes about Ichigo so much that we get a quick montage of him looking like a glamour model posing for the camera. And battle scenes are set to a hilarious rap that reminds us to drink our milk (I swear I'm not making this up.). The portion of the movie that covers the first episode in the anime sets us up for a fun ride where kids with samurai swords fight giant monsters.
And then, the rest of the movie happens. And in order to talk about how Bleachflix fails to live up to either its source material or its opening scenes, I have to spoil both the Bleach manga/anime and Bleachflix. You have been warned.
| Here's a picture to give you a chance to avoid seeing spoilers. |
Bleachflix adapts the first episode of Bleach almost perfectly. Aside from a flashback from a later episode to set up the main Hollow of the movie, it starts with Ichigo beating up some guys as a response to them knocking over an offering left for a child who died on that street. The scene also introduces the idea that Ichigo can see ghosts, and that this instilled a sense of empathy that led him to fight on behalf of them. Bleachflix also takes advantage of this scene to introduce Ichigo's friend Chad early, having him take out a thug that tries to hit Ichigo when his back is turned. This is a good way to set up an important character, but Chad (and later Orihime) just stays in the background and fails to make a real impact in the story. We then see Ichigo go home, learn about his family, and then he runs into Rukia in his bedroom. Rukia is surprised that Ichigo can see a Soul Reaper like her, they chat about ghosts and Soul Reapers, and then a Hollow appears and attacks Ichigo's sisters. Ichigo and Rukia run after the Hollow, Rukia is wounded, and, in desperation, Rukia gives Ichigo her Soul Reaper powers and Ichigo kills the Hollow.
We then cut to the next day and Rukia has erased the memories of Ichigo's father and sisters. Ichigo shrugs it off and heads to school, wondering if he dreamed up Rukia and the Hollow. But then, after interacting with his friends Keigo (who is portrayed perfectly for such a minor character that could have easily been cut), Orihime, and Tatsuki, he sees Rukia in a school uniform, passing herself off as a transfer student. She holds up his textbook, which has a note written in it that says, "Make a scene and you're dead!", and the two head up to the school roof to chat in private. Here, Rukia explains that she cannot return to her home in the Soul Society while Ichigo has her powers. She's hiding out in the human world in a faux human body for the moment and she's at the school so she can get her powers back. Because we need a movie, however, it turns out that Ichigo's body isn't strong enough to handle a transfer of power yet, and thus Rukia decides to train him as a Soul Reaper and have him fight in her stead until such a time that he can give the power back to her. Ichigo isn't interested, though, and blows her off.
This is a major departure from the manga. There, Rukia knew that her old power would naturally return to her over time and that she needed the faux human body to survive in the meantime. Since passing on Soul Reaper powers to humans is a crime punishable by death in the Soul Society (which also applies in Bleachflix, but we'll get to that later), she asks Ichigo to fight Hollows in her stead so that she can pretend like nothing has changed and not arouse the suspicions of her superiors. Ichigo refuses at first like in Bleachflix, but he changes his mind pretty quickly due to a combination of his desire to protect his family and his feeling of obligation after Rukia saved his life the night beforehand. But I can still understand the motivation behind making this change. Rukia's powers do not return to her fully until several arcs later in the manga due to the interference of characters that do not appear in Bleachflix proper, so changing the situation to Ichigo accidentally taking away her powers permanently can prevent the sense that the story has a plot hole to anyone watching without any knowledge of the source material.
From this point on, Bleachflix completely abandons the idea of presenting itself as a trashy direct-to-video type monster movie and plays everything straight and serious, often leaving scenes sterile and without personality. We continue with the back and forth between Ichigo and Rukia arguing about training for some time until fellow Soul Reaper Renji appears and ambushes Ichigo in the middle of the night. Renji asks Ichigo where Rukia is, explaining that she was sent to battle a Hollow named Grand Fisher that had evaded the Soul Society for over fifty years but that her spiritual energy disappeared after battling a different Hollow. Soon afterward, the Soul Society detected Ichigo's newfound power, and concluded that he might have somehow taken her powers, and Renji had been sent to investigate. Ichigo plays dumb and denies knowing anything about the situation, and Renji then attacks him, only to be driven off by a mysterious archer.
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| Renji, what did they do to your hair? |
This scene is wholly original to Bleachflix. Renji (and Byakuya, who comes in later) doesn't arrive in the manga until the very end of this arc, and introducing him this early only serves the purpose of introducing what will become this movie's central conflict: Rukia's conflicting loyalties between the Soul Society and her newly-forming bond with Ichigo. But that conflict comes in later, so we'll address it then. What is worth noting, though, is that because Ichigo hasn't agreed to become a substitute Soul Reaper in Bleachflix, we skip over his early adventures that develop his skills as a combatant, his bond with Rukia, and his relationship with supporting characters and future allies Chad and Orihime. This scene is a microcosm of Bleachflix's biggest flaw. In an admirable effort to condense a full story arc into a feature length film that still flows as a coherent story while still covering the important plot points (Ichigo becomes a Soul Reaper, Ichigo fights Hollows, Ichigo fights Soul Reapers, Rukia sacrifices herself for him), Ichigo loses his personality and his character development is skipped. Instead of growing over the course of the story, Ichigo becomes a blank slate that exists just to fight monsters and push the story forward.
Moving on, after Ichigo tries and fails to get the truth out of Rukia, he gets approached at school the next day by a classmate who claims to know that he is a Soul Reaper. The two boys go to the roof and the classmate introduces himself as Uryu, a member of a the Quincy tribe of humans who fight Hollows with spirit infused arrows. Ichigo realizes that Uryu was the archer who saved him from Renji, but Uryu denies this, explaining that he was trying to kill Renji out of a desire for revenge, because Soul Reapers massacred his tribe. Uryu challenges Ichigo to a challenge to prove the Quincy's superiority over Soul Reapers. By releasing special Hollow bait, Uryu summons a horde of Hollows and declares that whoever kills the most Hollows wins.
Aside from Uryu rescuing Ichigo from Renji, which we already established as original to Bleachflix, Uryu's introduction is mostly the same in both the film and the manga. All that is missing from this scene is the context as to why the Soul Reapers massacred the Quincies in the first place. As it turns out, Soul Reapers use their special swords to purify the darkness in Hollows' souls and give the spirits peace while Quincies use their special bows to utterly destroy the Hollows, as if they've never existed. The Quincy method, it turns out, throws the balance in the spirit world into disarray and threatens to have unspecified, world-shattering consequences. Failing to convince the Quincies that their method is dangerous, the Soul Reapers are forced to kill all the Quincies instead, leaving Uryu to feel hatred and want to declare revenge. Leaving out this context doesn't matter much in terms of this film, but if Bleachflix plans to release sequels covering later arcs can create narrative problems further down the line.
In fairness to Uryu, he doesn't relay this information about the conflict between the Quincies and the Soul Reapers to Ichigo. Rukia does instead. And, as it turns out, Rukia's own second-hand account of the events isn't entirely accurate, and the true story presented WAY later in the manga shows that both sides are at fault.
After Uryu releases the Hollow bait in Bleachflix, Rukia runs up to Ichigo and shouts that Hollows are on the move. Ignoring Ichigo's protests, she drags him to a park where a Hollow is chasing the child ghost from the beginning of the movie. Spurred on by his compassion for a child that he already had a connection with, Ichigo springs into action and fights the Hollow. The Hollow gains the upper hand and is about to kill Ichigo, only for Renji and his superior Byakuya (who is Rukia's strict older brother) to arrive and dispatch the Hollow with ease. After a quick clash with Ichigo, Renji asks Rukia why she hasn't just taken her powers back from Ichigo and save herself the trouble of getting executed. Rukia explains that Ichigo would die if she does so, and Byakuya essentially shrugs and says that it doesn't matter, since the law is absolute. Only by taking her powers back can Rukia be spared. Rukia refuses and the two Soul Reapers give her an ultimatum to either kill Ichigo or accept her execution, giving her only a few days to think it over. Then, leaving Ichigo lying on the ground, barely alive, Renji and Byakuya walk off to eliminate the Hollow horde, implying that it would be a matter of ease to them.
This is probably the most infuriating scene in all of Bleachflix. The horde of Hollows summoned by Uryu sets up a series of episodes as Ichigo and his friends deal with them. As Ichigo and Uryu each fight Hollows, Chad and Orihime, who have both had episodes where they were targeted by Hollows and rescued by Ichigo earlier that Bleachflix skips over, have their own inner powers awaken as they battle against Hollows that threaten others around them. These powers only manifest because of their close proximity to Ichigo, whose overwhelming power is so strong that it spills out of his body and into theirs. Eventually, this mini-arc culminates with the arrival of a Hollow, known as a Menos Grande, too powerful for either Ichigo or Uryu to handle on their own. The two boys are forced to put their differences aside and work together to defeat the Menos Grande. This event is what gets the attention of the Soul Society in the first place and what leads Renji and Byakuya to come to the human world to look for Rukia. The Hollow horde competition is a culmination of Ichigo's introductory arc, the beginning of new arcs for his human friends (Chad, Orihime, and Uryu), and a natural transitional point for the series to move from the Substitute Soul Reaper arc to the Soul Society arc. It's an important turning point in the early Bleach manga, and Bleachflix completely fumbles it in its admirable attempt to streamline the story and keep Renji and Byakuya from coming out of nowhere at the end of the film.
There's one more problem with this scene as well. Ichigo is pathetic now. Instead of being strong enough to defeat basic Hollows, now he needs to be rescued constantly. The only Hollow encounter he survives without outside interference in the entire movie is the very first one at the beginning of the movie. Instead of growing as a character, he regresses and appears to be weaker even when the movie insists that he's stronger, until the very end where he suddenly becomes Renji's equal (who is stronger than Rukia in both the movie and the manga) in combat.
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| And Byakuya doesn't even look threatening or slightly angry at Rukia. He looks bored. But that's an acting issue. |
Remember Grand Fisher? I almost forgot about him when watching this movie, and Bleachflix was trying to hype him up at first, too. There was a flashback to Ichigo's childhood at the beginning of the film that shows the moment where Grand Fisher killed his mother and Renji had mentioned that Grand Fisher was Rukia's original target and that he had evaded the Soul Society for over fifty years at this point. If that's the case, why does the Soul Society even send Rukia to fight Grand Fisher in the first place? Rukia isn't a major badass in the Soul Society rank and file. She's a regular Soul Reaper who graduated in the middle of her class at the Soul Reaper Academy and, unlike her friend Renji, she hasn't moved on to become an officer in her squad. Why would the Soul Society send a mid-tier fighter at best to fight a supposedly top-tier threat like Grand Fisher? If it weren't for her connection to the noble Kuchiki family, I would conclude that they were purposely sending her to die.
The fact that Ichigo would stand even less of a chance at surviving is part of Byakuya's plan. Since Bleachflix Byakuya tells Renji to kill Grand Fisher in private after Ichigo and Rukia leave, it's implied that Ichigo's death would send Rukia's powers back into her body and thus her sister can be spared from execution. But this goes against Byakuya's character in the manga. In the manga, Byakuya doesn't pay any heed to the circumstances behind Rukia's crimes, nor does he care about Grand Fisher. In Byakuya's eyes, because he is the head of an important noble family, he has to hold himself and his family accountable to the law. Even though he privately opposes Rukia's execution, he goes along with it because he believes that if he bends the law to suit his own ends, then it would be hypocritical for him to try to enforce the law on others. It's even implied that he regrets hurting Ichigo in the Soul Society arc when Ichigo arrives to stop the execution. But in Bleachflix, Byakuya loses his inner conflict and is just a selfish, emotionless dick who tries to find a loophole for Rukia and doesn't care if Ichigo lives or dies. He acts more like another Renji more often than he acts like his manga counterpart.
But the question about why anyone would expect Rukia (and later Ichigo) to be able to stand up to Grand Fisher at all is only a problem because of the nature of Bleachflix as an adaptation. In the manga, Grand Fisher isn't a particularly powerful Hollow compared to the other Hollows Ichigo faces in the Substitute Soul Reaper arc. He only stands out because of his status as the Hollow who killed Ichigo's mother and escaping from Ichigo in their first and only encounter. Grand Fisher is actually killed by a completely different character in the manga at the beginning of the Arrancar arc, and Ichigo just sort of forgets Grand Fisher because he doesn't even really matter. While it makes sense for Bleachflix to try to use Grand Fisher as a final opponent for Ichigo, since they have shared history, the attempt to hype him up as a final boss leads to him appearing to be way too powerful for Ichigo or Rukia to realistically defeat, and the Soul Society are portrayed as even more incompetent and backward than they turn out to be in the manga.
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| But, my God, does Grand Fisher look awesome. |
So, after a bit of buildup, the final confrontation between Ichigo and Grand Fisher begins. Just like in the manga, Grand Fisher makes his appearance during Ichigo and his family's annual visit to his mother's grave. Unlike the manga, Ichigo's battle with Grand Fisher isn't confined to the graveyard, turning into a grand chase into the city center and nearly killing Ichigo's classmates. Chad catches a piece of rubble, saving the other teenagers, and both he and Orihime can suddenly see Ichigo battling Grand Fisher because the movie says so. Uryu fights alongside Ichigo and, working together, the two of them defeat Grand Fisher with what appears to be very little effort, reducing Grand Fisher's role to a minor subplot in a story where he was set up to be the main antagonist, all because Bleachflix was in too much of a hurry to introduce Renji and Byakuya.
So, Ichigo, Rukia, and Uryu celebrate their victory and exchange some banter, foolishly thinking that the story is over. But then, Renji stabs Uryu in the back, seemingly killing him, and demands that Rukia take her powers back and kill Ichigo. Rukia refuses and Renji attacks Ichigo. The pair exchange some truly epic taunts before they have a fight that is easily the highlight of the film.
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| I can't believe that these lines were approved... |
Wait, what?
If Rukia could just take her powers back from Ichigo with no consequence at this point, why is there even a conflict between her and the other Soul Reapers in the first place? The whole reason that Rukia was in danger in the first place was because she refused to sacrifice Ichigo's life to save herself. That was the whole reason Renji was attacking Ichigo in the first place was because it was apparently the only way to restore Rukia's powers and prevent the execution from happening. But then, Rukia, in order to save Ichigo's life, decides to take her powers back, which she should have no reason to believe will not end in Ichigo's death like it was stated that it would do so up to this point. If being strong enough to defeat Grand Fisher means that Ichigo is strong enough to withstand the energy transfer now, shouldn't Byakuya, the elite Soul Reaper captain, know this? Why wouldn't he say anything? If his only goal is to get Rukia's powers back and prevent her execution, why wouldn't he say, "Oh, sis, the human should be strong enough to handle the energy transfer now. You don't have to put yourself at risk in order to protect him anymore. Let's go get ice cream!"? There's nothing in the movie at all that would justify him sacrificing Ichigo anyway, and doing so would only hinder his plans, since Rukia would only get in the way if she thinks that Ichigo is in danger.
This is only a problem because of how Bleachflix deviates from the manga in explaining why Rukia has no powers. In the manga, it's revealed in the Soul Society arc that her powers wouldn't return to her because Urahara used her faux human body as a vessel to hide a powerful artifact from secret future villains, which interfered with her own internal spiritual energy flow. Because of this, the question of Ichigo losing his life if Rukia regains her powers isn't even a question, Byakuya cannot find a loophole for her, and the execution is inevitable. Thus, the scene where Rukia fakes disdain for Ichigo and leaves for the Soul Society actually has weight, since it implies that it would be the last time Ichigo ever sees her.
Anyway, Bleachflix moves into an epilogue where Ichigo returns to school. Neither he nor anyone else remembers Rukia or anything that has happened over the course of the movie. It is implied that Uryu might remember what happens, since he hesitates when Ichigo acts as if he's never spoken to him before, but I was too surprised that Uryu was still alive since it had appeared earlier that Renji had killed him. Ichigo then flips through his textbook to start class, only to see the message Rukia wrote in the book way back when she first arrived in his school.
As I've said before, I don't hate Bleachflix. Overall, I like it quite a bit. It might have serious structural problems and its attempts to tell a coherent story leads to several mistakes in characterization and internal logic, but it clearly comes from a place of love. Several smaller scenes really captures the identity of early Bleach and does enough to make it a worthwhile adaptation for Bleach fans at the very least. I'm especially a fan of the scene where Ichigo and his father talk about how Ichigo blames himself for his mother's death. But an adaptation should not limit itself to an already established fanbase that is already more inclined to give it a pass, and I really do think that Bleachflix would fail to entice any new fans with its inherently nonsensical story structure. Not that the Bleach manga was a masterpiece of storytelling in the first place, but adaptations should strive to be better than the source material. And whenever I see something that I like or see potential in but I know fails to follow through, I look to see how it could hypothetically be better. So, just like Comic Girls and Hanebado before it, here's how I think Bleachflix should have been structured.
First of all, I would have kept a consistent tone with the early scenes. A trashy monster movie is more fun than a serious attempt to elevate a cheesy shounen manga into a serious action drama, and those trashy early scenes were easily more engaging than the serious later scenes. Instead of just Ichigo and Rukia, I'd give introductory text screens to everyone who matters; Chad, Orihime, Uryu, Renji, Byakuya, Grand Fisher, EVERYONE! Instead of Ichigo's dad talking to a framed picture of his dead wife, bring back the giant blown up poster of her from the anime! Encourage everyone to overact instead of just Ichigo so that it plays out as the fun goofy romp that it should be. Then, have Renji and Byakuya play everything straight in order to increase the suspense from their sudden appearance at the end of the series and highlight the shift into more dramatic territory more effectively.
Now, let's move on to the actual plot. We open on Ichigo's flashback where he's walking home with his mother in a rainstorm. Little Ichigo sees a small girl standing by herself with no protection from the rain and runs off to give her his umbrella. Ichigo's mother runs after him, confused, then screams and there's a brief cut to black before we see her dead body lying on top of him, the girl nowhere to be seen. We then cut to the title card before showing the events of the first episode, which I would not change at all. Ichigo fights the thugs at the ghost-child's shrine, interacts with his family, meets Rukia, and then takes her power and fights the Hollow to save his sister.
The next day, Ichigo goes to school and interacts with his friends for a while before Rukia appears. Rukia drags him to the roof and explains that she needs some time before she can regain her powers and insists that Ichigo fight Hollows in her stead in the meantime. Ichigo refuses at first, but their argument is interrupted when Rukia gets a Hollow alert (Side note, why is Rukia's orders coming in on a magic stone now instead of a cell phone like in the manga? That's a dumb change). Rukia drags Ichigo to the park, where they see a Hollow attacking the ghost-child from earlier. Ichigo jumps in to save the child, but Rukia stops him, saying that he has to swear to fight Hollows wherever they appear, not just when they're right in front of him. Then Ichigo gives his famous rebuttal just like in both the manga and Bleachflix proper, only this time he defeats the Hollow without Renji stealing his thunder.
From here, we have a montage of Ichigo training with Rukia and dispatching Hollows. During this montage, we see Ichigo rescuing Chad and the bird from the serial killer Hollow and him rescuing Orihime from her dead brother-turned-Hollow. These scenes will be given the bulk of focus in the montage, as it is important to establish Chad and Orihime as important characters, since I'm operating from the assumption that later arcs will be adapted as sequels to this movie. We then have a scene where Rukia overhears Ichigo and his family planning their annual memorial service for their dead mom. She asks Ichigo about it, and Ichigo talks about how he blames himself for his mom's death, though his memory of the details of what killed her is fuzzy.
Then we cut right to Ichigo and his family at the grave. Ichigo and his father have a heart to heart about how much his mother means to both of them. Ichigo apologizes for failing to protect his mother, and his father cuts in and says that his mother made her own choices and that Ichigo could not be held responsible one way or another. As they're having this moment, we see that Rukia is watching them, and she muses to herself that a Hollow might have killed Ichigo's mother.
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| Ichigo really has some great lines in this. |
We then move on to Uryu's challenge. In our version, Rukia follows the boys to the roof and interrupts Uryu after he says that the Soul Reapers massacred his people. Rukia gives her version of events, that the Soul Reapers were forced to kill the Quincies because the Quincies refused to listen to reason (Gee, the more I say it the more it sounds like victim-blaming, doesn't it?). The two of them argue before Ichigo loses his cool and tells them to shut up. He tries to walk away before Uryu calls him weak and challenges him to the Hollow hunting contest. Ichigo refuses and calls Uryu a nutjob, but Uryu releases the bait and summons the horde anyway before hinting that those with high spirit energy might become targets for the newly summoned Hollows. Ichigo immediately realizes that this means that his sisters are in danger and runs off to protect hem, leaving Rukia and Uryu behind. Rukia cryptically says that there are others who have become targets as well before Uryu brushes it off as not his problem and leaves to go kill Hollows.
The Hollow horde is the big climax of my version of Bleachflix. As Ichigo battles Hollows and searches for his sisters, we have scenes of Hollows attacking Chad and Orihime. Here, their powers awaken and they both manage to use their powers to protect innocents nearby; in this case, Chad protects Keigo and Orihime protects Tatsuki. These scenes are interspersed with Uryu casually killing Hollows and keeping a running count, focusing only on the competition. Eventually, Ichigo finds his sisters outside their school, walking over to a very familiar crying little girl. Recognizing her from all those years ago, Ichigo realizes that the girl is an illusion employed by a Hollow to lure its prey into danger and was the one that killed his mother. Ichigo challenges the Hollow, who is revealed to be Grand Fisher. Grand Fisher proves to be too much for Ichigo to handle, since he can't go all out against it while he has to protect his sisters. If he moves in for the kill, Grand Fisher can attack his sisters. If he focuses on protecting his sisters, he risks being killed himself because he can't fight properly.
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| There's no reason for this picture being here. I just like this face. |
Anyway, with help from his friends, Ichigo is able to gain the upper hand against Grand Fisher. However, Grand Fisher is still way too clever for the heroes. He creates a smokescreen through environmental destruction to separate the heroes and uses his lure power to lead Chad and Orihime into a surprise attack by posing as Ichigo. Before he could kill either of them, however, Uryu arrives on the scene and fires an arrow at them. The energy from the arrow causes the smoke to dissipate and Ichigo seizes the chance and finally lands the finishing blow on Grand Fisher. Ichigo thanks Uryu for the help, but Uryu plays it off and claims that he intervened to protect Chad and Orihime. But as the heroes celebrate their victory, none of them notice that Rukia has vanished.
Later that night, Ichigo returns to his bedroom and then notices that Rukia isn't living in his closet anymore. He finds a note explaining how she committed a crime by giving him her power and how the whole Hollow hunt fiasco is sure to gain the attention of the Soul Society, so she planned to protect Ichigo and the others by contacting Byakuya and admitting to her crime, taking the fall for Ichigo. Ichigo runs out to try to stop her, and then he fights Renji to a standstill just like in the original Bleachflix. Byakuya steps in and nearly kills Ichigo, Ichigo calls out to Rukia and grabs Byakuya's robe, and then Rukia pretends to hate Ichigo and tells him he was never anything more than a means to an end to her. She tells Ichigo they will never meet again and walks through the portal to the Soul Society, with Renji and Byakuya close behind. We then cut to Ichigo lying on the ground, and the very last thing he says before he passes out is, "You liar."
Suddenly, Ichigo wakes up in an unfamiliar location. He is greeted by Urahara, who introduces himself as a simple businessman and explains that he was the one who gave Rukia her faux human body. Urahara confirms that Rukia has resigned herself to her own execution for the sake of keeping her new human friends alive. Ichigo insists that he has to rescue her and Urahara agrees to help him and reveals that he has already recruited Chad and Orihime to help with the rescue mission. And then, credits.
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| Because even though he doesn't really fit in the narrative for this retelling, I can't leave out Urahara's amazing costume. |
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