Bleach - The Movie: Memories of Nobody

There seem to be a huge important place for Japanese animation in today's world market. By now they have built a very solid, interlinked set of creative industries, and successfully spread them to a global scale. That industry has 3 vortexes: comic books, TV animation series, and films. The safety net for such an industry is that (as with Hollywood's bad films) there seems to be a hard core vast group of fans who will turn to these products and hysterically support them no matter what the product is. Well, the thing is, they would be careful if they want to stay in business for more than a few years, that strategy (ask Hollywood) wears out unless quality is taken care of.

I saw this in a kind of discreet student's moved session, where some of the hard-core blind fans were present.

Knowing the comics and the series seems to en richen the experience of this. I didn't know any of them. But that allowed me to understand how poor minds of dire fans work, as they weaved and clapped at things only because they knew it from the series, while the scene in itself was completely uninteresting.

The thing here had some legs to walk. The idea that memory creates time, and fills space, and having none is wandering with no objectives, in an uncertain land, with an uncertain fate. In other words, the idea that having a past can create your future.

But they were only interested in exploring the movements, the fights, and the cool side of having handsome characters with big weapons and big powers.

this probably has the same visual aspect of the TV series, unless the series production is rather poor.

My opinion: 1/5

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I had never seen the Bleach series before, but I kept hearing great things about it. I got the opportunity to see this movie and was completely blown away. I was a little confused on some elements of the story, but they were easily cleared up by watching the first episode of the series.

The voice acting is incredible here, as is the animation. Everything about the movie is really well done. The story keeps you gripped the entire time, and you will wish to see more when the credits start to roll.

Definitely check this out, whether you are a big Bleach fan, or haven't dabbled in the series yet. It's a great film.

If you're as big a fan of the series,Bleach, as I am,you owe it to yourself to seek this out. Basically,it's a 90 minute episode of the series. One fine day,Ichigo Kurosaki & Rukia Kuchiki are out,just enjoying the day,when they come across a strange young girl,exhibiting odd behavior. When strange spirits seem to turn up from nowhere,Ichigo & Rukia try to defeat them,only to find that this odd girl has transformed into a warrior. It seems that this girl is a former member of the Soul Society,who left years ago,with no prior memories. This girl's name is Senna (no last name is given). Ichigo attempts to bond an awkward friendship with Senna. When Senna is captured & brought to an alternative universe,it's up to Ichigo,Rukia,and several other members of the Soul Society to rescue Senna,before she is lost forever (Ichigo's friends from the land of the living make little more than a cameo in this episode). From here on,the film turns fast & furious,with some fierce battle scenes depicted between Ichigo,Rukia & the rest of the Soul Society,and Senna's captures. What I admired is that it used the same vocal talent that supplies the voices in the series (Wendee Lee is vocal director). Noriyuki Abe,who directed several episodes in the series (but,for whatever reason is given full directorial credit in the series openers),is on tap to direct,from a well though out screenplay by Masashi Sogo. Available in two versions:Spoken in Japanese with English subtitles & English dubbed (take your choice--although the DVD has both Japanese & English sound tracks available). Not rated by the MPAA (although this is an animated film,this film has some pretty intense & bloody battle violence,which would probably disturb younger viewers under the age of 10),it did recently merit a TV-14 certification when it was aired on Cartoon Networks late night Anime fest,Adult Swim (it would probably land a PG-13 if released to theaters)

(2006) Bleach- The Movie : Memories Of Nobody JAPAN ANIMATION FANTASY/ ACTION ADVENTURE

To fully appreciate this Japan animation film, one would have to be familiar and enjoy the long running syndicated animation series which gives the notion of a 'grim reaper'- like powers and people's souls if a person were to already been dead or is already dead- what happens to their souls! The first film from the popular series which can be very moving at times, centers upon another alternate universe and the title character, Ichigo building a rapport with a young care-free girl he's never seen before, whose associated with that other universe and of course, people with unique capabilities coming after her, and why! What I love about this series and other Japan animations is that "one" would not have to spend, waste money to collect the comic series to enjoy this, since the story is faithfully taken straight out of the comic series from the creator himself, even though the two formats are slightly different, as opposed to other super hero characters that are English, and are milked completely from what they're worth. The other plus are the notion of the variety of weapons, mostly swords, except that they'll have it's own identity with unique abilities that 're not supposed to make sense, but are neat to look at whenever they're fighting!

Just quickly I think it's relevant to say that I'm a huge fan of the Bleach manga and a moderate fan of the TV series (except the filler sagas). This review assumes that people are familiar with the Bleach manga and/ or TV series. I would advise against watching this movie if you're not.

You know the great thing about making a movie follow up to a TV series or movie that is already popular? You can put in a fairly minimal amount of effort and still be guaranteed to make at least a decent amount of money, so long as you've conducted enough market research to give the fans of the original what they want. I watched the TV series until half way through the bount saga, then stopped and started reading the manga because the series had become slow moving and unimaginative. I subsequently found out that the bount saga wasn't part of the manga (a "filler" saga) and was made to make money rather than for the sake of art. Memories of Nobody is basically the same thing; a 90 minute filler episode.

Memories of Nobody is not a complete waste of space though. The voice acting (in the English dubbed version which I'm reviewing) is quite frankly excellent. The plot - while inferior to Tite Kubo's masterpiece - is better than what you'd get from a lot of action movies and fits with the tone of the TV series without clashing with it.

And what about the characters? Joining Ichigo and Rukia is a third main character - a mysterious young girl named Senna. (Mysterious young girls in anime?!? No way!!)

Senna is a hyperactive demi-loli who runs around giggling and annoying Ichigo. She is given a sob story background to try to force an emotional attachment from the viewers, but unfortunately that's about as far as the character development goes and so she's very one dimensional. This means the character really isn't believable, which means we don't get the emotional attachment, which means we fail to care.

Ouch.

All the most popular characters from the series make appearances which should make the fans happy, but they haven't gone to the effort of properly integrating them into the main story and so they just end up feeling like cameo appearances (you're guaranteed to make money so long as you give the fans what they want, remember?)

The movie could have (should have) built upon the series by riding it's strengths while providing better quality animation and getting rid of the super-cheesy music, but the animation quality hasn't noticeably improved and they've kept the same cheesy music from the series. It has its good points and bad points, but all the bad points easily outweigh the good ones. For example: It's a Bleach movie! YAY! The animation is TV series quality! BOO! It's got Kenpachi in it! YAY! The main character is about as deep as a puddle! BOO! Etc.

Basically Memories of Nobody only ever aspired to provide a pleasant experience for the existing Bleach fans and because of this it was never going to be a great movie in it's own right. Even for fans of the show this is definitely "rent before you buy" material.