finished watching BLEACH 🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑
A messy retelling of the hit anime's first season. It gets the style right and the action is awesome, but it fails to do the storyline justice. That's because it jumbles everything from the Agent of the Shinigami arc together in an awkward manner that hurts the pacing and will leave anyone not familiar with the source material very confused.

I got a kick out of seeing key moments recreated in live-action so it's got some visual fan-service going for it, but with the character relationships and overall lore of the series going underdeveloped it's only real value is as a cheesy Japanese B-movie rather than a true fan pleaser with the ability to bring in new devotees. The over-the-top action packs a lot of destruction and spectacle. Not unlike most of today's superhero movies. The rampant overacting and absurdist humor ensure that there's plenty to laugh at. Even if not all of it translates well from the manga or across cultural barriers. Like how main character Ichigo's dad is openly abusive to him, but apparently they actually have a cool relationship. His physical assaults on his teenage son are meant to be slapstick. Something that doesn't quite work outside of animation.

After watching this I'm convinced that it is possible to adapt an arc of Bleach into a roughly two-hour movie with all of the emotion and depth intact. The writers just weren't up to the task. A shame because it both looks and sounds the part. The punk rock soundtrack is fantastic and fits the tone of the anime perfectly. The cast is also very likable. In the end though all it really offers are some snazzy swordfights and one or two exciting showdowns with monstrous "Hollows." This means it's likely to disappoint all but the most forgiving of hardcore fans and can only hope for a cult following at best outside of Japan.