Top Gun

These names are already giving me an aneurysm and we're just getting started.

Ugh.

I plan on stopping counting after 39.

Wow, only took three episodes to hit peak Bleach. Characters getting arms lopped off left and right. (If you were playing the drinking game you'd already be dead.) Characters getting dumb-looking power-ups that somehow immediately get more dumb-looking. A bunch of new characters who only exist to get offed soon after (in record time no less!) The side we're ostensibly supposed to be cheering for acting like irredeemable fascist assholes--which is really saying something when this time the other side are literal Nazis. Unpronounceable attack names. It's all here. What's cracking me up the most is how this conflict is predicated on the whole "balance of souls" thing. You said it yourself Ben, none of that background world-building shit made any sense from day one, but it was never brought up much after that so whatever, I can deal with that. But now the story's going to act like it's a major issue again? Sure. I mean no one seemed to have any issue with Ishida doing his thing all this time. Man, it's the year 2025 and I'm ripping on new Bleach episodes on the block. It's all I ever wanted. What a time to be alive.

I just want to know what the hell language ghostrek speaks.

"Occasional spurts of decent animation?" Uh-huh. Try semi-weekly examples of cinematic-quality fight scenes, the type that make you sit there and think "how the hell is this possible 1100 episodes into this juggernaut of a franchise?" What the anime team has done with the source material over the past few years is nothing short of extraordinary. And it goes beyond the raw animation, the show feels so much snappier and more ambitious now than it has since maybe its very earliest days. There's nothing legitimate about any of this CR nonsense, but if there was, there's no universe in which OP doesn't deserve a spot in the best ongoing series conversation.

Tell me you know nothing about the last two or three years of the series without telling me that.

I've written many, many words in the past about how Bleach's narrative fell off a cliff, and I'm well aware of the total clusterfuck that awaits, but despite all that I still couldn't help but have a big dumb grin on my face as soon as I heard IF YOU WANNA SEE SOME ACTION. Of course that gets immediately followed up by the death of a character so irrelevant that literally no one ever bothered to learn his name.

I've always used electric razors because I'm a pussy.

Happy Milf Day!

Liking Naruto feels like it should be a red flag.

Who and what?

Well as they say there's no accounting for taste.

Nah, it's more like the vast majority of Bleach's cast isn't interesting enough to justify remembering their existence. Meanwhile I can instantly tell you that the mayor of Luffy's hometown is named Woop Slap...to be fair that's mostly because Woop Slap is an awesome name.

I could not tell you that 90% of those characters existed in the first place. Such is Bleach.

Yeah this is like, easily in the top 5 original shows [as] has ever made. Just incredible.

holy fuck this show

Oh man, I would lose my shit if Summer Time Rendering somehow made it here. It was an incredible show that no one seemed to notice because it was unceremoniously dumped on Disney+.

I was cautiously optimistic about Blue Exorcist season 2 slotting in, because why bother with the season 1 repeat otherwise, but...wow. This is a biggie. I know it's a complete narrative trainwreck but I'm legit happy, because now I don't have to try and force myself through it on my own.

My chest hair grew chest hair watching that fight.

Before episode 715: "Hee look at this weird giant baby man with betches hanging all over him." After episode 715: "ALL OF MY FEELS."

I can fuck to this so far. Hell, I don't even need much plot, just give me 10 minutes of that insane choreography and Watanabe's fantastic music choices per episode and I'm set. Really makes me want to replay Mirror's Edge.

@PokeNirvash Oi, don't you teabag me!

Finally found the rerun, tomorrow at midnight for some reason. I haven't watched any of this yet so I should probably cut my losses and delete what I have at this point.

No offense, but IGN is not the first place I'd go to for nuanced takes on...well, anything really. There's a good reason they've been a meme for many years.