Not Even Milk

Literature Review: Sonic the Hedgehog: Friend or Foe?

I've been a fan of Sonic the Hedgehog since before I could count, and let me tell you, few things from the 90's era hedgehog have ever let me down. He starred in one spectacular cartoon show, and one Looney Tunes inspired disaster (well, disaster is kind of heavy), regularly romped through my Genesis and Game Gear, and had some of the coolest darn toys. Sonic and friends were even on pogs, for crying out loud! But this book, which maybe I'm being a little too tough on, was probably a glimpse at things to come.

Now let me get one thing straight: as a piece of Sonic the Hedgehog merch, this book is alright. It's for younger readers, so it's pretty simple, but fans of the series will probably enjoy it for The Blue Blur alone. However, it doesn't even get this area exactly right. Even though the story is supposed to take place in the SatAM continuity, starring the Freedom Fighters, it features the not-so-diabolical Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog styled Dr. Robotnik. Snively and Cluck, Ivo Robotnik's menacing minions, are nowhere to be found, and Tails is absent from the tale. Which makes some sense considering he was never really a Freedom Fighter anyway. Despite these drawbacks, fans of the series will feel like they're reading an episode from one of the old Sonic cartoons, and that tends to register well with everyone.

However, I'm choosing to review this book as a book and not as a part of an extended merchandise line. I want to judge this book for what it is and not for anything around it. And because of that, I can't give it even the two stars I want to.

Now don't get me wrong. This book does have a one star rating, but that doesn't mean it's awful. It means I won't be leaping at the opportunity to read it again, certainly. It means it did not earn two stars. But that doesn't mean that it is a terrible tome of wincing and torment. Because it's really not. It isn't up to par, even for a kids book, but it's also not even close to a scourge of the language. If we could do negative star ratings, it would not have gotten one of them.

The biggest problem with this book is that it assumes you are already familiar with the environment, with the characters, and with their relationships and personalities. It does take a moment out to introduce us to Bunnie Rabbot and what makes her a unique character, but other than that, nothing. Which can be pretty confusing at times. Most noticeably when Teitelbaum insists on referring to Antoine as Princess Sally's "guardian." Fans of the series will already know that Antoine is a member of the elite royal guard, but this is never stated in the book. I can find it pretty reasonable that someone whose only exposure to the franchise was through this story would be confused and think Antoine some kind of uncle or aunt for young Sally. That's, frankly, wrong.

The second problem was inconsistency. In a short book like this one little scene gone wrong can ruin the whole deal. All of it. That happened around halfway through the book. The Freedom Fighters had been exploring a cave and found themselves dragged over a waterfall by an underground river. They manage to avoid certain doom, but continue hiking downwards to the bottom of the river, where they are somehow now magically in a forest. No transition, no exposition. One second cave, the next second trees. This is jarring, and while I mentally explained it away by creating a really awesome waterfall cave in the middle of a lush hidden valley, that's not ever what was described. This is really problematic, because the next few pages are devoted to an action sequence which makes heavy use of the forested environment. This really isn't something that can be overlooked.

Finally, Princess Sally was as inconsistently portrayed as the environment. The Freedom Fighters set out because the Princess is so gung-ho to locate another Freedom Fighter team and bolster their ranks, but when they finally do come across another Freedom Fighter, who is being attacked by Robotnik's army, she immediately decides not to trust him. She finds what she's looking for and then instantly hates it. Like a middle school cheerleader who finally goes out with that guy she's been pining over half the semester. It doesn't make any sense, and you really get the feeling that the characters are just going through the motions to move the plot that was in Teitelbaum's head.

Okay, maybe I'm putting a little too much blame on the author. The book is technically an adaptation of an episode from the SatAM series ("Game Guy" for those curious. It's the season two starter.), but it was a loose enough adaptation that he could have fixed some things, or, y'know, not made alterations that don't flow with the plot and then try to adhere to it exactly. Nevermind. Teitelbaum gets the blame.

There really isn't a whole lot of reason to read this book if you don't already like Sonic the Hedgehog. The pacing's a little odd, description is sparse, and the characters never feel like real people. Action sequences leave the reader confused (what does "Super Sonic Spin" mean to somebody who doesn't know that Sonic can curl into a buzz saw?) and the prose suffers from redundancy abundancy.

General rule with this one? Read it if you like Sonic. It'll take you all of twenty minutes if you're slowpoke like I am, and it'll make that SatAM/Archie Comics flavor sit on your mind just a little bit longer. If you aren't a fan of the Hedgehog, don't even give this a passing glance. Not even for your nephew. There's plenty of older youth Berenstain Bears books he can read.

Who Likes Free Shorts? I Like Free Shorts!

Lions and Vampires has finally joined its sibling on the shelves, and to celebrate the occasion, I'm giving them both away for free! From now through Friday, pick up both Lions and Vampires and Recipe for Disaster absolutely one-hundred percent free for the Kindle!

The Works of Bert N. Dean - Presented by Nathan DiYorio

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Classic Comics Collection, Volume 4: Son of Sinbad

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Registered for Ransom

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Monument to Death

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Homicide Handicap

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The Works of Dean Franklin - Presented by Nathan DiYorio

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Two Minutes to Doom

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Classic Comics Collection, Volume 5: Meet Miss Pepper

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Lions and Vampires

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Lessons in Larceny

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Gambler's Ghost

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Graphic Novel Review: Loveless, Volume 1 by Yun Kouga

My mom bought this, among a bagful of other mangas, from the library not quite knowing what it was. Which is okay with me, because lately I've been trying to expose myself to new things. I'm not sure if Loveless is a little too new, though.

The story has this way of straddling the line between taboo and "Squicky-but-I'll-live." What I mean by that is... well, I suppose genre can't really be spoiler, can it? The central focus of Loveless is on a boy named Ritsuka who is one day acquainted with an older man named Soubi. The twelve-year-old Ritsuka and the college aged Soubi feel overwhelming romantic attraction for one another. While their romance is (at least not at this point in the series, I can't speak for the later volumes) not explicit, it isn't shut behind closed doors. If you can't handle boy-man love, get out now.

I guess I really shouldn't be writing a review for this book, because I honestly don't know how I feel about it. There's a lot of things I liked about it, but there's an equal amount of things that I didn't, and probably an equal amount of things I've been conditioned by my conservative culture not to like. Granted, conservative is not always bad.

What did I like about the book? Well, I like most of the characters, although at the beginning of the book Ritsuka is a little snot and I wanted to punch him. He's quite a bit like Sasuke from Naruto. Arrogant, self-absorbed, and completely devoid of empathy. In the beginning. We quickly learn that "devoid of empathy" is far from the truth and that Ritsuka, like most heroic protagonists, can't stand to see others in distress. Unlike most other heroes, he avoids having to witness distress by being an asshat. Go figure.

Soubi is still up in the air with me. He's a little too much the mysterious gentlemen trope, and his lines seem a little more sloppily written than the other characters. It seems as though the author doesn't have a very good read on exactly what kind of person Soubi is, either, and he seems to blunder through the book just going along with everything unless he feels like being a prick. Actually, I don't like Soubi. NEXT.

Oh, I love this one. The third major character is my favorite. Yuiko is an adorable classmate of Ritsuka's who desperately wants to be his friend despite his tendency to say disgustingly mean things and make her cry. She talks in the third person, is illiterate, and doesn't always get what people are telling her, but she's so full of the right kind of oblivious pep that it's hard not to like her. Honestly, I wouldn't mind if the manga were about Yuiko, but it's not, so I digress. I'm interested in seeing the dynamic between Yuiko and Ritsuka develop, especially as it's rather obvious that Yuiko has a thing for him.

There are a few other characters brought up, but they were either introduced in confusing segments that don't make a whole lot of sense, or they're someone I want to get into when covering the plot. Which is all over the place, by the way, and that's one of my biggest complaints. The plot is a bit of a mess. There's so seemingly unrelated things going on that it can all be hard to keep track of, and that's not a good thing when the audience is still getting used to the bizarro world this story takes place in. Which I haven't told you about yet! Doh!

So here's the deal with the version of Earth portrayed in Loveless: Everyone is born as a Kemonomimi. What the hell does that mean? It means that at birth everyone is born with cat ears and a tail. These magically go away when a person loses their virginity. With such an open display of who is and who isn't a virgin, there's this totally overhwhelming sexual overtone throughout the story, and I can't imagine what it would be like to live there. Can you imagine your parents knowing the exact night you lost your virginity because you walked home without your ears? Holy cow.

Not only is this vaguely explained, but it takes a while for that explanation to happen. I spent the first half of the book wondering why the hell some people had cat ears and some did not. What was the significance? I was really hoping for the second species appeared out of nowhere deal, like Love and Tentacles, but I didn't get that. Ah well.

Additionally, there's an odd dynamic in this world that isn't fully explained by the end of the book and I don't really understand if there's a true logic behind it at all. There exists in this world a type of magical dual where two individuals whose souls are connected engage in a battle of words. The two individuals take up the rolls of Combat Unit and Sacrifice. The Combat Unit indirectly battles the enemy Combat Unit by... shouting out whatever verb he chooses and occasionally linking specific commands to that verb. Which can do anything so long as it's in favor of the protagonist. I don't really get it. And the Sacrifice, who does not engage in combat, accepts all the physical pain that the Combat Unit would normally endure. Which, I admit, is pretty cool. I've always like shared or transferred pain dynamics, like the Elf siblings in Hellboy II.

Now what's the driving force behind all this man-boy sex, virgin catfolk, and word battles? Well, I don't know yet. Some evil organization is after Ritsuka, and that's about all we know in that regard. Soubi is here to help him, and that's all we get. It's not spelled out at all. In fact, whenever someone should be developing the plot in that direction, the character literally says "No comment." How annoying.

There's a subplot involving Ritsuka's apparent amnesia and his crazy ass mom. Now, honestly, this subplot is awesome and bizarre enough that I almost want it to be the sole focus of a story. Somebody with some Hollywood connections, make this part of the series a movie. Just this part. Oh, let me tell you about it first. At some point around two years before the start of the book, Ritsuka lost his memories and replaced his old personality with a new one, which originally resulted in a diagnosis of split-personality disorder. This personality change has caused Ritsuka's mom to go off the deep end, and she no longer regards her son as her own. She harasses and beats him while sending herself into hysterical crying fits, often embracing him as she inflicts pain. She seems to want to bring out the old Ritsuka by being a mother, such as making his favorite meals, but can't bear to see the new kid. She regards Ritsuka as a demon inhabiting her son's body, and is so persuaded by her own insanity that she at one point bites a chunk out of Ritsuka's neck. This mom is a serious nut.

Naturally, the story drops a few things that hint at other developing plots or things in the works, but none of those have really panned out at this point. Such is the way of series, I suppose.

One of the largest flaws in this book, and it's something that plagues it from cover to cover, is an inability to focus. Yun Kouga clearly has ADHD, as her characters leap through various conversations in the same bubble. In the same panel Soubi will be talking about the death of his enemy, and then he will randomly blurt out "I love you" without finishing his first thought. Naturally, the entire focus of the scene then shifts to Ritsuka freaking out about his confused prepubescent heart, and not the dead people. This is constant. It will throw you off.

The other thing that's going to throw you off? Clutter. The panels are filled with lots of little micro-texts that are supposed to give some life to the characters and show you what they're thinking, but Kouga just tossed these text bubbles wherever they would fit, and it doesn't make reading the book a seamless event. Instead you will jump all over the panel reading in what you think is proper order, only to unscramble the words once you reach the end. It's a real pain.

Also, fault of the format, some of the word balloons are trapped in the binding and have been rendered unreadable. Maybe TokyoPop should consider framing their pages.

Now, as this is a manga, I have to comment on the art: Most of the time, the art is phenomenal. Chapter beginnings in particular have such a great attention to detail, that you'll find yourself drinking up the shadows before moving on to the next page. However, this isn't always true. I'm not sure if Kouga has an intern, or if she spends too much time sleeping, but there are a number of panels where the character being portrayed looks like somebody else. For instance, Ritsuka has white hair in a number of panels which made me think I was looking at Soubi. That's not a good thing, and it makes the story that much more confusing.

Despite its flaws, Loveless did draw me in by leaving many things hanging. Also, Yuiko. So, while it wasn't even close to the best manga I've ever read, and it's riddled with inexcusable flaws, I'm going to continue reading the series. If there's one thing the story has done properly, it was to hook me. If we see more of the disturbed mother and Yuiko, the other books should hook me too.

VERDICT:

2/3

Howl: Hey Girl!

"Damn, you're heavy," Eric groaned as held the girl  on his back. He'd managed to wrap her arms around his neck, but she still wobbled unsteadily on his arms. He was unnerved by her odd appearance. The black cloth, he'd discovered, was some kind of cloak that was way too long for her body, and draped off her like a heavy curtain. She wore some kind of black robe beneath that, which made her clothes seem to run together as one piece. Her hair was an odd purple shade, but it seemed to be growing naturally that way. Long ears poked out of the hair just a bit, and her mouth—which hung open by his face—was filled with a line of pearly white knives.

He'd stuck around for five or ten minutes, prodding her face and hoping that ice rain would wake her, but she was out like a light. At first he thought "Someone else will handle it" and went on his way, but at the end of the road he looked back and saw her slumped form in the street, bottom up like a small child. With a sigh he hurried back and hoisted her up.

It was his hope that she'd recover before he made it home, but she showed no sign of waking. He muttered a quiet thank you as he approached the house and saw no vehicles in the driveway. At least he would avoid some messy explanations. Many of which he was ill equipped to answer.

Careful not to drop her he wrestled with the front door. It popped open with a little convincing, and he stumbled into the home on shaking knees. Water pooled on the red kitchen tiles around them, and he waited a moment for them to drip sufficiently before he stepped into the carpeted living room. Still, it squashed beneath his feet, and he knew there'd be a marsh left behind. He just hoped it would dry out before Isaac got home.

The stairway stretched out before him. Even without added weight, they were a pain in the ass to climb up.

"Whatever moron decided the second floor had to be that far up is an asshole," he growled, biting hard on his teeth.

He tromped up the stairs. Suddenly, about halfway up, he felt himself getting lighter. His first thought was that he'd caught something akin to a runner's high. Free of his chains, he could make it up these stairs no problem. Once a treacherous mountain, now little more than a simple hiking trail. He grinned. Then there was a crash behind him.

The girl was heaped at the bottom of the stairs, her legs flipped over and folded by her head. Waves of panic washed over Eric, and he waited to see if she moved. She didn't.

"Oh no, no no, no, no! Be alive. Be alive." He flipped her right, stretched her out across the floor. Her skin was cold. He checked her wrist. No pulse. "Shitshitshitshitshit."

Hiff. Hew. Hiff. Hew.

"Huh?" He looked around. It was an odd noise. Quiet, and light. Oddly familiar.

Hiff. Hew. Hiff. Hew.

He looked down and breathed a sigh. She was snoring.

Howl: Come on, Freedom!

Darkness washed over them. Eric's neck tingled. Electricity jolted through his veins. Two words chanted through his mind on repeat with no shuffle: Early release. Early release. Early release. It was a chant that silently hopped from head to head in the cafeteria until it made a final leap from one boy's mouth and became a loud cheer accompanied by a steady pounding of tables and feet.

The lights flickered on, buzzing weakly. The enthusiastic chant became a choir of perturbed sighs. Eric slammed his face into the nest of his folded arms, muttering something about feces and apes. A math class nap (Leigh did not take that class with him, as he was below standard) seemed like the best solution. Then he'd have the energy to take on Balbadir when he got home. The fate of eighty-four star systems were in his hands, and he couldn't let them down. Especially not when it was Karmia's cleverly clothed bod that did the walking.

"What the hell?" Leigh shrugged her shoulders and flipped her palms up, tossing the twins a look that blamed them for the lights return. "Now I have to take a stupid exam in Psych."

"Wow. Sucks," Eric muttered through his denim cradle.

Leigh smacked him on the head, an affront he chose to ignore. The temporary short had distracted him enough to cool down, and he realized that griping about her abuse would only make things worse. After all, it was a bit of a delicate situation with Leigh. Knowing what he did, it seemed like a betrayal of any notion of decency to lash out at her.

"I wouldn't worry about Psych so much," Isaac added as he stirred a few bread crumbs onto his spoon. "It's a pretty easy class. At least, it was for me. I bet even Eric could pass it. Maybe even get an A."

"Well, we aren't all prodigies, Isaac. Just because you're a human encyclopedia doesn't mean everyone can store infinite knowledge." Leigh gave him a hard glance.

The conversation fell quiet after that. Eric wasn't sure if it had ended, or if he'd finally managed to shut them out. Frankly, he didn't care. All that mattered was the sweet silence of sleep. The warm embrace of the green clad goddess. The rush of ravenous rain. The crash of Thor's thundering hammer. The screams of a thousand fleeing teens. The—

"Eric! Eric, get up!" A rough shake snapped him awake. Isaac stood beside him, his hand clamped tightly on Eric's shoulder.

"Whasgoinon?" Eric looked with one eye barely open as his head bobbed up and down carelessly.

"The lights went off again. We're being dismissed early." Isaac grinned.

"Wheresleigh?" Eric slid off the table something like a slug, shakily rising to meet his brother.

"She took off after you started snoring. I told her to leave you be and she bitched me out for a bit before heading at the library. Are you thinking of catching up with her?"

"Nah, nah man." Eric nearly collapsed onto Isaac's shoulder. "I just want to go home. Home and sleep."

"Sounds like a plan." Isaac laughed and patted Eric on the back. Then he eased him away, making sure his brother could stand steadily on two feet. "But you're going to have to head home without me. I want to meet with a couple teachers for the homework. AP classes and all that. They might not count early dismissal as an excuse."

"What jerks." Eric hobbled to one side, and grabbed the table for support.

"Do you have your key?"

Eric fumbled with his pockets. First the one on his right, then his left. Then the two on his chest. Maybe the one inside, next to the zipper? His pants? Isaac was about to hand over his when a jingling chain emerged from Eric's butt pocket.

"Alright, good." Isaac let out a sigh of relief. "You really need to get this sleep thing straightened out, man. It's not doing you any favors."

"Yeah, yeah." Eric waved him off. "Just go get your homework, I'll get home okay."

"Glad to hear it. I'll hold ya to it." Isaac disappeared through a gaggle of giggling girls. They all turned to watch, whispering ratings in each other's ears. Most of them ranked above nine.

Eric toppled to one side and dragged himself across the dark cafeteria, using the tables as a rail. After a few fumbling moments the crust fell off his eyes and he began to hold himself uneasily, moving forward with some vagueness that irritated other hurrying students. By the time he reached the door the world had stopped swaying. Cold rain washed the fuzziness away as he strolled out into the storm and made his way across the parking lot, breezing by the "KEEP OFF" sign and tromping through muddy grass.

Storms always seemed to excite Eric. So much so that by the time he'd reached Second Street he no longer felt tired. He was toying with the idea of booting right into Star Savior and saving the sleep for later (even humoring himself with "fixing the problem"). A hot bowl of ramen would help that right along, he figured. Still, the green clad lady beckoned from a mental distance, and she reminded him just how comfy a pillow could be.

But that evaporated entirely as he rounded the corner onto Lake Street. Chills caught him by surprise, and he suddenly felt completely awake. The world seemed to operate in slow motion as his hairs stood on end. Preparing for the worst, he clenched his fists. When the bushes beside him started to dance, he had a suspicion that someone's dog was off its leash.

A blur dashed out of the hedge, bashing Eric's shoulder and pushing him back a step. His fists spread loose as he tried to balance himself, all too aware of the warm, black meat toppling into him. As soon as he found footing he danced away, counting his blessings that he remained tooth and claw free. His legs revved up a serious kick, but it never had the chance to peel. The black mass collapsed in the street, a tattered heap.

Torn strips of black fabric piled up like a blanket. At the head of it all, face down in a growing puddle, a girl's lips swallowed no air.

Tired

I am so damn tired. Good night.

Howl: Tired Eyes

"Have you been paying attention to me at all?" Leigh snapped her fingers at the tip of Eric's nose. 

He gave her a disinterested sideways glance, more annoyed than anything else, and through his lips uttered: "Hm?"

"You haven't! I should have known." Leigh crossed her arms and stared, equally cross. "You know, it's pretty rude to just zone out like that. Some of us are interested in being friendly."

Eric sighed and pulled his chin off his palm. He turned slowly and faced her from across the table. Thin lines sagged beneath his eyes, and he fought the urge to drop his head. "Sorry, didn't get much sleep."

"Why do you stay up so late? What were you doing all night?" She squinted so tight her eyes disappeared behind a curtain of thick lashes. It was the face she made when forced to look at someone or something incredibly, insufferably stupid.

"Oh, y'know. Just insomnia and stuff," Eric muttered, giving in and letting his cheek rest on the lunch table.

"Insomnia sounded an awful lot like Star Savior." Isaac clapped down a tray, launching echoes through Eric's face. They were twins, and despite being identical, looked nothing alike. Isaac beamed as he chomped into his sub. He always ate with gusto, cramming and mashing food into his face as much and as quickly as possible. Eschewing common utensils aided his quest to hastily and thoroughly abolish any crumb that lived on his plate. Yet when he was done there was never any slivers or sauce to be found on his face or clothes, or the table, or the tray. His shirts, always blinding bleached white and pressed to a crisp, looked exactly as they did when he pulled them from the closet.

Eric, on the other hand, always seemed to be glaring, even when he smiled. Even though they were equally pale, Eric seemed sickly while Isaac was angelic. It always looked as though Eric was going to fall into coma at any second, like the entire world had dumped a diseased burden on his shoulders at birth. His body always ached, his joints were always heavy. And, worst of all, no matter how often he did his laundry, no matter how neatly he folded and pressed, his dark wardrobe always came out ratty and ruffled. Naturally, they also became stained throughout the day. It might take Eric an entire lunch period to finish a meatball sub, but every ounce of sauce in that sandwich would find its way to his sleeves or his collar, without a doubt.

"Zero sympathy for playing video games all night," Leigh snapped. She shoved a sliced peach down her throat. It bubbled as it slid away, eventually dropping into deeper organs and out of sight.

"I didn't ask for any." Eric closed his eyes. For a few moments it was silent, except for the murmur of the other hundred students in the room. Just when a lovely lady clad in green descended from glistening golden clouds to guide him gently to sleep, a sharp pain on his forehead sent her away. He swore as Leigh pulled her fingers away.

"No sleeping. You don't get to sleep."

"What? Why not?"

"You should have done that at night."

"I have insomnia!"

"No, you don't. If you'd just stay awake here, you'd be able to sleep later." Leigh cocked her eye. They were dashed with flecks of blue and green, but full of crazy. At least, that's what Eric always thought. "Crazy eyes" he'd call them, and most were quick to agree.

"Screw that, you're not my boss." Eric flipped his head down into folded arms, making certain to cover up any fleshy bits with hair or the peaks of his jacket sleeves. He felt a few pokes, which he assumed were probably flicks, but his hard head served him well. Until the textbook was brought into play.

"Augh, what the fuck!" He groaned and held his head. A storm of pins and needles stabbed his skull.

"Who's not your boss?" Leigh laughed loudly, tossing her head back and letting her face turn pink.

Isaac watched silently, stuffing down more sub. In the beginning he protected Eric from Leigh's abuse, but day after day he went back begging for more. He knew his brother hated it, but it became a routine he grew weary of fighting. The only reasonable option was to hope Eric eventually grew tired of it all.

It seemed that moment might have come. Eric leered from behind blond bangs. His lips twisted at the corners, showing more than a hint of tightly clenched teeth. A bit of dribble slipped away, and a low, short growl, more like a pant, rumbled out. All over his body began to tremble, and he grasped his head so hard Isaac could hear the nails digging through the scalp.

Leigh laughed on, oblivious to the festering rage just a foot away.

That was when thunder shot like a cannon. Mighty winds forced open the front doors, at the end of the cafeteria. Rain rushed in, drowning the lunches of a few unfortunate students. Then, just as quickly as it had happened, it stopped. The rain washed away, the thunder rumbled into silence. Then the lights went out.

The Modern Myth

As I sit here watching tonight's episode of Bleach I couldn't help but smile at the ridiculousness of the whole thing. Y'know, that one part of me that wants to fit in with the cool kids and see all the hyper popular series as lame, over-done, stupid noise? It was that part. That part of me that laughed at how ridiculously long the series, in all of its incarnations, had gone on for. I'm pretty sure that if I kept buying the Bleach comics back in the day, I wouldn't be able to fit them on a single bookcase. The anime is even worse. Not only does that cover every inch of the tale laid out by Kubo in the comics, but it adds even more to the story with "filler" seasons and story arcs. The cast was already unmanageably large, but these "filler" seasons practically double it. I doubt there is a single human alive who could tell you every individual character created throughout the Bleach franchise and their significance.

Then I realized something: Bleach, and many franchises like it, are not meant to be consumed the way a shorter show is. Bleach is not meant to be digested in an easily contained twenty-four episode season, because Bleach, like its characters, is larger than life. It is one continuous story composed of interlocking stories with a scope of characters rivaling the denizens of Mt. Olympus.

I've often criticized such unwieldy casts and critical changes to central characters, but then I realize what the artist behind it all is attempting to accomplish: they are creating a world, as rich in legend and lore and citizenry  as our own. Bleach, Naruto, and Dragon Ball, among many, many others, are fantasies on a scope of legend. These are modern epic fantasies, and I really want to put emphasis on the word "epic" here. These are tales which rival Homer's Odyssey. 

Which brings me to what has famously been one of my previous complaints: Everyone in these shows is too god damn strong. How am I supposed to relate to that? Well, let me tell you, I'll keep harping on that one for ages. But, that doesn't mean I can't understand it. There is a point in these tales where, like the past legends, it is no longer about mortal beings. Instead we are watching the affairs of gods, deities who command forces of which we could have no true understanding. With a flick of his wrist, Frieza can annihilate an entire planet. Battles take place across miles and miles on realms which mortals can never set foot. Sound at all like Zeus, Hercules, and Olympus to anybody else? How about Thor and Asgard? The parallels are insurmountable. Bleach and Dragon Ball, and a million other things like it are the grand epics of our generation.

Not only do these series reflect the grandiose elements of past mythologies, but when you take them and break them down into their own mythology (destructing them into many stories instead of one long story) you find common thematic elements as well. Kindness, courage, love, hope, good will always win. In many ways these modern epics reflect and reinforce the morals and lessons that the original mythologies were created to teach. And they all have one common lesson that is strongly presented in all tales from all times: Be the best that you can be.

Should we begin worshiping Ichigo Kurosaki as a god? No, don't be silly. However, it will be interesting to see if these stories are remembered, and how they will continue to be passed on through each generation.

Watch the Other Movies

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