ALARIS' REVIEWS

22nd November 2009
Bleach: The Captain Amagai Arc (2008)

This review assumes prior knowledge of Bleach (2004), and contains spoilers for those who haven't watched episodes 1-167.

This started out well, for a Bleach filler arc.

Non-canonical filler arcs are regularly inserted into the TV series to prevent it from catching up to the manga on which it is based. These filler arcs are patchy at best (eg. the often incoherent Bount Arc, 2006), and excruciating at worst (eg. the appalling Team Hitsugaya Mini-Arc, 2007). At first glance, the Captain Amagai Arc seems to deal with central story issues, and explore core characters, so things looked promising.

Unfortunately, long, dull fight scenes, spoiled princesses, Ichigo's protector-of-the-world complex, and an insulting ending lay waste to a decent premise and an interesting start.

The arc has twin story threads. The more interesting of the two is set in Soul Society, and focuses on Vice Captain Kira - the pathetically weak-willed Shinigami, who rather sadly, is aware of how pathetically weak-willed and unpopular he is in the fallout of the Soul Society Arc (2005). The less interesting thread, and the one which ultimately brains the whole arc, is the one in which schoolboy and substitute Shinigami - Ichigo - finds himself unexpectedly having to babysit a spoiled princess. If it sounds bad, it's because it is.

While the ever cool Rukia, and Ichigo's family, have a few cute moments, the Captain Amagai Arc suffers from Memories of Nobody (2006) syndrome. The Ichigo story thread revolves almost entirely around Ichigo and a new, extremely boring character, while all the other, far more interesting regular characters are shuffled offscreen for the duration of the arc.

While the two story threads eventually converge, they do so to the detriment of both. The ending is a huge let down, and seems to contradict the values infused throughout the canon - notably, the idea of cooperative victory, and courage in redemption.

Verdict: A filler arc that begins with promise, and ends with grating disappointment.

If you like Memories of Nobody, you might like this.