Taking into account how much live action movies based on manga have disappointed me in the past, I came into "Bleach" with low expectations (probably not the only one). However, this movie adaptation is funny, with acceptable action set pieces and relatable characters (on top of not stretching its running time endlessly and pointlessly (even if it falls a little bit into this trap in its third act)). And, even if you don't know anything about the manga, it is easy to jump into the story, as the movie does a great job of introducing the world and building it up from scratch. Totally worth watching!

BLEACH is another live action anime following on from the Netflix release of FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST. This one's a little better than that one, featuring endless lavish action scenes and plenty of CGI spectacle to bring the comic book antics to life. I should admit that I'm no anime fan so watching this was a new experience for me. The characters are slick and bland, good or weird-looking, which stops the viewer properly engaging in the story somewhat, but the action direction is typically frenetic and the giant CGI beasties are good fun to watch. This is very much along the lines of the 'young adult' genre popular in Hollywood, but generally more thrilling and well made than those films.

That is if you still buy discs or even the digital version of movies of course. Silly joke about a rap song aside, I have not read the source material this is based on, so I can't tell you how close it portrays the characters. What I can say, is that the movie here has good stunts and action scenes overall. The mystery works for the movie as does the story.

You have to like this kind of stuff otherwise you may feel annoyed or irritated. And overall I would call this a decent effort, which makes me curious about the overall bleach universe - I reckon it will be quite complex. If I find time I might check it out.