{"id":4190,"date":"2010-01-29T20:32:04","date_gmt":"2010-01-30T04:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikoto.wordpress.com\/?p=4190"},"modified":"2010-01-29T20:32:04","modified_gmt":"2010-01-30T04:32:04","slug":"bleach-390-when-you-cant-beat-em-give-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/2010\/01\/bleach-390-when-you-cant-beat-em-give-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Bleach 390: When you can’t beat ’em, give up"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tite Kubo<\/span><\/strong>: Uh oh, I think I made Aizen overpowered.<\/p>\n

Editor<\/span><\/strong>: No shit, dumbass.<\/p>\n

Tite Kubo<\/strong><\/span>: Oh whatever, I guess I’ll just overpower him more.<\/p>\n

Editor<\/span><\/strong>: Fuck this job.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest problems mangaka have with mainstream shounen (or shounen in general) is how to make the overpowered boss characters seem reasonable in comparison to previous antagonists. \u00a0Cell made Frieza look like a pushover. \u00a0Crocodile was a hell of a lot more powerful than Krieg.<\/p>\n

An even bigger problem is how to make the main character powerful enough to take on this succession of powerful enemies.<\/p>\n

But in the 390th chapter of Bleach, Tite Kubo managed to do the impossible. \u00a0Most manga with the “end-boss” character have that character at an impossibly high power level to begin with. \u00a0But out of the blue, Aizen suddenly is more powerful than all of the protagonists combined, holding lightyears beyond the power necessary to keep the sky from falling and the earth from cracking open.<\/p>\n

Sometimes shounen series have a popular villain (either with the fans or with the author) return, either as a stronger antagonist or a reformed protagonist. \u00a0Shin and Panther of Eyeshield 21 are good examples of this. \u00a0Heck, any sports manga “rival”\u00a0fits the bill. \u00a0But never before have I seen an enemy stay in the series, never go through any “training” period, and suddenly get even more overpowered than he originally was.<\/p>\n

People often cite “shortness” as the reason why they keep following Bleach. \u00a0I never claimed that, but let me change my mind right now. \u00a0This chapter was so short that when it ended, I thought it was only 6 pages long. \u00a0I blame the large amount of wasted panels.<\/p>\n

Oh, and apparently, this chapter is titled “Beyond the Death Understanding.” \u00a0Fitting, since I don’t understand how Kubo could think up such a bad 19 pages. \u00a0Oh God.<\/p>\n

And while I’m on the topic of how much Bleach sucks, why is Toushiro Hitsugaya<\/a> so popular? \u00a0He is the biggest loser in the series! \u00a0I don’t think he’s ever won a single battle before! \u00a0How can anybody like him?<\/p>\n

P.S.: I was tearing my hair out trying to write a post titled “Crying Uncontrollably<\/a>” on the topic of Romance and why I thought Honey and Clover was mediocre, but this one Bleach chapter was so terrible that I just couldn’t resist.<\/p>\n

P.P.S.: On the other hand, this week’s One Piece chapter was really great. \u00a0Whitebeard is so gar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tite Kubo: Uh oh, I think I made Aizen overpowered. Editor: No shit, dumbass. Tite Kubo: Oh whatever, I guess I’ll just overpower him more. Editor: Fuck this job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2zM4X-15A","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/flomu.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}