Manga – The Other White Meat

One of the things manga and anime have a tendency to do is drag out fights far longer then other forms of media. I’m not sure if that is a stylistic thing because most of the stories obviously originate in another part of the world. Maybe it's just the stereotypical American in me that is screaming at the pages, in my head mind you, “go, go, go…I want this to end because there is other stuff in the future that is more exciting.”

I think sometimes in comics I complain about the lack of character development and background story that prevents attachment to the characters, but then in manga they do it too much. Perhaps it is just the insanely large cast of characters that is different, although in comparison to Marvel’s X-universe or similar titles that isn’t really so farfetched.

Whatever the reason may be, Bleach, after a few hard hitting episodes, is back there with this chapter. It is a necessary chapter in that it fleshes out everything that was set up last week. At the same time it is absolutely what we already knew would happen so there are no surprises whatsoever. In Naruto I just want the current fight to end because it has been going on for a while. Naruto does have one or two moments in it every week that are at least a little unexpected which is helpful. Oh well…onwards to the recaps!

BLEACH

Bleach’s recap shouldn’t take too long. We have the typical father son antics between Ichigo and Isshin taking place as Ichigo tries to learn “The Final Getsuga.” I’m curious if his father doesn’t actually know it yet, because if it was so powerful and he knows it, I’m curious why he didn’t use it against Aizen to stop him. In the precipice world apparently time is amplified by 2,000 times. This means that 2,000 hours of training there equals about one hour in the real world or soul society.

Isshin uses some kind of technique to prevent the world from spitting them out and Ichigo has to go into his inner self to learn the technique. Apparently all of Ichigo’s power up until now he has been able to force out, this time he has to go within or he will never touch it. The rest of the chapter focuses on some of Ichigo’s high school friends running around the transported town trying to figure out what is going on. Aizen seems to be almost ready to attack in the few frames we see him, and the issue ends with something happening to Ichigo that makes his dad think he might be “in.” All in all pretty boring set up stuff so Ichigo can go SSJ4.

Why SSJ4? Let’s see:

Super Saiyan = Ichigo getting Bankai
SSJ2 = Ichigo going into his first hollow form
SSJ3 = Ichigo’s second hollow form, coming back from being dead to defeat Ulquiorra
SSJ4 = This next technique.

Manga is awesome.

NARUTO

The Naruto chapter was actually pretty good, but it was just the continuation of his internal battle with the nine-tailed demon fox inside of him. Chapter 499 picks up with the completion of Naruto’s conversation with his mother Kushina. This puts him at peace, and Kushina has the fox chained down affording Naruto the opportunity to attack. The demon fox cloak that was forming around him scaring Bee and Yamato is fading away as Naruto regains control of himself. The fox begins to break the chains but Kushina manages to hold onto it with one last chain.

In the meantime Naruto creates his multiple shadow clones and they all form Rasengans. What the fox isn’t expecting, however, is Naruto to suddenly go into sage mode! Since he has been sitting still in the real world, he is able to activate sage mode just as his clones attack. This makes each attack multiples stronger. As a final attack Naruto hits the fox with one last wind-rasenshuriken. As the fox asks how Naruto could possibly be so strong, the young ninja rips the last of the fox’s chakra away and reseals him after the victory.

At this point Naruto begins to glow with some insane energy that we’ve never seen before and looks surprised at the power. As the fox prepares another attack, even after losing, Naruto reseals it using a sage technique that was pretty cool and impressive. Naruto refuses to kill the fox, and leaves him buried within his soul sealed up. Kushina says that now she can finally go with with Minato, her husband and Naruto’s father. Before she leaves, however, she drops a bombshell that I was not expecting. Naruto’s mother was the form jinchuuriki of the nine-tailed fox demon. Looks like we’ll get a flashback next chapter to the very beginning with the fox attacked the village and perhaps find out why Kushina seems to have died at Naruto’s birth.

Until next time!