Bleach Club

[Rasler]

Andromeda:

Spoiler: Aizen makes Orihime "undo" Grimmjow's injury. Orihime's power is closer to "undo" than "heal", which is why Aizen kidnapped her. Continuous use of the Hogyoku weakens it. Orihime's there to make it good as new, over and over.

Not for Andromeda. Sharing information that isn't implicitly stated, but is a spoiler.

Spoiler: I was reading, and since Aizen's slaughter of the Office of 46, Yamamoto has taken over its role (supreme, unchallengable authority). And he's a bit paranoid about defense of Soul Society, so no (authorized) help for Ichigo and co. in the Hueco Mundo arc.

-edit-
No new Bleach this week, but I have this to say about Death Note: "...Wow. F*cking wow."
Death Note is almost like Chuck Palahnuik's (Fight Club's author [it was a book first, yo]) novel Lullaby. (Which I recommend reading)

Death Note, like Bleach, uses the term "shinigami". Shinigami, literally translated as "death god." This shouldn't cause too much confusion for the dubbed Bleach watchers, as the Americanization process has Bleach's shinigami consistently translated as "Soul Reaper," whereas Death Note just uses "Shinigami." Death Note's and Bleach's shinigami are radically different in nature and appearance, however, they do seem to have some similarities in function.

[Andromeda]

Yeah, I found a little surprising that they were going to be calling them Shinigami in Death Note as well. I was pleased to see that they were keeping to the original Japanese, but it is disappointing that they could not have done the same for Bleach. And yes, no more Bleach for a while. I keep looking at the AS schedule hoping that they will up date it, but they are being very lazy or very secretive about what their next move is. I know I flipped through the boards to see if there was word there about the reasons and time frame when Bleach would return. Unfortunately, everyone is just as confused and annoyed. No one knows why they took off Bleach and AS is not making announcements to their reasons as well. They only have 52 episodes aired, which is over a third of the show thus far. They should have been going at a good enough rate that it would not have matter. But the only other show AS has that is as long as Bleach is Inuyasha and they flipped timeslots so much it was not even funny. It was Saturdays sometimes and weekdays sometimes. They would show 5 new episodes a week and then only do one. They would take breaks often as well, but the break were usually not after 52 episodes. It was usually shorter spans. The only reason I can imagine is that the dubbers are behind and need time to catch up or something.

Oh well, we'll just have reruns during the week to keep us going for a while. I'll keep watching the reruns because Bleach is that good. But I will be bothered every time they get to Renji and Byakuya and start over again.

[Rasler]

Since there's no new dubbed episode to talk about, and the latest subbed one was rather uneventful, I have done more conjecture and prediction.

When Orihime's brother became a Hollow, he removed his mask. That would've made him an arrancar, but a very weak, natural, and basic one, as he gained no shinigami powers nor zanpakuto.

Spoiler: One note from the latest subbed episode: They've censored Halibel. Pictures are below. She's the only current female Espada, as well as one of the four Espada with currently unknown rank. (Probably #7, seeing as the aggressively chauvanistic #5 isn't at conflict with her. He frequently assaulted the former #3 because she was female and had a higher rank than his.) For future Bleach storylines: After Aizen's eventual defeat: (It's going to happen. It's inevitable.) Yamamoto runs Soul Society like a dictator. Aizen slew the government body of Soul Society before defecting, and Yamamoto took over its role: supreme, unchallengable authority. Soul Society considers the acquisition of Hollow powers an ultimate taboo. Yamamoto discovers Ichigo's use of Hollow powers and orders the execution of Ichigo. This would lead to a war between Ichigo+allies and Soul Society. Ichigo's allies include: Vizards Arrancar: (Possibly) Nell, Dondo-chakka, and Pesshe Urahara group: Urahara, Yoruichi, Ururu, Jinta, Tessai, Lilin, Cloud, Nova Earth group: Uryu's dad, Ichigo's dad, Don Kanonji, Kon, Uryu, Orihime, Chad Soul Society allies: Renji, Rukia, Ganju, Kukkaku, Jidanbo, maybe Squad 11 Ichigo's long presence in Hueco Mundo and continuous use of his Hollow powers has strengthened Ichigo's inner Hollow. It resumes attempting possession over Ichigo's soul. I'm waiting for Tosen to attempt an assassination on Aizen. He claims to be a supporter of justice and righteousness, but also of the path of least bloodshed. He's probably waiting for Aizen to let his guard down. Let's say that Ichigo undergoes a complete Hollow transformation again, including soul domination by the Hollow. It would be interesting for Aizen to make Ichigo an arrancar of himself. Chad, Uryu, and/or Orihime die. They would end up in Soul Society, and in all probability, because of their abilities, become shinigami. This would be particularly amusing with Uryu.

[Andromeda]

I don't know about that for Orihime's brother. I know he managed to over power the hollow in him and regain his control over his spirit. But as you said he did not gain any shinigami powers in the process. And it was temporary at that. It was more just the soul being fought over for dominance. Since he was made a hollow against his will and unnaturally. So there was resistance. The process was not completed yet. Because of that I don't really think you can call him an Arrancar. He was just a hollow that was fighting over dominance.

The Arrancars did exist back then in Bleach being soon with Grand Fisher. But Orihime's brother was not one of them. There was no transformation or return to a human looking form. He just simply took over his soul. It would have been interesting to see that happen, but it was far to early in the show to have that happen and have to explain it. Especially since I doubt that Rukia knows about the Vizards or Arrancar until they make their appearance.

As for Bleach on AS. From what I have read it sounds like they ran out of dubbed episodes. Which seems a little strange, but I guess they are not dubbing an episode a week. I don't know why it would take more than a week to translate and dub a 30 minute episode. I would imagine that the translation takes the longest, but once that is done I would imagine that the dubbing is like a couple day process. Unless they dub en mass and well that I guess makes since. Well either way, I have Death Note until they return with Bleach. They better have another 52 episodes to show up with when they start again. Well they better have more than that. At the very least complete the Bount Arc. But they just stopped in the middle of the Soul Society Arc before Ichigo gains his Bankai and goes to save Rukia. The best part and they go and stop before that. They better not do that with Bount.

Oh well, I watched Bleach tonight like I do every night. It was Orihime and Uryu finishing the fight with Geronbo or however it is spelled. I still don't know why they recapped so much of the previous episode when airing this one. My only guess is that they ran out of things to do and wanted to end the episode where they ended it and not go on for another minute. So they wasted like two minutes at the beginning. Ichigo and Ganju meet Hanataro making the comment that he has a girly name or stupid name something to that effect. Hana meaning flower, but that's Hanataro for you.

So we need something to chat about. The club has been quiet for a while and I have not been doing my job in posting here when I should have. It has been nearly week. I don't know why I didn't post sooner other than I think I did not have anything to post at the time. But we do need something to chat and discuss about. We've done Zanpakuto's quite a bit already and life in the soul society. What more can we speculate about? I guess we could always start doing an in depth analysis of each episode. That would certain keep us busy for a long time.

*shrugs* Ideas?