In Which I Rage Overdramatically.

[elementalhero]

The Shonen Jump chapters are out, and so I've decided to change things up a little bit this week (for right now). Instead of being the Happy Fandom Corner about Naruto, I'm going to be the Angry Fandom Corner about Bleach.


As those of you know who've been friends with me longer than a year and a half or so, Bleach used to be my favorite manga, way back when. I used to make so many happy posts about Bleach, enthusing and expressing my enjoyment of the silly manga with the kid who sees ghosts and his dork buddies and shiny swords.

Nowadays?

I hate it.

I never feel right anymore saying that I hate Bleach, because the word "hate" is such a loaded word. Hate is a strong word, like love, that shouldn't be used lightly. It's different from "strongly dislike," because "strongly dislike" ought to intimate that one never liked the subject to begin with. "Hate," in its purest form, is the kind of strong dislike that can only come from a deep, close understanding of the subject. You can't hate something unless you've loved it first. But I see so many people flinging around the word "hate" that when I go to say, "I hate Bleach," and other people agree with me, I don't know if they mean, "I don't like it either," or, "I, too, feel the strong, ugly, corrosive acid of hatred chewing at my heart every time I see a panel anymore."

I'm not saying I'm the only one who can hate Bleach. That's not what I mean at all. I'm just saying, the subject of Bleach is kind of a gaping wound for me, and I don't know if I'm honestly conveying that sense of deep rage and loss properly.

I mean, I'm not talking a general disgust here. I'm not talking the kind of irritation you get when, I don't know, your parents order a pizza with onions on it when you specifically asked them not to and now you have to pick the onions out of the cheese and the pizza still has absorbed the onion flavor to the point where it is no longer salvageable. I'm talking the kind of burning feeling you get in your gut when you read an article on Conservapedia, or listen to some toothless moron on the news talk about video games corrupting our nation's youth while her cats breed in the background, or hear some little fat kid in the grocery store talk back to his parents as if they were an annoyance to him. This is the kind of hatred that seethes in your stomach like a bad ulcer, that makes you clench your fists unconsciously and breathe deeply through your nose and swallow hard to keep the acid from rising into your throat.

Basically, I can narrow down this feeling into three important reasons why I hate Bleach.

3.) I have only the happiest of memories associated with it.

Summer 2007. Watching volume five of the anime with my (now ex-)boyfriend and giggling when he compared one of his dork friends to Jidanbou, the gate guardian. Making all my friends read it. Getting abrof back into anime so he could also geek with us at the lunch table. Not paying attention in junior year Journalism and instead reading manga volumes under my desk. capslock_bleach, full stop. All of these things.

2.) It used to be good.

Tatsuki? Best character in the manga. Kon used to be an actually three-dimensional character. Orihime used to be determined and do things. Rukia used to kick ass with only half her powers. Chad used to actually get drawn. Ishida used to exist for reasons other than solely to be stabbed when shit got real. Ichigo used to be actually sympathetic, for god's sake.

1.) It was and still continues to be gorgeous.

There are many, many, many angry and uncomplimentary things that one could say about Tite Kubo, and a huge number of them would be very true. But none of those true, angry and uncomplimentary things would be to say that he can't draw. Because he can. He can draw characters so beautifully that it hurts.

These three facts chain me to this manga, to the point that I continue to read it every week, even when I've read the spoilers and know that nothing happens. When I know that yet another female character is going to be mutilated so a male character will be motivated to somehow "fight harder," as if the fate of the world wasn't enough already. Or when I know none of the characters I like will do anything because it's time for the main character to do something after being out of focus for a few months, despite the fact that the other characters have been out of focus for far, far longer. Or when I know that, simply, no plot points have been resolved for two months and none will get resolved this week either.

I read it, and whisper to myself, "Maybe it will get better this week."

This week.

This week.

This week.

This week...




It doesn't.

It never does.

And yet, I keep doing it.


I'm going to go read Naruto and feel better now.

ETA: And it worked! *squish-hugs this week's chapter*

Comments

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

That sucks so hard. I hate it when series I love let me down like that.

And honestly, I really relate, because I'm kind of in the same place with Naruto.

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I never took Naruto's plot very seriously, and that's what enabled me to skate over the stuff I didn't like and immerse myself in the stuff I did like.

But I used to take Bleach really seriously.

:/


And then I discovered Pokemon Special, and that never fails to make me ridiculously happy in every way. :D

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Yeah, thank god for the manga that reminds up how good manga can be.

[okroginator.livejournal.com]

It's especially wonderful when you find it in unexpected places.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

Definitely.