The Best Part of Bleach is a Tragedy

In which I become reasonably emotional about fifteen-year-olds fighting battles they never should have had to fight. Also, I never had a chance to gush about the art itself in this essay, so I’ll make up for it here. It’s obvious that Kubo’s style evolved significantly over the course of drawing Bleach, literally smoothing out its sharper edges, but it’s disingenuous to say it went from bad to good—it was always good, now it’s just pretty. Instead, I want to draw attention to his use of movement and lighting. Sometimes he will use hatch marks to convey something moving too quickly for the camera to track, such as eyes, swords, hands, or entire people. It’s a simple technique, but it takes a lot of skill and consideration to make sure it’s still understandable to the audience. He will also use jump cuts to convey high speed movement, like someone appearing behind an opponent or the moment right before an attack lands. They’re shocking and oppressive moments meant to make you and the fight’s protagonist