Hell has Lent Me its Power...



A poster depicting some of the movie's characters. Newcomers Kokuto (Upper Left) and Shuren (Center) Join the cast.
Info




The cover of the invitational book, featuring information about the movie.

Bleach: Hell Chapter is the fourth bleach movie to be made, and is the only movie tied directly to the main storyline. The author, Tite Kubo, was the production director, and was involved since the planning and scenario stages of production. This is the only movie he's ever been a part of, aside from designing the characters and concept. To commemorate its release, a special prologue chapter was written called Imaginary 01. the unforgivens, and a special episode was also made from the chapter, with a little bit extra content.

The prologue follows two deceased villains, Szayel Aporro Granz, and Aaroniero Arruruerie, as they fall from the sky onto the hard ground. They look around, confused of their location, when a figure approaches them. He welcomes them to this place, which they then learn to be hell. The man offers them a chance to join him, but they steadfastly refuse. Szayel gets a jump on the man, but is preempted by one of his followers. After being easily defeated, the man says that their power wasn't good enough. They'd need something stronger to tear away the gates of hell to escape. In a small hourglass lies the silhouette of Ichigo, in his most recent transformation, where he loses all semblence of reason. The extra content specific to the anime involves one of the first creatures Ichigo defeated. Shrieker, as he is called, escaped from hell and tries to exact revenge on Rukia, the girl who gave Ichigo his powers. He's a lot stronger this time, and is sporting a new mask/cloak ensemble. During the fight, his cloak is torn off, revealing red chains binding him. Once exposed, the gates of hell appear, and reclaim him.

The movie starts with the man, who introduces himself as Shuren, and his followers that attack Ichigo and his friends after school. Shuren has kidnapped Ichigo's two sisters. They barely hold their own against the new threat, and Ichigo takes Shuren head on. Unsuccessful, he is about to be defeated when a man wearing all white and black bandages over the right side of his face appears. He first rescues one of Ichigo's sisters, then attacks Shuren and holds him off long enough until Shuren finally escapes. The new man reveals his name to be Kokuto. He introduces himself as a togabito, a sinner, meaning a resident of hell. He had escaped like Shuren had. He too is looking for a permanent escape from hell. He offers to help Ichigo rescue his sister. Ichigo accepts, and he along with a few of his friends travel to hell. In hell they must find their way to the inner circles of hell, whilst avoiding the enormous guardians of hell, the Kushannard. Shuren's followers again take on Ichigo's friends, and Kokuto and Ichigo travel on toward his sister. Kokuto explains why he's helping Ichigo. Turns out he had a sister, who was killed, and he felt awful for not being able to stop it. He killed everyone who was involved with his sister's death and was thus sent to hell after death. When they find Shuren, Ichigo and Kokuto take him on. Shuren is reduced to ash by Ichigo after a long battle. Kokuto was also destroyed in the process, tossed into a molten vat by Shuren's followers, but not without taking them with him. As Ichigo is about to save his sister, a black sword pierces him in the chest and he falls to the ground unconscious. Kokuto is standing above him, and jerks the sword out of him. He talks to Ichigo about his true goals and how everyone in hell is continuously reborn.

Ichigo's friends rescue him and his sister from hell while holding off Kokuto, and upon return, is healed by another friend. Once his sister recovers, he regains the will to fight. His friends did not escape hell, and remain with Kokuto. Ichigo rushes back into hell to face Kokuto and to rescue Rukia. During their fight, Ichigo is seemingly crushed by the guardians of hell. Kokuto laughs at his victory, when Ichigo emerges from the guardians' grasp. He is clad in skulls and bones, and sporting a fiery aura. Hell lent its power to him, in an effort to defeat Kokuto. Using this new power, he does, and brings his friends back to the real world.


This movie is one of my favorites from the series. It's much darker and more serious than the others, and really delves into the psychology and thought process of the characters. The animation is beautiful, and fans will recognize the revamped fight at the very beginning, which depicts Ichigo's demonic form, which is a part of the main story. Overall it is very well written and directed, and as always the music is fantastic. Often accompanied by a chorus, it captures the hellish feeling through an orchestra of trumpets and the like.

Run

Okay, so I've already written about this book, but as well as being a reference, it is also my fiction piece for this project. It is an amazingly written book, but I've already illustrated my opinion previously, so I'll just do a quick summary.

John Hammond, a capitalist with too much time on his hands, has built a dinosaur-themed park by genetically recreating the animals through DNA extraction. As a precaution, he is advised by his lawyers to have sort of a test run, by bringing real people and experts in ahead of time to make sure the park is "up to par". Enter Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, Ian Malcolm, and Donald Gennaro, as well as two kids Lexi and Tim. These people are brought onto the island where the park was built, and are given the VIP treatment: a grand tour, explanations of how everything works, special previews of future exhibits, the works. Unfortunately, the guests are not impressed. Malcolm insists that the park will backfire, and Grant is fascinated but skeptical of the ethical questions raised by the recreation process. Nonetheless, all their fears are realized when Dennis Nedry screws things up. Working on an undercover deal for a rival genetics company, he shuts off the main power to get some embryos off of the island. When Nedry doesn't return, this raises problems in the fact that the dinosaurs can now escape, and no one else knows how to work the systems.

Web Content #3

This last video I found is by an artist I follow from France, who goes by the username Diabolumberto. He colors drawings using Photoshop and a drawing tablet. This just shows an example of what can be done digitally rather than traditionally. Digital coloring is certainly more convenient, and easier to fix if mistakes are made, but there's a certain respect that comes with doing some fantastic coloring traditionally. This ties into the narrow end of my topic funnel, and is a good example of modern techniques in creating manga.

Web Content #2

This second piece gets down to the techniques the pros use. Obviously this video is from Japan, and it shows, as the style is very apparent in the examples. What is shown is some various techniques for coloring, as well as the entire process of making a drawing or page. After the sketch, one inks the whole page, and then fills in all the black areas. Then, if desired, one can color using special markers (Copics are by far the best, but also the most expensive, costing about 5$ per pen.), or by using a drawing tablet and ones favorite drawing software (My preference is a Wacom tablet with PaintToolSAI). This also directly ties into my narrowed topic.

Web Content #1

This content fits very well with my narrowed topic, which is simply creating manga, and the techniques and methods used. This video shows one of the most important steps (and one of the hardest in my opinion): inking. Inking is difficult because one has to be very steady-handed and careful to not smudge any of the parts already inked. This is solely a demonstrative piece, and techniques can be learned just by watching.

Air Trecks: The New Craze That's Sweeping the Nation!

Roller blades that make you fly? Sure, why not! Another brilliant idea from Japan, the land of tentacles, godzilla, and robots. That was actually not sarcasm; said roller blades are very cool. They're called Air Trecks, and they are the main tool of the trade in the manga Air Gear. It's a colorful if not somewhat vulgar series, and has brought me lots of laughs thus far.

The main character, Itsuki "Ikki" Minami, and his strange crow.
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Ikki Minami is your average middle school student, except for the fact that he protects the school from a vicious gang. The series opens as he is outnumbered and embarrassingly defeated. When he returns home to his adoptive sisters Ringo, Shiraume, Mikan, and Rika Noyamano, he is reminded of how helpless he was. Then he discovers something interesting. He sees a girl flying above him on what look like roller blades. He asks his sisters about them but they offer him little information. So he goes and looks for himself. Finding out they're called Air Trecks, he makes it his mission to purchase some. Unsuccessfully, he returns home, only to find Ringo with a pair ready for him. He's out to assemble an Air Treck team and rise to the top.

I can't speculate too much on this one because I'm only a third of the way through it, but the characters are interesting, the art is gorgeous, and the story is engaging. There's a LOT of humor throughout the series, although it's usually vulgar (in the form of foul language or nudity for example), so it's not for everybody. The story is relatively easy to follow, and each character has something interesting about them. Overall, so far, I'm satisfied with this series.

Ogure, Ito. Air Gear. Vol. 1. Tokyo: Kodansha. Print.

Becoming a Ninja



The series' protagonists (From top, Clockwise): Yanagi Sakoshita, Kaoru Koganei, Tokiya Mikagami, Fuko Kirisawa, Domon Ishijima, Recca Hanabishi (Center)
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 Flame of Recca, a series that is now a bit old, is not as well known as it perhaps should be. It stars hothead troublemaker Recca Hanabishi, a high school kid with a skill in making fireworks, thanks to his father. He gets into a lot of trouble, usually fighting with another crazy student, Domon Ishijima. Recca has a strange dream; he wishes to become a ninja. He's been fascinated with the Hokage clan, and has researched them his entire life. When one day he meets a girl named Yanagi, he vows to protect her as his hime, or princess. From there he finds himself in a twisted mess of villains who are after Yanagi for her ability to heal, and at the top is a rather ugly man by the name of Koran Mori, as well as Recca's brother Kurei. Recca teams up with his friends (as well as a few rivals) to protect Yanagi and to stop Koran Mori.

Flame of Recca is a beautifully written series, chock-full of humor, action, and gore. An odd combination to be sure, but the art is spectacular, and allows for a much wider range of emotions to be shown. A short anime was released, spanning only the first part of the story, the Ura-butou Satsujin, a tournament put together by Mori yearly to appease his sadistic side, in which competitors are chosen and are pitted against each other until one opponent is dead. The anime was accurate but cannot do justice to the manga. At over 300 chapters, it goes far beyond the tournament, into some serious and action-packed... action. It was an absolute joy to read, and I encourage all of you to give it a shot!

Anzai, Nobuyuki. Flame of Recca. Tokyo: Shueisha, 1995. Print