The complete title is Bleach Movie: Fade to Black, I call your name. Long title is long. Fade to Black is the third theatrical Bleach movie and was released some time in December of 2008, yes it took that freaking long to be released on DVD in September of this year(does any one know why they take so long to release DVDs?) thankfully it was well worth the wait as I thought that out of the three movies this was definitely the best out of the three. Now for the inevitable question, will there be more movies to test this one as well?
I'm sure there is enough crazy material out there in Bleach land that it shouldn't be long before another movie comes out. After all how many movies does Naruto have? But anyways unlike Bakemonogatari this movie is way easier to explain and review. It is Bleach after all, who doesn't know about Bleach.
Fade to Black is a story that is central to Rukia. Even though it starts off with an attack on Kurotsuchi with a single slice of a Scythe Kurotsuchi seems to forgot who he is and ends up going insane attacking his own lab and unleashing a white goo that is made up of condensed spiritual particles that takes the shape of flying snakes that attack Seireitei encasing warriors and a good third of Seireitei in this liquid. In the confusion Rukia is on her way to another area of Seireitei when she is attacked by the same person who attacked Kurotsuchi cutting her with the Scythe as well. However the attack seems to deal no physical damage just leaving her slumped in a pile. She is then whisked away by the attackers.
Back in the real world Kon and Ichigo are talking and Kon mentions Rukia and her secret message that she left them and Ichigo seems to not remember Rukia and heads to bed. He is startled back awake when he remembers who Rukia is, worrying about her he heads off to Urahara's shop to ask him about it but even Urahara seems to have forgotten about Rukia and tells Ichigo about the disturbance in Seireitei and suggests that it could be connected. Ichigo and Kon head off to Seireitei.
Fast forward a bit and it seems that no one at Seireitei remembers either Rukia or Ichigo which leads the Gotei 13 to believe it's Ichigo's fault and attack him it's also at this time that more of the spiritual particle snakes attack Seireitei as well so that the two attackers with Rukia in tow can leave Seireitei and return to the place where Rukia grew up. When Rukia recovers she finds the two attackers watching over her and we find out that the two attackers where once childhood friends of hers before she became a Shinigami and the two attackers blame the Shinigami for everything.
Now I'm going to skip a bit of fighting and discovery and just get to the meat and potatoes of the story The two attackers are actually siblings who once were friends with Rukia and during their childhood they are attacked and killed by a Shinigami who was possessed by a scythe tailed hollow. To protect Rukia the two siblings with an ability to teleport get the hollow to possess them instead of Rukia. Finding out that it possessed two dead children the Hollow retreats back to HM and it takes the siblings 100 years to find their way back to Rukia and the Seireitei where they have developed their skills and a hatred for the Shinigami which is what has lead them to release the white snake monsters and kidnap Rukia and making everyone forget about Rukia. Since Ichigo wont forget Rukia it confuses her and makes the siblings angry and to protect Rukia the two siblings bond with Rukia creating a Dark Rukia that fights with Ichigo while the rest of the Gotei 13 fights the ever increasing white snakes.
Ichigo finally defeats the Dark Rukia by stabbing her and killing the Hollow that has possessed her and the siblings. In the mean time The Gotei 13 are able to destroy the machine that is creating the White Snakes so pretty much everything is returned to normal and Rukia is able to tell the two siblings their names (one of the reasons they came back to her) after which they are happy that they could find out their names and pass away.
Fade to Black has a good story and the action is right on with many of the Gotei 13 busting out their finer moves even Kenpachi goes wild. Of course there are no new Bankai moves but I didn't expect any new development there anyways. It was also nice to see Urahara get busy as well. All in all it was a good movie and I'll be expecting a US release in probably another 9 months or so. Definitely worth a purchase if you're a Bleach fan. If you're not a huge fan it's still worth renting at least.
Enjoy the trailer:
