A plan would have been nice
It never fails. Just as I'm complaining about Bleach being episodic, the very next episode I watch begins the massive story arc. That, of course, manages to rope me in since I have a weakness for epics. It's probably a throwback to the fact that fantasy was my first love as far as genres went. If it wasn't at least a trilogy, it didn't even qualify as a fantasy series. Just like reading those books back then, I love digging into an epic and not coming up for air. It just seems like it destroys the story when you break it up into chunks, one reason I was often so sleepy in school having often marathoned my way through a 700 page book in a single night.
I've finished two seasons of Bleach and started on the third. It's actually the last season available from group I've been getting eps from and I assumed that at most I was a season or so behind. Color me surprised to find that the 12th season is airing right now in Japan. It seems that the group I'm getting from is using the DVD's as a base and is also incredibly slow to boot. That means that soon I'll have to decide whether I want to wait (potentially for months or even years) for this group to finish their slow-assed work or just find some other fansubs to watch. Whenever I can help it I prefer to stick to one group for consistency's sake. Everyone is going to translate a little differently and it's jarring to see changes. For example, whether they use the Japanese's last name first or Americanize it by swapping. It's a minor point but it makes keep track of which character is which incredibly troublesome.
Since I've mentioned characters, I should also comment that Bleach is freaking ridiculous when it comes to the number of characters in it. If you don't believe me, take a look at the entry on wiki for it here. Since I'm pretty much watching the episodes back to back, there's really no time for impressions of characters to sink in and so I bounce back and forth on the characters page trying to figure out who is who. One of the side effects of this is that I pretty much figure out who all the traitorous badguys are well before they do their face heel turn. It's got good and bad points. On the down side it does rob the story of some of the thrill but on the plus side I don't end up having freakout moments when characters I would have liked turn out to be secret jerkasses.
I've finished two seasons of Bleach and started on the third. It's actually the last season available from group I've been getting eps from and I assumed that at most I was a season or so behind. Color me surprised to find that the 12th season is airing right now in Japan. It seems that the group I'm getting from is using the DVD's as a base and is also incredibly slow to boot. That means that soon I'll have to decide whether I want to wait (potentially for months or even years) for this group to finish their slow-assed work or just find some other fansubs to watch. Whenever I can help it I prefer to stick to one group for consistency's sake. Everyone is going to translate a little differently and it's jarring to see changes. For example, whether they use the Japanese's last name first or Americanize it by swapping. It's a minor point but it makes keep track of which character is which incredibly troublesome.
Since I've mentioned characters, I should also comment that Bleach is freaking ridiculous when it comes to the number of characters in it. If you don't believe me, take a look at the entry on wiki for it here. Since I'm pretty much watching the episodes back to back, there's really no time for impressions of characters to sink in and so I bounce back and forth on the characters page trying to figure out who is who. One of the side effects of this is that I pretty much figure out who all the traitorous badguys are well before they do their face heel turn. It's got good and bad points. On the down side it does rob the story of some of the thrill but on the plus side I don't end up having freakout moments when characters I would have liked turn out to be secret jerkasses.