Bleach: The DiamondDust Rebellion
After the first film pretty much emphasized the high-points of the Bleach franchise (at least for me), this second feature only serves to highlight it's overbearing low-points.
I felt Memories of Nobody at least succeeded in providing a succint, and more importantly, simple story that worked well as a standalone piece. The DiamondDust Rebellion (stupid name) quickly becomes a cluttered mess, one which covers itself in confusing and nonsensical terminology, both old and new, as it steadily steers towards its predictable conclusion.
I was interested in watching this, mostly as I was just curious to see if they actually used the time to flesh out the character of Hitsuguya. He has always been a character who I felt got way too much screen-time in the series, especially as there were far more interesting characters (not least of all The Captains), continually being thrown to the wayside.
Stupid characters, do stupid things
The plot itself is paper-thin, Hitsugaya tasked with protecting a royal artifact, is branded a criminal after disappearing in mysterious circumstances, when said item is stolen. As this concerns Soul-Society, of course all logic is thrown out of the window, as the ever sedulos Captain is instantly branded a fugitive. You'd think that some sort of investigation would at least have been suggested. I seem to remember the Gotei 13 coming across as pretty much incompetent in the past, but here they reach ridiculous new levels. I know they are supposed to be the military for SS, but they always seem to act like a dictatorship, except when the plot suits, at which point, we are reminded of the two branches that have actual jurisdiction over them. The way in which they operate has never really made much sense to me, much less here. And in this case, they essentially order a death-sentence on Hitsugaya, who seems all too happy to oblige in justifying their suspicions, by attacking everyone on sight. Considering these are all characters that are supposed to be 100's of years old(at the very least), there is a certain irony in all of them constantly acting like petulant children.
If I was going to be reductive about all this, his character development could be summarized as: gets new outfit.
It would have taken only take one moment of rational thinking from just one character, for the whole narrative to come crashing down. But that was not to be the case, and instead most of the film is dedicated to a select few taking it upon themselves to find out the truth, all the while, Hitsuguya seems to aimlessly wander around every abandoned industrial building in Japan.
The reality of just how illogically they are all acting looks as though it is being setup for an eventual deconstruction of sorts, but as the finale draws close, the status-quo is simply restored, with no one questioning how easily it could have all been avoided. With the story being a dud, the action is the only thing left, and that doesn't really help matters. It's the same hackneyed scenes that made me drop the series during the Hueco Mundo arc, uninteresting fights, punctuated by all the key characters signature moves. It's simply boring, and the whole thing would have benefited from some restraint. This probably makes it sound more engaging that it actually is, but the final battle is litereally a pastiche of an RPG final boss, complete with a castle and a giant enemy.
All in all, it offers up nothing much at all. It has no real insight into the character it chooses to focus on, and it makes poor use of its cast. It never really justifies it's status as a feature, in my opinion. A lot of the animation just felt lazy too.
Summary: They should have focussed on Shunsui, instead. I expect the stupidest things from a Bleach movie. This is ramble.
