A Reason to Live, A Reason to Read Bleach (fandom overview after 351)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_debbiechan_/]

It's odd--Ulquiorra was the one Espada who didn't seem to enjoy fighting. He didn't seem to enjoy winning either. So losing a fight doesn't seem like what made him lose the will to live. Cirucci despised Ishida's mercy and said that there was no such thing as defeat for an Arrancar. Ulquiorra admitted defeat before he asked to be killed. Had that despair been in Ulquiorra's nature all along?

Likewise, I know many Bleach fans who've been following this manga faithfully for years. Every now and then they swear they're giving it up. They're devasted by certain chapters; they lose faith in the manga-ka's intent, in their vision of justice matching a god's (the creator of the manga's) revelations of truth. They bitch, they moan, they call Kubo names. They say they've lost interest, but they're overwhelmed with interest--they haunt the forums and their neurons rage, oversensitive to every comment. Despair is in their nature too--but unlike Ulquiorra, you know what, guys?

Ulquiorra's despair is a quiet part of his character. Our despair is Kubo-contingent. We're being had but we keep coming back for more. Kubo is a self-admitted sadist. Admit it--Bleach fans are masochists. Why else put up with this toturously slow, horrifically beautiful or numbingly static, by turns dark and incomprehensible then enlightening Hueco Mundo arc?

I've been through some fandom assplosions in my day. When I was reading Bleach during the SS arc, the biggest and most divisive one happened when Isshin revealed himself to be a Shinigami and you never heard such cheers, jeers, cries of WTF why didn't he save his daughters in chapter one?, Is Kubo pulling this plot out of his ass?, and Omg, this is brilliant now explain how Dr. Kurosaki knew Dr Ryuuken, the Director of Karakura Hospital from all those chapters back? Maybe the bigger fandom assplosions came during the Hueco Mundo arc in regards to people feeling not only shocked but betrayed. I remember the roller coaster ride that was the Aaroniero Arrurierie (Yes, Syn, I finally learned to spell his name!) fight and how I had to reassure some of the most sensible adults in fandom who were all "well, I'm quitting Bleach if Rukia is really dead" that Kubo was just yanking their chain.

Don't even get me started about the near rioting in the streets last Christmas. It wasn't the crucified Szayel on a chapter cover that blew up Western fandom; it was the rape of Nemu that set feminist against feminist, and I remember feeling glad because the abstract arguments I'd had in the 80's over real people like Andrea Dworkinhadn't had half the passion as those over this Kubo-invented, Mayuri-designed artificial soul and body woman and all she stood for.

Then again, I've got some passionate friends. And Bleach has some intense fans.

Fan forum intercourse can be dumb or engaging, depending on where you go, and like with some neighborhood bars, depending on the hour. This past week, as the spoilers for chapter 352, "The Lust 5" came out, as the first images and the first scanlation in English emerged, I don't think I've ever seen the Bleach fandom so flipping nuts.

Or as interesting. Admist the usual cries that Kubo is a hack, the very same people who have been engaging in forum debate with TVtropes as their bible of literary reference, stand back at a loss when an author writes a chapter so tidly within genre expectations and still throws expectations of what's going to happen next for total loop.

( Blah blah blah and lots more blah )

Anyway, those are just a few comments. I was going to pick more but then I realized I was partial to the ones where I pwned a point. But the chapter thread and the FCs are really interesting right now at BA. I haven't read many fandom entries that have absorbed the chapter in full yet but Rebecca (vesperh )did write her weekly story-form of the chapter and it's a beautiful one from Ishida's POV. I recommend it here.

KawaiiS doodles!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_debbiechan_/]

Is everybody better yet? *pat pats freaked out fandom* Have some KawaiiS doodles.

( 351 a la KawaiiS )