It's time to "reverse" "Grim Reaper"

October 10th this year is a special day for some "old two-dimensional" people.

"Bleach" ("BLEACH" has a variety of translations in China, this article still uses the most popular "Bleach") The animation version of the final chapter "Millennium Blood War" has been broadcast, and the production team is still the "" who has done the old animation. "Clown Club ", Shiro Luchao continued to play the soundtrack, and the situation of "BGM urging DNA" will surely be staged in front of countless screens.

combines the released episode 1 and the 5 previously released PVs, the production specifications of this "Millennium Blood War" are not bad. In the words of , the original author of the manga, Kubo, "The animation design is different from the past, and it will bring a new audio-visual experience." Ranked in the top three on the annual rankings of popularity surveys. In China, it is usually combined with " Naruto " and " One Piece " and has become the "Three Migrant Workers", "Death Fighter", "Zanpakutō", "False Face" and poetic frontispieces have embellished many People's youth, but the fate of "Death" is completely different from the other two works. After

's original chapter "Broken Face", the sales and popularity of "Reaper" declined all the way. In 2016, it was declared over amid the clamor of "unfinished tails" and "half cuts"; the animation of "One Piece" is still every Monday "Naruto" has already entered the "next generation", but the original animation of "Reaper" only came to an abrupt end in 2012. If

is only regarded as an "animated sequel", "Millennium Blood War" is a reunion between loyal fans and "Death" after 10 years. At the same time, animation that spreads better than comics also provides an opportunity for "Reaper" to be re-understood and accepted by more audiences. Depending on its own quality and the degree of "completion" of comics, "Reaper"'s "historical" status” should perhaps be re-evaluated.

"Millennium Blood War": Obligation or Essence?

's entire "Reaper" can be roughly divided into five chapters: the present world, the soul world, the face-breaking chapter, the full-presentation chapter and the thousand-year blood battle chapter. The sales peak of its single-line comic book appeared in 2009, with 6.47 million copies. It ranks third in the year, and the plot corresponds to the climax of the latter part of the story.

was defeated by the villain Aizen Soyousuke , who had been forging for many years, and the popularity of the work trough followed. In October 2010, "Reaper" entered the "Complete Existence Chapter". This chapter revolves around how the protagonist Kurosaki Ichigo regains his strength. There is no clear faction confrontation. It also introduces a new fighting method and ability system. The narrative structure And the style atmosphere has also changed. Under the superposition of multiple factors, the "Complete Art" has not been recognized by most readers. After two years of serialization, the sales volume of "Reaper" fell out of the top ten of the year, and the popularity survey of "Weekly Shonen Jump" fell to 13th.

"Reaper" animation is also only broadcast to the "Complete Art", at that time the animation's plot progress has caught up with the comics. Since the content of an episode of animation is more than that of a comic, long-form TV animations will basically encounter the situation that the progress exceeds the original work. There are two common methods. Dragon Ball Z", "One Piece", etc. mainly use this method, and the other is to compile the entire original chapter. "Reaper", "Naruto", "Detective Conan" and so on mainly use this method. Most of the original chapters of

's "Grim Reaper" received bad reviews and ran for a long time. For example, the 45-episode "Soul Hunting" was once broadcast for 11 months. At the end of the "Complete Art", the production team was again faced with the two options of "update and other updates" and "stop broadcasting". Under the premise that the popularity of the original book dropped sharply, the animation team chose the latter this time.

In 2011, "Weekly Shonen JUMP" also changed its editor-in-chief. The newly appointed bottle Jijiu gave ", the prisoner of cuisine" more publicity resources, and it also briefly replaced "Death" as the top three magazines. However, compared with the "foreign troubles" that have not been confirmed by the parties, the "internal worries" faced by the author Kubo has a greater impact on the work. The 10-year serialization of has made his health worse, even if the "common cold" cannot be recovered, "rest for a week" No matter how careful you are, you will catch a cold and fall into this cycle.” . Because

could not deliver the manuscript on time with high quality,Kubo began to suspect that he "lost his qualifications to be a serial cartoonist". At that time, he received a letter from a seriously ill boy. The boy had only one and a half years to live, saying that "Death" gave him "I want to see it next." The Hope of the First Issue", he said, "In any case, please finish painting "Grim Reaper" according to your own wishes." Kubo was deeply moved, and he tweeted several times to find this little reader who did not write his name and address.

Of course, "giving back to readers" is more of a boost, not a source of power. In his recollection of the matter in the future, Kubo Taito also wrote: "If the serialization ends, the story will not be complete." In 2012, Kubo Taito began to draw the "Millennium Blood War Arc" - the pre-set final chapter of the story.

However, the cause of the twists and turns and the actual effect cannot be equated after all. The "Millennium Blood War", which the author described as "everything was paving the way for it", did not save "Death". In 2014, the annual popularity ranking of "Reaper" in the magazine has dropped to 24th, and the sales volume of a single line this year is less than 3 million copies, and the animation will continue to stop "of course".

As the name suggests, the "Millennium Blood War" describes the "Quicter" clan in the world view of "Death" who made a comeback after a thousand years and launched an all-out war with the "Death" side. The plot is mostly filled by large and small battles. The battle system of in the past "Reaper" basically followed the "fighting power" . The various character abilities are just decorations in nature. The core of victory and defeat is still higher than that of "Reiatsu". Foreshadowing, the combat system was replaced by the "spell rules" in the thousand-year bloody battle of the .

, however, Kubo's team depicting battles emphasizes artistic conception rather than process. This concept is more likely to form a visual and psychological impact under the "fighting power" system. After substituting into the "fighting rules" system, readers finally understand the character's ability. "rules", and the subsequent battle process did not evolve to the level of "brain-burning and wit-fighting". When the two sides confront each other, one side often "explains it for a long time and then kills it in a second", and then switches sides to do it again after a while. The resulting "endless turn system" appears to be both muddy and lacking in information, which makes many readers feel bad. Among the factors that

made the work "unfinished", the last battle was the first to bear the brunt. It took only 3 weeks for Kubo to draw the final battle and the ending. The negative shock brought by the protagonist's use of a primitive weapon to easily cut off the final BOSS was so strong that "this scene is to insinuate that the work was cut in half" rumors spread.

In fact, Kubo described his work as "dignifiedly finished" in the interview, "he painted it with high spirits until the end". His editor in charge once said that if it is finished, it needs to be notified half a year in advance, and he decided the termination time a year before the end. The total number of years of serialization and the issue of the final chapter are of commemorative significance. The last blow of

's final battle is actually the result of the joint efforts of the fullbender Tsukishima, the protagonist's later partner Orihime, the male No. Easy to ignore when reading. The way the whole "Millennium Blood War" came to an end seemed sloppy, and it may have something to do with the author's physical condition. Kubo Taito once said that the shoulders "became very painful" the next day after the manuscript was handed in. The tendon has ruptured." There are many imperfections in

's "Millennium Blood War", seems to be the creative result of "the finished product did not catch up with the idea", but the problems of performance techniques such as battle rhythm and foreshadowing recovery can be re-edited and interpreted through animation adaptation. , which will also become an important aspect of the new animation. The named "Director Xiu" Kubo Taito also said that he "participated in every step of the animation production", even to the point of "like robbing them of their work", so the new version of the animation should not be necessary to restore the original author's intentions. Worry.

Kubo's message to the animation

At the theme level, the "Millennium Blood War Chapter" is a concentrated expression of the concept of the entire "Grim Reaper". Chapter Boss, " invisible empire " commander Youhabach 's ability is "all-knowing and omnipotent", he fears the unknown, and the purpose of his actions is to eliminate the boundaries between life and death. After the battle, the author borrowed what Aizen said, "In a world where there is no fear of death, people will not look for hope. Live and fight against fear.Living in fear is completely different, and the latter way of life is called courage", which can be regarded as the finishing touch. The story of

"Death" begins with "virtual" - fear of complete death, covered by a soul shrouded in regret before life The monster transformed from the mask. " quencher " will completely erase these souls, and the work of "Death" is "to let Xu accept death and go to the next world", so the work is named "BLEACH" ( The original meaning of bleaching can be extended to purify and eliminate the dark side of the heart). These settings have appeared in the first two volumes of the comics that ended 15 years ago. People have hope because they can't see death lingering behind them".

tries to explore how profound life and death can be in the field of juvenile comics, The key to judging whether a work is unfinished is whether the author has implemented his own expression, Whether the expression has integrity. In this sense, "Reaper" is actually a work that "has a beginning and an end". On the contrary, "Reaper" without a "thousand-year bloody battle" is destined to be incomplete.

"Reaper": relying on "Intuition" Rise

"I made up my mind to become a cartoonist when I was in elementary school. "Taito Kubo once said. The works that influenced him most when he was a child were "Kitaro" and "Saint Seiya". The spiritual tone of the former and the fighting style of the latter are also looming in the future "Death". When

graduated from high school, Kubodai People began to draw the first submitted works. At that time, he was still ignorant of the formal drawing method of comics. For example, the lines of characters were usually written on tracing paper, but he first wrote them on sticky notes, and then pasted them one by one on the original manuscript.

"Death" protagonist Ichigo Kurosaki

There are many hard-working craftsmen in the same generation comics, but Kubo Taito seems to rely more on his own talent, and he is more casual. In the newcomer period, he only published two short comics, so he didn't want to After drawing, the editor found him and said: "I have already got the 45th page of "JUMP", if you don't draw it, you will print on white paper. "So he drew the third short story "BAD SHIELD UNITED", followed by a period of "no drawing" for more than a year.

was still under the persuasion of the editor, Kubo Tieto passed the scene with only one story. Serial commentary, serialized ZOMBIE POWDE since 1999, "When I asked about this later, the editorial department seemed to say, 'Anyway, if you call this kid to Tokyo, you must let him draw comics. ' Such words. "Tao Kubo recalled this.

However, "Zombie Fan" was cut in half after half a year. In 2001, the short story prototype of "Reaper" came out and was rejected by "JUMP", and Kubo was frustrated. As a result, the editorial department found It was a misjudgment, and it was published in a magazine supplement, which won the first place in the readers' vote. The editor in charge and the promoter of this work, Takano Asada, said that the character and worldview written by Kubo Taito "overwhelmed in the juvenile magazines at that time." Full of new ideas", "Bleach" successfully won the opportunity to serialize. The editor of

once teased him that "it is estimated that he will get tired of it in two or three years." Long-term planning, "I never thought about the concept of 'the captains of the Thirteenth Team of the Guardians of the Soul Society'". The rhythm of the first chapter "The Present World", which echoes the beginning and end of the "Millennium Blood War", is still relatively gentle. The unit drama is composed. , but the plot at the end of the chapter takes a sharp turn, and the popularity of the work also rises rapidly after entering the "Soul World". The animation started in 2004. In the same year, "Death" became one of the "Three Comics" in the readers' vote. "One of them.

not only has a free "god stroke" in the development of the plot, but Kubo's painting skills can also be called talent. The representatives of "beauty" and "fashion" in the comics have changed so much that the early chapters of "Reaper" look like another work. The author of

" Spells Returns to " must see the next in a conversation Said that he was influenced by "Death" before embarking on the road of comics, but he believed that "it is too dangerous to use logic to analyze and imitate Kubo to lead people", because Kubo belongs to " who is a strong author of ", "in the If there is no reason, the work can be established.” Another new-generation manga author Horikoshi Kohei called Kubo Tairen 's aesthetic intuition in painting and design is enviable , "It's not just me, I think all cartoonists think so: Kubo-sensei is simply a collection of aesthetic intuition." It is reflected in many aspects. After all, on the creative path, Kubo Tairen will "draw scenes for writing a certain line, and draw comics for the purpose of drawing scenes", which gives the work a temperament in which the atmosphere precedes the story and the emotion is greater than the plot, analogous to other genres. It's more like a literary film than a feature film, more like a poem than a novel.

Specifically: At the language level, the "front book poem" on the title page of each volume of "Death" has always been sought after by fans, and the inner pages will also be filled with a lot of poetic chanting and mantras, and the longest chanting in the whole work. There are nearly 100 characters in "The Ninety of the Destruction: The Black Coffin", which earned him the title of "Poet";

At the level of character design, Kubo Dairen believed that "if the characters are arranged, the story will move on its own", the lines To be told by the characters, "in what scene does the character speak" forms the plot. He claims that if the characters in the grid are particularly prominent, he will not draw the background, and the background is often pure white when new characters appear. Therefore, there are a large number of characters with different characteristics in "Death", and from makeup to clothing, from names to moves, they can always attract a group of "research parties";

is at the level of and , the overall style of "Death" can be regarded as Concise and freehand, generally speaking, the quality of a comic's storyboard includes two aspects: "the compositional beauty or impact of a single shot" and "clear and easy to read, auxiliary narrative". The use of elements such as "Ichigo vs. Ulquiorra" and "Kenpachi vs. Maozhihua" are all outstanding.

​​Original Art Exhibition of the 20th Anniversary of Reaper

However, these qualities not only make Reaper unique, but also constitute its frequently criticized "defects". For example, the complicated language may cause the characters to fall into metaphysical disputes, but often no meaningful conclusions can be drawn, and the plot seems to be just "circling in circles". Another example is the simplicity of the picture and the emphasis on white space, which means that the information density is low, and readers can finish the chapter quickly. There are too many new characters appearing in "Millennium Blood War", and the "magic power" of Kubo Taito seems to be beginning to fade. These "defects" work together, and chasing the serialization of "Grim Reaper" may occasionally lead to the bad feeling of "waiting for a week and seeing nothing".

For long-form serialization, if the "story" itself is not full and coherent, the market consequences will be fatal. "Reaper" has emerged from the "Soul World", but its popularity has never surpassed "One Piece" and "Naruto", and it began to "fall behind" in the later stage of the serialization. The root cause of this phenomenon still needs to be found from the protagonist of the work, the narrative frame and the world view.

The dislocated "juvenile manga"

To a large extent, "Reaper" is not like a hot-blooded juvenile manga that has stepped on the success formula of "friendship, hard work, and victory".

The protagonist Ichigo Kurosaki always frowns and looks depressed in the plot, and has no lofty goals such as "I want to be Naruto" or "I want to be the pirate king", The reason for every important action he takes Almost all passive . At the same time, Kubo took people a lot of ink to visualize his inner world. Every time he "opens and upgrades", he does not rely on external blessings or difficult cultivation, but fights and communicates with the incarnations of forces hidden in his heart. Then a settlement is reached. In the "Complete Manifestation Arc", Ichigo even worried about what to do after graduation, not like the protagonist of the supernatural adventure story with a halo.

The image of the protagonist actually determines the overall tone of "Death", which is melancholy and introverted, far less enthusiastic than the dominant "Wang Dao Man" in the 1980s and 1900s. The matches it, and the main line of each major chapter of "The Grim Reaper" can be summed up as "encountering new forces - suffering setbacks - companions in crisis - improving strength and fighting again - returning to the daily ending", this passive structure has been criticized a lot , because the development of the story is not on a gradual upward trajectory according to common sense, but continues to cycle, it is difficult for readers to feel that the more they chase, the more open they are, the more exciting they are, and the upper limit is indeed limited. But from another angle, the narrative framework of is highly compatible with the worldview of the work.

"The Grim Reaper" itself is not a romantic and fantasyThe concepts of the world, "spirit" and "void" are projections of the loneliness and struggle of the human heart in modern society. The protagonist's "wearing a mask" will enhance his strength but make the people around him fear. It is also a metaphor for modern interpersonal relationships. Therefore, the world view conveyed by the work is also relatively negative. The existing order and balance of "the present world", "the world of dead souls" and " virtual circle " are all based on lies and deception. The only thing the protagonist can pursue is to take care of himself. relatives and friends. In

's works, those who want to lead the change are all "villains". The "Thirteenth Team of the Guardian" is actually the maintainer of the established order. The protagonist group is repeatedly used by various forces, running back and forth, and after "working hard", they get nothing. , "Victory" but nothing changed. Connecting to the core expression that echoes from the beginning to the end of the whole work, the popular and exciting battles in the "Soul World" and "Broken Face" in the middle are like unexpected joy. Miracle. The is an alternative work that does not have a youthful spirit in its bones, and even has a nihilistic tendency, and it is inevitable that it will gradually be marginalized by the mainstream market.

and "Reaper" are accompanied by a relatively special creative phenomenon. After the serialization is over, the author is still supplementing the original worldview through novels and short stories, which are not less important than a large chapter in the comics. The "Reaper" IP is regarded as a whole Nor can they be ignored.

Since 2017, the official novel "Can&39;t Fear Your Own World" has been published in three volumes. Only through the novel did a group of fans get to know the whole picture of "Reaper". In order to usurp the ruling power, the ancestors of the five nobles divided the world into three by dividing the power of the first "Spirit King", and made the "Spirit King" into "Ren She" to maintain the balance of the three worlds like a wedge. If the "Millennium Blood War" is the defeat of the protagonist, Ichigo Kurosaki, who has a special bloodline, will be turned into a new "Renshi", and the hometown of the protagonist "Kakuza Town" who can go directly to " Lingwang Palace " will also have a "Empty Throne" meaning. The main storyline of "Reaper" can also be seen as a failed political war between Aizen and Yohabach, two radical reformers.

According to the recollection of the writer Narita Ryogo in the preface, the novel project was that was promoted in sync with the manga when Kubo told the editorial department that "the serialization will end in one year". When the past and the inside story of the world are not drawn in the main story", the reason given by Toto Kubo was: "This (main story) is a battle story woven by Ichigo and Shinigami, I don't want the focus of the story to be biased. Move."

​​The leader of "Masquerade Legion" has a lot of scenes in the novel

In 2021, in order to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the serialization of "Death", Kubo took people to draw a full 73 pages of "Prison Yiming", which was once published The previous day pushed the trend first. What surprises readers is that this short story is not a postscript of an account, but describes the "hell" that is only mentioned in the main story, and also excavates " hell butterfly " (creatures that travel through the world and the soul world. props) this very early setting, leaving an open ending.

To a certain extent, the story of "Death" does not end with the end of the comics, and it is not impossible for various "supplements" to meet the audience in other more popular ways in the future like the animated version of the Millennium Blood War.

A common sigh of fans is that watching "Death" when I was young is not as enjoyable as other works, and the world I describe is not free and beautiful enough, but when I approach middle age, I feel that I have more resonance with it, and even if it is the same as the protagonist. Only a small goal can't be right or wrong, and it can't be achieved. All the way, you have to consider the feelings of the people around you, and paying the price may not be rewarded. At the end of the

manga, Ichigo Kurosaki found a normal job and lived an ordinary life in the present world. Only in very few "post-release" times did he need to pick up the Zanpakutō again. That feeling is probably the same as when he opened a new version of the animation after many years. the same audience.