Mad about Bleach

It's hard to pin down my first exposure to anime. For those who have no idea, anime is what Japanese call animation, and is pronounced as en-ee-meh (as in the first 3 syllables of animation). It refers to cartoons, really, though they really outclass what we know as cartoons. For a little more trivia, they call comics manga, and make many anime based on manga (usually because they have decent storylines and artists already there).

I remember Akira was kickass, though a little too deep for me to understand (I think I saw it in my early teens).Then came Ninja Scroll many many years later (about 8, I think), which is another kickass anime movie and sealed my love for fantastical sword fights.It was quickly followed by some Gundam series, but I can't remember which one (sorry KF). Good stuff though. Another hiatus (6 years), then F introduces me to Samurai Champloo (a series instead of a single movie), which really blew me away. Gila samurais set in feudal Japan with a hip-hop element? Kickass!Now, a year later, I'm hooked on Bleach. Thanks to D, I've watched 130 episodes of this anime series that has endlessly amazed me. Again, samurai-based. Reading the wiki taught me a new word: psychopomp - which is what one of the main group of characters in the show are. It's brilliant in terms of storyline and completeness of the universe they've created, as well as sheer entertainment value and education on how the Japanese see things.Watch it if you can. But skip a middle chunk of episodes (64-109) as it is some rubbish story they had to do to fill in between 2 story arcs in the manga, which was still in the works. Trust me, it drove me nuts watching it as it was so badly done - poor breakdown of overall storyline, terrible sub-plots, mediocre animation, uninspired voice acting and worst of all, going against facts established in previous episodes. Ugh!

The main stories more than make up for that though. Check out AnimeNuke to download it for free.