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MikeJF
Dec 20, 2003




JazzFlight posted:

This is purely my fan theory, but I always thought that the big reveal about the train would be:
The train is in a post-apocalyptic future where mankind screwed up and its mission is to pluck "bad" people out of the past and help fix their issues so that they go back as "good" people.

Maybe. I think at one point they even say that the wasteland the train is travelling through is a generated creation of the train, though.

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Larryb
Oct 5, 2010

MikeJF posted:

Maybe. I think at one point they even say that the wasteland the train is travelling through is a generated creation of the train, though.

Yeah, I believe in Season 2 one of the mirror cops mentions that to MT/Lake when she’s trying to walk through it

Larryb fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Jun 24, 2022

Mr Interweb
Aug 25, 2004

Sockser posted:

This apple could be misconstrued for genitals, please change or remove

haha. believe it or not, this was the reference i was gonna make but i figured it was way too subtle for most people to know what i was talking about :hfive:

McTimmy posted:

Deescalation. Then more of the Chakra gods show up anyway.


FilthyImp posted:

From what I remember the first arc is basically Boruto is a fuckup, along with some character work to establish the new teams and poo poo, that then ties in more of the Naruto cast, some intrigue about Ninja Tools allowing Boruto to punch above his weight haphazardly, Orochimaru being a good weird dad kind of, and then the Chakra God's turn out to be weird multiversal Lavos/Genova parasites that infect people and eat their Chakra

Thunk of it more as a kind of show where Gohan, Goten, Trunks, Pan and Videl take center stage catching up and maybe surpassing the previous gen with their own weird powers and wind up fighting the Ultra Freeza Family.

oh wow, so they went the marvel route basically? i mean..if they were going to continue escalation then that's the only way i could see it working...


anyway, so someone on topic, but i started watching bleach again. i was never a huge fan per se, but i did try to read the manga and watch the anime when it started airing on adult swim, but i completely fell off after i lost cable. got up to the the end of the soul society arc and then skipped nearly everything up until the end of the fake kurakura (sp?) town and aizen's defeat. i saw the final aizen fight and made me glad i didn't watch all the prior 100-150 episodes before cause i would have been quite disappoint. felt it was one the most anti-climactic final battles with a series' Big Bad i can recall.

but that being said, watching the series again i did enjoy reliving all the fights with the Captains, in fact, more so than i expected that i decided to watch all the poo poo i missed in between.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Larryb posted:

Yeah, I believe in Season 2 one of the mirror cops mentions that to MT/Lake when she’s trying to walk through it

I always wondered whether the mirror world was simply another creation of the train or if that one car just interfaced with an independently existing plane of reality that coincidentally also exists. Tulip not having a reflection suggested to me at the time that the mirror stuff exists beyond the train, but later Lake is identified as a denizen of the train, so I don’t know.

I liked the idea that the universe of the show just has all these unrelated hosed-up things that occasionally intersect but have nothing to do with each other.

Larryb
Oct 5, 2010

That’s why I kind of liked Books 2 and 3 the best of the bunch as they offered a different perspective on things, the first being about a non-passenger whose very existence was considered a crime trying to escape the train and find a new life for herself independent of Tulip while the other showed that Apex weren’t quite the assholes they appeared to be back in the previous season (except for Simon that is). It’s also the only one where the main character doesn’t wind up escaping in the end

Larryb fucked around with this message at 15:24 on Jun 24, 2022

Sockser
Jun 28, 2007

This world only remembers the results!




Mr Interweb posted:

haha. believe it or not, this was the reference i was gonna make but i figured it was way too subtle for most people to know what i was talking about :hfive:


I learned about it when I was 10 or 11 from a website that did side by side DBZ censorship comparisons, and that loving Apple has been living in my brain rent-free for 20-odd years


E:
I guess for folks who do not know this deep cut


Sockser fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Jun 24, 2022

Electric Phantasm
Apr 7, 2011

YOSPOS

Sockser posted:

E:
I guess for folks who do not know this deep cut




What in the world...

FilthyImp
Sep 30, 2002

Anime Deviant

Electric Phantasm posted:

What in the world...
I'm guessing he's getting a face full of Bulma and that's what comes to mind

Sockser
Jun 28, 2007

This world only remembers the results!




FilthyImp posted:

I'm guessing he's getting a face full of Bulma and that's what comes to mind

It’s gohan training with piccolo and being hungry
There’s literally
He is thinking about an apple tree
While holding an apple

Cheston
Jul 17, 2012

(he's got a good thing going)
What happened to Mao Mao? Wikipedia says it got a second season but it's been like two years.

Potsticker
Jan 14, 2006


Maybe it got vored.

Mr Interweb
Aug 25, 2004

Sockser posted:

I learned about it when I was 10 or 11 from a website that did side by side DBZ censorship comparisons, and that loving Apple has been living in my brain rent-free for 20-odd years


E:
I guess for folks who do not know this deep cut




YES! THAT'S THE SAME WEBSITE I SAW IT AT TOO :hfive: :dance:

so this is what it's like....when doves cry

drrockso20
May 6, 2013

Has Not Actually Done Cocaine

Sockser posted:

I learned about it when I was 10 or 11 from a website that did side by side DBZ censorship comparisons, and that loving Apple has been living in my brain rent-free for 20-odd years


E:
I guess for folks who do not know this deep cut




That episode was the first one I ever saw, for obvious reasons this left kid me incredibly confused but also really intrigued

Covok
May 27, 2013

Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Ghost Leviathan posted:

Yeah, it's like going on about how weird the equivalent of like, Aqua Teen Hunger Force is.

Don't even have to go that obscure. Look at South Park. It does episodes where Cartman is hunted by the Fast Food Industry because he tried to mocked austistic people by putting burgers on his rear end and somehow, due to his horrible diet, this makes the burgers taste like a mix of every fast food product in America.

DoubleCakes
Jan 14, 2015

Over the last year or so I've been meaning to marathon a number of cartoons from my childhood but I don't get very far before jumping ship. I checked out TMNT 1987 because that thing was on TV for nearly a decade and I was curious to see how that show changed over so many years. I got into season 2 before quitting (for now).

The old Timon & Pumbaa show was another one I watched as a kid but I could only stomach one episode. That first episode, yeesh!

That 101 Dalmatians show is pretty decent even if it has a bottom-tier theme.

readingatwork
Jan 8, 2009

Hello Fatty!


Fun Shoe
Every time I hear the opening theme of The Loud House the lyric “dodging girls like ping pong balls” bothers me just a little bit more. Why ping pong balls? Is that a thing people dodge regularly!?

readingatwork posted:

Season 1, Episode 6B) No Guts, No Glori

Season 1, Episode 7A) Picture Perfect
Written by Scott Kreamer
Storyboard by Ed Baker
Directed by Chris Savino

Synopsis: Lincoln realizes that the clay coffee mug he makes for his parent's anniversary every year is a lovely gift so he decides to switch things up and take a family photo with himself and the rest of his sisters. The first attempt at a photo ends up a mess with everybody looking a bit insane so he decides to try again. This time however he shrewdly manipulates everybody into hiding their rough edges to give the photo an artificial appearance of normalcy. At a cost of pissing off literally everybody he gets the shot he wanted but on his way to wrap it he takes another look at his family and decides to give his parents the first photo instead because it shows his family as they really are. His parents love it and his sisters forgive him for being and unbearable little poo poo for the past couple days.

Thoughts: I have mixed feelings about this one. The humor and dialogue are in unusually bad form with every line being either painfully unfunny or expositing the themes of the episode with all the subtlety and nuance of a sledgehammer. On the other hand smart Lincoln is back with a bit of an rear end in a top hat streak... and I kind of love it? This is the version of Lincoln we saw in Project Loud House who is expertly able to maneuver his sisters into bending to his will but now he's kind of a self-serving little poo poo about it. Nobody wants to be a part of Lincoln's second photo but he exploits their weaknesses and personal quirks without mercy to get them to participate anyways. Yeah, he's clearly in the wrong but drat if he didn't get results. I'll probably never watch this episode again but thanks to this aspect I don't regret that I watched it that once.

Themes and morals: Another thing I like about this episode is that it's a lot more thematically coherent than most of the writing in this show. The writer has a clear and easy to understand message about valuing authenticity over superficial appearances that it adheres to in a way accessible to most kids. I have problems with the execution though. A lot of them. First off, this is another case where better communication would probably have prevented the episode from happening. Lincoln's parents never help him realize that he's not good at giving gifts, Lincoln never clearly articulates why he wasn't happy with the first photo (Side rant: It WAS kind of a mess and Lincoln was within his rights to give it a second try), and while his sisters snarked at him a lot they never really stopped to speak their concerns clearly. Furthermore the moral feels more than a bit forced and relies on people being uncharacteristically mean, weirdly catty, or unusually stupid (Luna, who is NOT the dumb one, at one point tries to play music for Lincoln's picture) to get the plot where it needs to go. The underlying sentiment is something I can get behind, which counts for a lot, but a good message needs a good execution for the audience to take it to heart and we just don't get that here.

Final thoughts: Is getting your parents a gift for their anniversary a thing? I've never actually seen that done in the wild.

Final Rating: Eh.

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

readingatwork posted:

Every time I hear the opening theme of The Loud House the lyric “dodging girls like ping pong balls” bothers me just a little bit more. Why ping pong balls? Is that a thing people dodge regularly!?

Circumstances forced me to watch a bunch of this show because it was like either this or reruns of Pawn Stars and I've been very interested in your reviews which largely match up with my recollection. I know it's an episodic show for kids but I still really hate how they toss out character development for gags. Like clearly Lincoln and, say, Luna are close (they all have moments to show they love each other, which is nice and is not something you always get in these types of shows) but they will absolutely just turn her into 'background sister C angry that Lincoln has a reasonable request' and it's a bit annoying.

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you

Cheston posted:

What happened to Mao Mao? Wikipedia says it got a second season but it's been like two years.

No clue. Covid issues?

readingatwork
Jan 8, 2009

Hello Fatty!


Fun Shoe

Dawgstar posted:

Circumstances forced me to watch a bunch of this show because it was like either this or reruns of Pawn Stars and I've been very interested in your reviews which largely match up with my recollection. I know it's an episodic show for kids but I still really hate how they toss out character development for gags. Like clearly Lincoln and, say, Luna are close (they all have moments to show they love each other, which is nice and is not something you always get in these types of shows) but they will absolutely just turn her into 'background sister C angry that Lincoln has a reasonable request' and it's a bit annoying.

Yeah, it's a real throwback to cartoons I'd watch back in the 80s and 90s where nobody gave a poo poo about characterization or continuity so every writer would just kind of do their own thing regardless of whether or not it conflicted with anything established before. Which can actually be fine on a show like this that isn't trying to tell a long-term story but the humor needs to be good to compensate and more often than not it's just... not. It's really frustrating because so many other aspects of the show work really well but are held back by writing that's mid-tier at best and a God drat dumpster fire at worse.


Speaking of dumpster fire writing, today's The Loud House episode is a doozy. :toot:

readingatwork posted:

Season 1, Episode 7A) Picture Perfect

Season 1, Episode 7B) Undie Pressure
Written by Alec Schwimmer
Storyboard by Violane Briat
Directed by Chris Savino

Synopsis: Lincoln apparently is unable to read comics without being both in his underwear and in the living room in full view of his family. Sick of his bullshit his sisters demand he wear pants in communal areas but he refuses, pointing out that his sisters all have annoying habits as well. His sisters challenge him to a contest where everybody gives up their most annoying habit and if Lincoln can outlast them all he can not only keep doing his thing but they will be forced to buy him a fancy pair of expensive underwear as well. Hijinks and several uncomfortable shots of Lincoln disrobing ensue and it looks like Lincoln has won until it's revealed that Lincoln took off his pants too early and in fact it was the baby that won. Feeling bad for him his sisters buy him the special underwear and let him keep being almost nude in the family room because something, something, each of us is unique and those differences are valuable or some poo poo. Episode ends, credits roll, and I spend about five solid minutes staring at a black screen making this face.



Thoughts: Okay, so first off I'm not saying that something sus is necessarily going on here. I'm also not saying something sus is ~not~ going on here either. I'm just... saying.

Giving the writers the benefit of the doubt, this is a case where the they seemed to have zeroed in a single very uncomfortable joke of Lincoln being in his underwear in public (that's it, that's the joke) and then hit that joke over the head like 20 times over the course of the episode. Just shot after shot of him either taking his pants off or agonizing over how bad he wants to do so. Who knows, maybe they just really thought they had a banger and ran with it, but needless to say it didn't really land with me in the slightest and it gave the entire episode deeply weird vibes.

The problems go deeper than that though. It's a bad episode on top of the weirdness with no jokes that land and a writing style that just feels a bit... off. Like they had to cut the episode down for time or something. Plus to top things off the whole episode is full of very dumb writing that relies on characters ignoring obvious solutions (like Lori explaining to her boyfriend why she can't talk to him) to artificially ratchet up whatever counts for drama here. It's just an all around awful episode and that would be the case even if it wasn't making me wonder if I'm now in an NSA database just for watching it.

Themes and morals: The message of this episode is so drat stupid, jfc. First off, it equates Lincoln's nonsense with many of his sister's habits like preening in a mirror or making bad jokes, which is a special kind of bullshit. These are NOT equivalent in terms of how much they inconvenience the rest of the family. Second, Lincoln's whole shtick here is incredibly contrived in the first place. This is not a problem anybody has so it completely fails to sell the message. Finally, the episode has the gall to give Lincoln what he wants in the end which ruins any redeeming value the episode could have had. What!? No! gently caress you show! Lincoln is not a special snowflake who's feelings need to be protected here. You are not preserving his creative spirit. He's being an inconsiderate little rear end in a top hat so go kick his rear end and make the boy put his drat pants on! :argh:

Even if we swapped out Lincoln's habit with something else I still wouldn't be a fan of this ending. You can't have everybody doing whatever they want without regard for others, even if what they're doing is some form of authentic self expression. Something something we live in a society, idk. The bottom line is that Lincoln needed to realize he had to reign it in a bit for the sake of everybody else. Maybe Lincoln still loses the contest but instead discovers the magic of a comfortable pair of sweatpants as a compromise? Maybe the other siblings moderate their behavior a bit themselves? Whatever, I think I'm putting in way more thought into this than the writers did. The takeaway is that there are many ways you could end this episode and pretty much all of them are better than what we got.

Final thoughts: I completely forgot to mention that Lucy is apparently running science experiments on stolen family poop samples which seem to be stolen from the toilet after the siblings leave and forget to flush or something. You can actually see them in several shots sitting right there in little vials. Cool stuff. Love this episode.

Final Rating: Bad (worst episode so far)

readingatwork fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Jun 25, 2022

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

readingatwork posted:

Final Rating: Bad (worst episode so far)

It also goes to show a lot of the writers have little idea what to do with the supporting cast other than falling back on 'has music/sports/joke/etc shtick.'

Ironslave
Aug 8, 2006

Corpse runner

I AM GRANDO posted:

I always wondered whether the mirror world was simply another creation of the train or if that one car just interfaced with an independently existing plane of reality that coincidentally also exists. Tulip not having a reflection suggested to me at the time that the mirror stuff exists beyond the train, but later Lake is identified as a denizen of the train, so I don’t know.

I liked the idea that the universe of the show just has all these unrelated hosed-up things that occasionally intersect but have nothing to do with each other.

There was an AMA where I think it was suggested that the real question to ask isn't whether or not the mirror universe exists (given Tulip is lacking a reflection at the end, it clearly does) but whether or not it existed before the train needed it. Which makes it even more existentially uncomfortable.

I always wondered if the show had been influenced by the works of Bradbury, because I always saw a lot of similarities in terms of style and substance.

Whitenoise Poster
Mar 26, 2010

Cheston posted:

What happened to Mao Mao? Wikipedia says it got a second season but it's been like two years.

Secretly canceled because a new exec took over and wanted to switch cn over to preschool programing. I used to have a whole bunch of screenshots of some 4chan posts leaking the information with some production art posted and several twitter accounts of artists and writers working on the show got really really mad proving that it was all legit. I bet it's somewhere in my post history in this thread.

EDIT: Here is the short version in only two pictures. The full version of the story is only like four more screenshots.



Whitenoise Poster fucked around with this message at 10:33 on Jun 26, 2022

Mr Interweb
Aug 25, 2004

so anyone's thoughts on bleach? should i be expecting disappointment/frustration anytime soon? as i mentioned i'm currently right at the start of the Vizoreds introduction

readingatwork
Jan 8, 2009

Hello Fatty!


Fun Shoe

Mr Interweb posted:

so anyone's thoughts on bleach? should i be expecting disappointment/frustration anytime soon? as i mentioned i'm currently right at the start of the Vizoreds introduction

Manga: First two arcs are good. Haven't read anything past that but I hear it goes downhill pretty hard as the author gets burned out before just throwing his hands up, slapping an ending down and rage quitting.

Anime: Same as the manga except there's like 15 seasons worth of bad filler to slog through. I'm pretty sure it got cancelled before it reached the end.

TwoPair
Mar 28, 2010

Pandamn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta
Grimey Drawer

Mr Interweb posted:

so anyone's thoughts on bleach? should i be expecting disappointment/frustration anytime soon? as i mentioned i'm currently right at the start of the Vizoreds introduction

Honestly imo Bleach peaks at Soul Society so I guess if you're still enjoying it then might as well stick around for the long haul.

And like readingatwork said, get ready for a lot of filler.

vvv: yeah that one is pretty neat.

TwoPair fucked around with this message at 07:43 on Jun 27, 2022

Thundersword238
Oct 15, 2012

The one thing about Bleach filler is that while a good chunk of it is not great, you should 100% watch the Zanpakuto Rebellion Arc. It's really good, to the point I'd call it one of the best arcs in Bleach period.

JazzFlight
Apr 29, 2006

Oooooooooooh!

I followed Bleach back when it was the new hot thing and I kinda regret it now because it got cancelled and doesn't have an ending. Sure, I could pick back up in the manga, but I didn't like it thaaaaaaat much.
There were some great arcs and fights at the beginning, though. I think part of its problem was trying to juggle the real world human cast with the like, 30 shinigami characters (that kinda needed to be pared down in my opinion). Some characters and storylines just fell by the wayside because they couldn't focus on everything at once.

Xelkelvos
Dec 19, 2012
One of the things I remember about Kuhio is that he supposedly said that whenever he runs out of ideas, he makes up new characters. And it's sorta telling as arcs go on. That said, he is a pretty good character designer and artist

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

Xelkelvos posted:

One of the things I remember about Kuhio is that he supposedly said that whenever he runs out of ideas, he makes up new characters. And it's sorta telling as arcs go on. That said, he is a pretty good character designer and artist

Apparently making new characters was the only thing his editor liked him doing. They didn't seem to get along much.

IShallRiseAgain
Sep 12, 2008

Well ain't that precious?

lol at this person.

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you
Kubo was also not a good fit for weekly schedules. He starts out strong when he can plan things out, but once he gets past the stuff he has planned it starts to fall apart.

cant cook creole bream
Aug 15, 2011
I think Fahrenheit is better for weather
I just saw the latest episode of "The Ghost and Molly McGee". That was really brutal and incredibly heartwarming. Poor Molly.
Also gently caress the American healthcare system!

I really thought that was a season finale, but apparently there are two more sets of episodes.

cant cook creole bream fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Jun 27, 2022

drrockso20
May 6, 2013

Has Not Actually Done Cocaine
Bleach is great until the Soul Society arc starts and it and everything after having the problem that since the Soul Society was designed to be the antagonists for that arc it's setup to be one of the most vile and toxic civilizations ever devised for fiction led by a bunch of monstrous and unlikable assholes and then by the end of the arc due to how the story goes we now suddenly are expected to treat them as allies to our protagonists when pretty much none of them had experienced any meaningful changes as people(and indeed many of them are still worse than anyone introduced in later arcs as villains) and even the most likable members of the Soul Society come off as wishy washy dumbasses rather than anyone you'd actually want to root for

Mr Interweb
Aug 25, 2004

Thundersword238 posted:

The one thing about Bleach filler is that while a good chunk of it is not great, you should 100% watch the Zanpakuto Rebellion Arc. It's really good, to the point I'd call it one of the best arcs in Bleach period.

is that before or after aizen is defeated?

drrockso20 posted:

Bleach is great until the Soul Society arc starts and it and everything after having the problem that since the Soul Society was designed to be the antagonists for that arc it's setup to be one of the most vile and toxic civilizations ever devised for fiction led by a bunch of monstrous and unlikable assholes and then by the end of the arc due to how the story goes we now suddenly are expected to treat them as allies to our protagonists when pretty much none of them had experienced any meaningful changes as people(and indeed many of them are still worse than anyone introduced in later arcs as villains) and even the most likable members of the Soul Society come off as wishy washy dumbasses rather than anyone you'd actually want to root for

speaking of which, apologies for the possibly dumb, answered very early in the series question, but are the people in the soul society....dead? or are they people born of that particular realm?

i MAY have kind of skipped a bunch of episodes in the beginning on my rewatch :blush:

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

Mr Interweb posted:

speaking of which, apologies for the possibly dumb, answered very early in the series question, but are the people in the soul society....dead? or are they people born of that particular realm?

IIRC, nobody is 'born' into the Soul Society, it's all people who died. You just lose your memory when you die so you're often taken in and 'raised' by somebody. If you're lucky it's one of the fancy noble houses.

Although having said that, it's entirely possible people were 'born' in the Soul Society knowing the loose approach Bleach took to its own continuity.

BioEnchanted
Aug 9, 2011

He plays for the dreamers that forgot how to dream, and the lovers that forgot how to love.
I just got around to watching Paranormal Park and really appreciate Courtney's development as a deconstruction of the gleefully comically evil demon sidekick, where she spends the whole show just doing her Schtick and acting aloof, only for it to hit on really bad timing and result in the mortals rejecting her completely. Then she spirals falling into more serious evil trying to get in good with the villains only to realise that if you throw in with assholes, you are only going to get hurt because THEY ARE ASSHOLES. Then finally, she gets what she wanted all show to get back to the tenth circle expecting to get along better with the other demons and finally solidifies that even if you yourself are an rear end in a top hat, it's not much fun hanging out with OTHER assholes, because they are all assholes.

Finally, in the penultimate episode, Put me in the Drivers Seat and You are My Frankenstein were absolute bangers.

BioEnchanted fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Jun 27, 2022

Rudoku
Jun 15, 2003

Damn I need a drink...


Dawgstar posted:

IIRC, nobody is 'born' into the Soul Society, it's all people who died. You just lose your memory when you die so you're often taken in and 'raised' by somebody. If you're lucky it's one of the fancy noble houses.

Although having said that, it's entirely possible people were 'born' in the Soul Society knowing the loose approach Bleach took to its own continuity.

Some are born ghosts. Rukia and Renji's kid, is one.

Dawgstar
Jul 15, 2017

Rudoku posted:

Some are born ghosts. Rukia and Renji's kid, is one.

Oh, right. Still weird they wound up together to me on some level.

Thundersword238
Oct 15, 2012

Mr Interweb posted:

is that before or after aizen is defeated?



It's before.

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Covok
May 27, 2013

Yet where is that woman now? Tell me, in what heave does she reside? None of them. Because no God bothered to listen or care. If that is what you think it means to be a God, then you and all your teachings are welcome to do as that poor women did. And vanish from these realms forever.

Mr Interweb posted:

is that before or after aizen is defeated?

speaking of which, apologies for the possibly dumb, answered very early in the series question, but are the people in the soul society....dead? or are they people born of that particular realm?

i MAY have kind of skipped a bunch of episodes in the beginning on my rewatch :blush:

Technically, Soul Society and the Human World are not really like "life" and "afterlife" in Bleach. The deep lore of Bleach was that, originally, there was only one plane of existence. The problem was that humans would all eventually turn into Hollows (evil spirits) when they got too old. A being eventually arose that was so powerful that he tried to single fix this world by wiping out hollows. This, however, destabilized existence by destroying souls. So, a group of powerful people convinced the Soul King to split the world into multiple planes of existence: the soul society, the human world, and hueco mundo. To make this work, the Soul King was frozen in crystal and his body was used as a fulcrum for the entire cycle to function. This was possible because the Soul King was a "Transcendent being," entities so great that their only peers are each other. The entire point was to make a cycle that would recycle and clean souls to keep them from becoming monsters and make the world safe. Humans would live their lives. They would die and go to soul society. If they become hollows, they can be cleansed by being sent to soul society. They would then live up to 1000 years before they were reincarnated. And the whole thing kept the world in balance. There was also Hell, which was made for two purposes: to house the souls of those deemed so evil they needed to be removed from the cycle AND for those so powerful they cannot reincarnate lest they destroy the balance. Spoilers for the anniversary chapter: all of the heroes will go to hell when they end their time in soul society because their souls are too big.

Of course, Soul Society is the loving worse. So, the people who would form the noble families and oppress the souls of the dead immediately went and lobotomized the soul king and tore his body to pieces, so that he could never stop them or decide to change the world back. Soul Society also started doing awful poo poo like conducting mass killings in Soul Society to keep the "balance" whenever there were wars or mass death in the human world. The nobles don't give a poo poo about anyone else either so they don't like reunite families in death or do anything to actually make people's afterlife's good. They actually just enforce a feudal hierarchy. Hell, it is even revealed that, if Ichigo killed Ywach instead of simply defeating him, the nobles of Soul Society planned to betray Ichigo and lobotomize him and turn him into the new replacement Soul King, since he was also a transcendent being and would have been one of the three transcendent beings in the holy realm to grab before the worlds collapsed. Since Ywach was defeated, they used him instead.

The exchange isn't one sided either, to be honest. Soul Society West is formed entirely of living people called Witches who fight hollows (as they call them, dragons, and who they also enslave because they think that's more "humane." Soul Society West is mainly British and one of their leaders is LITERALLY a Nazi that survived World War 2 .) and try to keep the balance from the side of the human world. Even Huceo Mundo, the world of Hollows, is ruled over by a group of Vastro Lordes who have an interest in keeping the worlds from collapsing as well.

A lot of this is considered dubious canon because it all comes from the light novel series, which Tite Kubo only oversaw and did not write himself.

Covok fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Jun 28, 2022

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