From the back cover:
Ichigo and Yoruichi race to save Ichigo’s friends from Rukia’s cold-blooded brother, Byakuya Kukichi. They arrive to find Ganju in tatters, and Rukia with him. Ichigo is bent on defeating her brother this time, but he is nowhere near prepared. Can he learn decades’ worth of skill in just a matter of days?

Review:
Of course he can! This is a Shonen Jump manga!

I didn’t enjoy this volume as much as the previous few, even though a couple of significant things happened. Yoruichi’s true form is revealed, for one, and I like the character design and how it retains some cat-like traits. Also, it was good to see Uryuu and Orihime again.

There were just a lot of bothersome things regarding women in this volume. Orihime was ushered away from the fight for her protection and against her wishes. Kurotsuchi (a Soul Reaper captain) was incredibly abusive to his female Assistant Captain. There was one powerful female character in the earlier chapters, but it didn’t really balance out the other things.

Other frustrating things include Ichigo’s embarking on yet another training mini-arc and the fact that Uryuu’s smackdown of the evil, maniacal Kurotsuchi (also head of research and development and fond of conducting sadistic experiments on unwilling subjects) was delayed until the next volume. What a vile character that guy is!

From the back cover:
Chad has stormed his way into the heart of the Soul Society, only to meet his match in Captain Kyouraku. Meanwhile, Ichigo struggles in his battle against Kenpachi Zaraki, the captain of the 11th company. Although Ichigo succeeds in drawing blood, the secret of Kenpachi’s zanpaku-tou may be his undoing. Before Ichigo realizes it, Kenpachi’s blade has pierced his heart!

Review:
This volume started slowly but really built up to a great ending. Things picked up around chapter 111, when Ichigo seemed to’ve lost his fight against Zaraki. Zangetsu (Ichigo’s sword) put him through a test to determine whether he (Ichigo) was worthy to possess him (Zangetsu). What originally seemed like a lame gimmick to have Ichigo fight his mirror self actually turned out to be pretty cool as he learned to rely more on Zangetsu’s power. Hopefully this means we’ll be seeing more of Zangetsu in human form in the future.

The best bits, however, were from chapter 113 to 115. In these, Ichigo’s exciting battle came to a conclusion, the past of Zaraki and his Assistant Captain Yachiru was glimpsed, we possibly learned the name of a person from Rukia’s past who referenced a few volumes ago, Ganju and Hanatarou found Rukia, there was an awesome revelation about Rukia that I probably should’ve totally seen coming but loved that I didn’t, Yoruichi appeared on the verge of divulging his true form, and then Byakuya arrived on the last page. I didn’t even miss any of the supporting cast, it was that good.

From the back cover:
With reports of powerful intruders defeating a number of assistant captains, the inner sanctum of the Soul Society—the Seireitei, the home of the Soul Reapers—is put on a state of high alert. Matters are further compounded by the mysterious death of a prominent captain. Is his death a cover-up to prevent a valuable secret from being exposed?

Meanwhile, Ichigo confronts Kenpachi Zaraki, captain of the eleventh company, and by far the most brutal fighter in the Seireitei!

Review:
This volume was similar in structure to the last: one of the secondary characters got to be a badass (Chad this time), Ichigo had a fight with an opponent more difficult than the last (a powerful Soul Reaper captain), there was a flashback chapter providing character backgrounds (how Chad and Ichigo met and became friends), and more members of the Soul Reaper guards were introduced.

While everything was sufficiently entertaining, the parts I liked best pertained to the Soul Reapers. I like that there are sympathetic characters within the organization, and the mystery about the murder and the secret interests me. Also, I’ve somehow actually begun to like Ganju, who I disliked in volume 10 and merely tolerated in volume 11. How did this happen?

From the back cover:
Ichigo successfully defeats Ikkaku of the Eleventh Company and is rewarded with a valuable piece of information—the location of where Rukia is being detained as she awaits execution. However, Ichigo’s companion, the pyrotechnics-wielding Ganju, is having a much harder time with his Soul Reaper opponent.

Meanwhile, Orihime and Uryuu confront the younger brother of the gargantuan gatekeeper whom Ichigo defeated a little while ago. It’s time for Uryuu to put all his training to the test and prove to everyone (and himself) how much more powerful he has become.

Review:
Two things earned this volume a grade in the A range:

1. Chapter 98, in which background information on Rukia’s past is revealed and the intense rematch between Ichigo and Renji concludes.

2. Badass Uryuu! I really like him, and it’s fun when he goes from the somewhat fussy guy with a home-sewn outfit to a cold-eyed fighter.

The rest of the volume is solid as well, with much fighting with weird weapons and spiritual abilities. Some of the Soul Reaper officers glimpsed in the last volume are also seen again, and are introduced slowly enough that their names finally begin to stick.

I like the balance between information given (see above re: Rukia and also more detail on how the Soul Reaper organization works) and mysteries as yet unclarified (specifically who exactly Yoruichi and Urahara really are). At the moment, I think I am actually more interested in these things than Rukia’s fate, since I can’t possibly imagine this arc will not end in success. This is a Shonen Jump manga, after all!

From the back cover:
With the help of Kuukaku—a one-armed explosives expert and old friend of the mysterious talking cat Yoruichi—Ichigo and crew are one step closer to infiltrating the Soul Society and rescuing their friend Rukia before she is executed. For Kuukaku’s plan to work, Ichigo must control his enormous reservoir of spiritual energy—and there’s no telling how much collateral damage this will cause. Meanwhile, the Soul Society hasn’t been twiddling their collective thumbs, and quickly dispatches a delegation of captains to give the unwanted visitors the rudest of welcomings imaginable.

Review:
This volume started off slowly, with the first few chapters devoted to mastering the skill required for the plan to infiltrate the Soul Society. Since it was essentially the ability to create a bubble around one’s self, it wasn’t that riveting.

Once the group got inside the Soul Society, though, and got separated in the process, the pace began to pick back up and Ganju (one of the irritating characters from the last volume) even became tolerable. Ichigo’s fight with an—I think—relatively low-ranked Soul Reaper occupied the last few chapters, wherein reside the only “cool” moments of the volume. Also good was the introduction of lots of Soul Reaper captains and assistant captains, with many interesting character designs.

I do have a question, though. Aren’t the denizens of the Soul Society, like, already dead? ‘Cos, y’know… souls? So, what’s with Ganju’s angst about his brother being killed by Soul Reapers? I am confused on this point.

From the back cover:
The race to save Rukia from the Soul Society is officially on, and Ichigo and company have come to their first roadblock, a very, very big roadblock. Jidanbou, the monstrous, fez-sporting gatekeeper, hasn’t let a single soul enter the Western Gate he guards in over 300 years, and he isn’t about to change his mind about it just because Ichigo’s crew wants to go through. But, in a where-the-rubber-meets-the-road kind of way, Ichigo wasn’t expecting his assault on the Soul Society to be a piece of cake. After all, that’d just be boring.

Review:
Where the… rubber… meets the road kind of way? What the heck does that mean? Anyway, I didn’t enjoy this volume as much as the last, though the characters, humor, and cool stuff were still in evidence.

The first few chapters deal with the group’s entry into the Soul Society, and the three-chapter battle to breach the gate was pretty good. Better, though, was what happened after Ichigo’s victory over Jidanbou—the face-off with an evil-looking Soul Reaper captain that ended with said captain going “Bye~” and slamming the gate back down in their faces.

Thus ends the good bits of this volume, really. Next, Ichigo has a fight with some annoying boar-riding guy that is cut short, and displays idiocy when he proclaims that he’s going to wait there for the guy to return so they can resume their battle, having forgotten all about Rukia’s plight, evidently. Eventually, they find another possible way to get inside the inner area of the Soul Society where Rukia is being held, and I hope they get there soon, ‘cos I don’t particularly like either of the new characters introduced in these chapters.

From the back cover:
Ichigo knows that to retrieve Rukia from the Soul Society, he’ll have to enter that world himself. But his fight with Rukia’s brother Byakuya showed, in no uncertain terms, that Ichigo still has a great deal of rigorous study and training ahead of him. Deep beneath Kisuke’s Urahara Shoten, Ichigo practices his fighting and hones his spiritual energies, and now he must face the most daunting challenge of all: preventing his Chain of Fate from consuming itself, or be forever transformed into a soul-devouring Hollow!

Review:
If I were to simply describe the plot of this volume, it would sound just like every other shounen manga out there: our hero, desiring to protect someone he cares about, undergoes a bunch of rigorous training and discovers hidden reservoirs of strength.

Somehow, though, Bleach manages to spin the standard themes in ways that make them seem new. I think there are a few major ingredients to this success:

1) The characters. As I’ve mentioned before, I like all of them. In this volume, most of the focus is on Ichigo, but there are a couple of fun bits with the supporting cast.

2) Genuinely funny stuff. Or stuff that appeals to my sense of humor, at least. The beginning of chapter 62, with Orihime and Chad attempting to summon their powers at will, is an example.

3) Cool things! There were no less than four distinct things in this volume that made me think “cool!” Usually it’s when a twist in the story coincides with a particularly good panel of art. The best example is in chapter 64, where part-Hollow Ichigo appears in his Soul Reaper garb.

I am really enjoying reading this series. I might have to break down and watch the anime at some point.

From the back cover:
Rukia Kuchiki, the ex-Soul Reaper responsible for Ichigo’s transformation, is on the lam. Her brethren at the Soul Society are quite displeased with the fact that she transferred the powers of a Soul Reaper to a human and have dispatched two of their strongest agents to neutralize the situation.

Their mission is twofold: to return Rukia to the Soul Society so that she may pay for her crime and to deal with Ichigo—permanently. But an unlikely third party is standing in their way: Uryuu Ishida, the Quincy!

Review:
In this volume, Ichigo tries to prevent Rukia’s return to the Soul Society and fails. His defeat is dealt by the very cool Byakuya, one of those silent types that I always seem to favor.

And so, the plot arc is launched. Rukia is incarcerated and the Soul Society is glimpsed. We learn that Ichigo resembles someone from her past. Some of the other characters decide they want to help, too. There’s a cute talking cat. Urahara, the proprietor of a store that sells Soul Reaper gear, becomes a much more active participant in events and begins to train Ichigo. I wasn’t too interested in him before, but now that more of his personality has emerged I find myself much more curious about his background.

Bleach is really fun. Uruhara was a standout in this volume, and the ending was such a cliffhanger that I am literally going to put in the hold request for volume 8 as soon as I hit publish.