Bleach Unmasked Short Stories

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These are all short but worthwhile reads for anyone who likes Bleach's cast. They can be read after finishing the Arrancar arc and provide additional details on some of its characters.

"Not be, but be" tells Ulquiorra's backstory and gives more insight on his mindset/worldview. Definitely enhances his fight with Ichigo when you realize how nihilistic his life has been and why he would be so surprised by Ichigo and Orihime's enduring sense of hope.

"Nestle to Night" is a small epilogue to the Arrancar arc. It explains how Harribel survived and why she decided to become the ruler of Hueco Mundo, and even gives some ... characterization to Yammy's dog. Got surprisingly emotional toward the end.

Finally there's a brief conversation between Kira and Rangiku surrounding Gin's death. Not a whole lot of plot revelations here compared to the other stories, but it's a nice interaction and showcases some sides of Gin that we didn't get to see in the manga (e.g. what he was like in casual settings).

On the whole, these are neat supplementary stories, though given their brevity you shouldn't expect any huge impacts to the main plot from them.

Bleach Unmasked Short Stories are, as the name implies, short stories. Very short in fact, so reviewing them isn’t exactly easy. But as it would be sad to leave it unreviewed, here’s a very short review for very short stories.

First to say, obviously do not attempt to read it without previous knowledge of Bleach. Don’t expect any introductions or explanations, there is simply no space for that. Also, lot of the novel content if filled with Bleach lingo, so not only you wouldn’t understand the story, you wouldn’t even understand the words themselves.

About the content itself. First story is about Edgyboy McEdge, more commonly known ... as Ulquiorra. This is the manga chapter. It’s trying to sound profound, but the result sounds more like if you attempted to get artificial neural network to write something about nihilism or whatever. Well, at least the art is kinda nice.

Second story is less of a story and just a short conversation. This on is so short it seems MAL doesn’t even consider it to be a chapter. Enough said.

Third and last story is the longest of these three, yet still quite short by itself. In aftermath of a battle, it tries to showcase how Orihime is so kind she would heal even her enemies. Despite being the longest one, it's the most forgettable of them.

Overall, those stories are only a little tidbits from the world of Bleach, trying to give it more depth but ultimately of little use except for completionists and/or devoted Bleach fans. I assume the latter one still exists.