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THERE ARE SPOILERS!!! Covers all of manga in this review, fair warning:

Let me start of by saying as a longtime Bleach fan around its beginning and hearing about its return, Bleach fans have WON!!!! Not only has it returned, but it returned with beautiful current day animation. Another major announcement was that the author, Kubo, threw in the fact there will be anime original additions such as scenes he had wanted to implement with HIS supervision through the steps. If this does not bring up hope to fix the rushed arc known as Thousand-Year Blood War, I do not know what will.

Story: Let ... me start off by stating how I feel about Thousand-Year Blood War Arc before diving into just this season’s portion of story. Thousand-Year Blood War Arc has hype, but it feels very rushed and not fully given care. Every single moment of each character was glanced over by how some characters got a rushed flashback/backstory. Bankai’s of the captains being showcased was fantastic, but some of them had very little time surrounded by them, perfect example being Retsu’s who was not only quickly shown, but it was never even explained and can only be theorized. There was also very little display on each character to begin with considering how many people were introduced within this arc such as the Quincies or Squad 0. The author outright admits that he had to cut a lot of scenes within the manga and that some characters and battle scenes were left hanging. It was supposed to be an Ichigo and friends’ story, but it became the typical Shinigami showcase. That said, I believe Kubo’s words in his interview that he will involve cut scenes as well anime exclusive parts and hopefully draw out more character and story to fix how it was originally done.
Regarding the story, there will be 4 segments that will be a part of the Thousand-Year Blood War Arc, this first season, which is what I will be covering this time, being the first one from the four announced seasons. The four segments I believe will be separated into is the First Invasion (what this season is), the training with Squad 0, the Second Invasion, and the finale being Warwelt. I’ll try not to talk purely about the storyline and talk about bits and pieces of important portions. The story within the adaptation of First Invasion has been fairly faithful to the manga from what has been shown up to episode 3, outside of slight adjustments to the ordering of the scenes as well as what scenes are shown, example being the funeral of Choujirou and the impact being brought by dialogue. An example of a new scene would be Yhwach leading his army in Hueco Mundo, as hes floating in the air beautifully animated as well. Assuming it’ll stay true to the manga’s story, while Ichigo’s bout with Quilge occurs, things should start to be looking grim in Soul Society due to Yhwach’s plans hastening thanks to Ichigo’s appearance in Hueco. This leads to the fun we know as Thousand-Year Blood War. The rest of the season should be showing battles between Soul Society’s perspective and Hueco Mundo’s perspective as well, until Ichigo manages to arrive in Soul Society’s demise. It is to serve as an introduction to how helpless the Shinigami are and how they must overcome their failures and difficulties by growing stronger. Now going off how I feel within the story of this part, most of it is out in the open and straight to the point. Now the lore is where it starts to become iffy as things start to get fast paced and become even faster which is why I have a love-hate relationship with Thousand-Year Blood War. A lot of things start to unravel, things start to get messy quick, and it starts to feel like nonsense.

TLDR for this season: What happens in Season 1 based off the manga, it’ll be a brutal beatdown to the Shinigamis from the Quincies, showing how powerless the Soul Reapers are.

Animation: Regarding the animation, is there really any need to say. They have outdone themselves by returning Bleach in the best way possible by giving them current day animation, which was far beyond my expectations. The color of the animation is so befitting and worth the wait for the fans of original Bleach. When I originally saw the trailer of the show returning, I truly thought Mappa was behind the development because of how it looked animated like Jujutsu Kaisen. Once I heard that Studio Pierrot was still behind Bleach and its development, I was even happier that they still have not given up on Bleach.

Soundtrack: Shiro Sagisu. On Thousand-Year Blood War soundtracks. The soundtrack within this season is so beautiful and befitting that it could feel like it’s a joke. For the record in case anyone is confused by the name, this is the same person who composed music for both the Bleach movies and the Neon Evangelion movies. If anyone has heard those soundtracks and how befitting they are regarding the respective moments, you should know he is behind it this time around as well. This is not including how amazing the opening from Kitani or ending by SennaRin are and I am truly grateful the series has been blessed by such talent.

Character: As I mentioned previously, there was an abundance of characters introduced within this arc and a lot of hype brought to the favorites of the series. In terms of hype, Thousand-Year Blood War has done the job correct with how everyone gets a moment of shine. I’ll mention the cons regarding characters in a separate matter, but I just want to discuss characters a whole and positives Thousand-Year Blood War did provide. They brought back the favorited Shinigamis, specifically the captains, and gave them all something hype or an introduction to their Bankai. Regarding just HYPE factor, no factoring in lore, story, or development, Thousand-Year Blood War easily takes the crown on this. Seeing most of the Bankais’ of some of the best characters was beyond crazy just in the manga alone and we’re in a day and age where we get to see it ANIMATED? Best believe OG Bleach fans are winning who been craving this.

CONS: Now this is where I talk about all the cons I personally believe reside within this arc, not restricted to just this season, but the arc entirely. This is to clarify that I will be referring to what the manga has done wrong and could potentially arise within the anime, from this season to the remaining 3 seasons after this. This arc is very rushed, most notably information just flies across the head because there are not many explanations in most circumstances, which makes it very ineffective to at least remember some of the key topics. The story tries to start and stick with Ichigo and his friends in the first half, but then it becomes a major story and bloodshed between the Shinigamis and Quincies. We will not see much of Orihime and Chad regarding their usage within the arc if it is not revised and fixed by fixing the story and just sticking faithful to the manga at least. Another issue becomes characters, there is a lot of characters and I understand that it would be impossible to go through every person and flesh them out. Let me note this before this topic seems like a direct insult to all the characters in Bleach, the characters Bleach has great characters and are likeable, but I wish they provided more development rather than just quickly glance over each person and call it there. As I mentioned earlier regarding characters, Thousand-Year Blood War introduces MANY characters, but they not fully fleshed out each of the characters. Whether its new or old, there was lack of story and understanding of a character. The only real story that gets recognition is Ichigo’s mom, Masaki, going as far back as to what happened between her and Isshin, Ichigo’s dad. The characters are hype within the arc, and as I mentioned previously, Kubo does plan to give more scenes regarding this arc so hopefully that also means more development and story. They sort of become the side cast and just sit there which is one of the major problems, BUT due to Kubo’s interview we may be able to see a fix in this.

Overall/Enjoyment: I love Bleach and have a strong bias towards it, but I hope I provided solid information regarding the series in the review. Always have and always will continue to enjoy what gets produced with this series, being able to live through a time of it returning after many years of waiting will be one thing I will fully remember and love to reminisce on. For the first season, it has made its impact and will surely leave bigger ones as it goes on till the end. Despite the cons for Thousand-Year Blood War as a whole, I truly believe everyone should enjoy it for what it is and give it some credit compared to the hate the original one received. I have very high expectations and look forward to the remaining arcs that lie within the remaining seasons to come.

Might be a bit of spoilers in this review, fair warning:

One Piece has become such a staple to current day fans to where once people heard a movie was coming, everyone was ecstatic. This was also a movie I have been longing for as a Shanks fan, but I will try to be thorough and keep the information involving this review concise.

Story: The story was fairly simple but I would have preferred if the movie did not promo Shanks as the headliner rather than Uta since it mostly surrounds her entire story. She is portrayed as Luffy's brother and the daughter of Shanks, which she ... is then left alone due to a certain incident, thus trying to protect her for the justification. The story also feels very different in regards to how One Piece typically does their story especially for movies. This movie feels most similar to Strong World if I had to compare it to any of them.

This movie tried something different, just like how Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero had done and I think it depends on the person on who watches this movie when it comes down to how they feel about the story or if they felt misled.

Animation: Regarding the animation, just like current One Piece they just pop off from the dancing of Uta to just the fight animation. The animation that will stick out to people the most is the last bit of the fight and I think it is very fair to compare it to the level of hype that Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero final scene with how much justice was given for those who are aware. I personally believe in regards to animation, nobody will be disappointed and have any complaints on.

Soundtrack: The soundtrack here gets very iffy because I would like to mention one of my cons here as well. The singer does a FANTASTIC job with singing, beautiful voice and very befitting to what Uta portrays. The issue here becomes how much it was used throughout the movie. You could classify this movie as a musical and I would have believed it with how many times songs are played within this movie. If you're thinking this is a typical One Piece movie and this becomes your first watched One Piece movie, I strongly advise to not walk into the movie thinking that and to start with something else.

Character: When it comes down to the characters, I personally believe there was too much potential left out such as Uta and even Shanks in all honesty. Uta was the main character of the movie, yet nothing really hit home when it came down to her. Uta was very enjoyable and I did find her refreshing but much more character could have been brought out within the time period of the movie. In regards to Shanks, I believe those who are OG Shanks fans will fall in love with him even more because I personally felt that myself. There is not much to say in regards to him, just him being how he was from the get go should speak enough words as is.

CONS: First con I already mentioned, which would be the whole musical performance spam within the movie. It felt out of place and super unnecessary which wasted a good chunk of time for the movie. Another issue being an influx of filler characters which I will not name, however, I do feel that the characters that were used in this movie had such little time and was only there for usage of fanservice. I think this con only really could relate to some people, but I personally felt misled when I first saw that Shanks was having a movie based on him but it involved him only so little and was rather based on his daughter.

Overall/Enjoyment: I love One Piece and I certainly do love this movie regardless of the minimal flaws and all. The enjoyment I had for the movie and rating in general is certainly bias, but I would like to think I gave good information involving the movie. I personally believe the enjoyment of the movie comes down to what you look for in a movie regarding One Piece specifically and also what you were looking forward to. If you were just wanting to watch the movie due to animation and characters like most fans, this movie will not disappoint at all. In regards to if you were looking for story, I think this may lead to some disappoint due to the spamming of musicals within the movie.

Might be a bit of spoilers in this review, fair warning:

For someone who has been longing for a refreshing air in Dragon Ball, this movie gives it all of that. This movie also gives a direct dialogue which makes it far easier to understand for newcomers to the Dragon Ball series.

Story: When it comes down to what this movie provides, it brings back nostalgia for most people but in current standards. The story is strong and straight to the point
In regards to what the movie provides, it brings a heroic sense to the Dragon Ball series with a Marvel twist to it from the soundtrack ... to even the dialogue. The characters in this movie have a strong sense of justice from the Gammas to both Gohan and Piccolo, leading to an understanding from the two sides.

Animation: In regards to animation being lead by CGI, I think this was a huge topic for most people when it was first announced. I personally feel that suits the movie and they did a fantastic job with delivering such a strong presentation, let alone it being the first time done by them. It leaves a very huge impact as a first project and what the future withholds with this new choice of animation.

The best part about the movie comes from the pure fact that Goku and Vegeta are not brought in to win the fights like usual, which brings more depth to Piccolo and Gohan regarding their story. Having the main focus being drifted away from those two is where I think lies the allure of the movie because of everyone wanting some other fan favorites having showtime.

Soundtrack: The soundtrack as I stated previously, is EXACTLY how Marvel would do their soundtracks. A heroic theme with heavy impact on what it is meant to hit works perfectly for this movie with how justice is the main theme. It hits home especially for those who are in love with the Marvelverse.

Character: Piccolo and Gohan finally after many years get their shine that was very deserved. In all honesty, it seemed like it was more focused on Gohan being the main center but Piccolo plays an even bigger role than that and could be called his movie instead. These two have such an impact in Dragon Ball alongside Goku and Vegeta that it was honestly a sin it took them this long to decide on giving them such a deserving upgrade. Piccolo is almost like a teacher even in this movie throughout the entire time, even giving a talk to the Gammas and Gohan which leaves a huge imprint to anyone. As for Gohan, for those who love Super Saiyan 2 Gohan from Cell Saga and Ultimate Gohan from Majin Buu Saga, you are in for a real treat with them bringing back that level of Gohan.

Overall/Enjoyment: This movie, in my opinion, is pure perfection and exactly what Dragon Ball is built around and has needed in such a long time. My enjoyment may be bias-heavy, but I truly believe this movie has lived up to its late promotional hype and will be talked about for a while. Having an upgrade for two of the fan favorites, on top of having such a sense of heroism that is Marvel-like was a perfect touch and suits perfectly well. I recommend thoroughly as a must watch from beginners to veterans of Dragon Ball.

Edit from original review: Another thing to note if I did have to mention downsides, the controversial topic of Jiren being nerfed was uncalled for as well as wonky animations here and there are some negatives I would point out if I was asked about it.