Heroes and Villains from Bleach

Heroes and Villains. They make or break a good story. Today I've signed up for the Heroes and Villains Blogfest hosted by Dani at Entertaining Interests and Jackie at Bouquet of Books which has us listing our favorite heroes and villains. Now, man, that's hard for me to do because there are just so many fantastic heroes and villains I could name. I love the character aspect of story.  So I've decided to limit myself to two exceptional examples. Characters that I pondered long after the story was over and who taught me new things about story and character.

Hero 

The many faces of Ichigo Kurosaki

Ichigo Kurosaki is the hero and main character of the anime series Bleach, which I've mentioned before because I'm a bit obsessed with it. As a character, Ichigo took some time to grow on me. In some ways he's a typical teenager and I've never much liked that breed. But as the story progresses you begin to see how he's different and awesome. One of the most typically annoying things about teenagers is their overweening confidence in their abilities and in this regard Ichigo is no exception. He tends to go into conflicts and battles assuming that he will be able to handle it, sure that he will win simply because he must. But the difference here is that Ichigo's confidence doesn't come from arrogance or conceit, it's not founded in himself. His confidence and his surety in battle is founded in the strength that he receives from his friends and from his need to protect them. Because of this Ichigo is able to accomplish amazing feats.

 Ichigo Quotes:

"I'm not superman, so I can't say anything big like I'll protect everyone on earth. I'm not a modest guy who will say it's enough if I can protect as many people as my two hands can handle either. I want to protect a mountain-load of people."

"It's meaningless to just live, it's meaningless to just fight. I want to win!"

"The difference... in strength... what about it? Do you think I should give up... just because you're stronger than me...? I've always known you were strong. Nothing I see now will change my mind. I will defeat you Ulquiorra."

"When you cross blades, you can tell a little of what your opponent's thinking. I'm not saying you can read their mind or anything like that, but you can tell what kind of resolve lies behind their blade, whether they respect you or look down on you. That kind of thing, you can tell. When I'm actually fighting, there's no time to think about it, so I don't usually realize until afterwards, but in general, the stronger the opponent is, the more of that "heart" seems to come across."

What Ichigo, and other anime heroes like him (Inuyasha, Natsu), teach me is that heart really does matter. Inner strength makes a difference. I like him not because he's powerful, though he is, and not because he always wins, which he generally does. I don't like him because he's got a tough attitude or because he looks cool in his Shinigami outfit, though that's true as well. I like him because he puts others first. He's able to completely throw himself into a fight without holding anything back because he isn't thinking about himself. He wants to win, he is determined to win not for himself, but for the people he is protecting. He is a real hero.

But a great hero needs a great villain. There are almost a literal ton of bad guys in Bleach, but I want to focus on the one whose conflict with Ichigo was, I think, the most compelling and whose final battle with Ichigo was easily the most epic.

Villain

Ulquiorra's normal appearance on the right and his "Resurreccion" form on the left.

Ulquiorra Cifer is not actually a "main villain" of the series. Ulquiorra is not human, but is a member of an extremely powerful caste of creatures that are born of human souls that do not pass into the afterlife upon their death and become corrupted. He is an underling of Aizen, who could be comparable to Sauron on the Dark Lord scale. Nonetheless, he is a formidable opponent. He was responsible for kidnapping Orihime, a close friend of Ichigo, which causes Ichigo and some of his other friends to attack the enemy's stronghold to rescue her.  Ulquiorra is also responsible for Orihime's care and it is in this way that a strange relationship develops between them.

The battle between Ichigo and Ulquiorra is intense. Ulquiorra, an embodiment of "emptiness" reveals multiple forms, each more powerful than the last. Ichigo is really no match against him, but continues to fight. In fact, Ulquiorra actually kills Ichigo at one point only to see Ichigo summoned back by Orihime's screams in a new, powerful and terrifying form.

Ulquiorra quotes:

"Hearts, you say? You Humans are always so quick to speak of such things. As though you carry your hearts in the very palms of your hands. But this eye of mine perceives all. There is nothing that it overlooks. If this eye cannot see a thing, then it does not exist. That is the assumption under which I have always fought. What is this "heart"? If I tear open that chest of yours, will I see it there? If I smash open that skull of yours, will I see it there?"

"Kurosaki Ichigo... Those are the words of a man who does not know true despair. Very well... I shall teach it to you. Now you will know true despair..."

"I see. This. Yes. This thing in my hand is the heart?"

Ulquiorra ultimately dies by Ichigo's hand and his dying words (the last quote above) reveal his secret longing as he and Orihime reach out to each other. Ulquiorra is, to me, a sympathetic villain. Those who live in despair, once knew hope. Those who are empty, long to fill their emptiness.

Since I spent so long talking about these two characters, I'll refrain from listing any more. This has been a fun exploration. And now, a gratuitous image of Ichigo and Renji Abarai, cause they're awesome.

 

Fairy Prince Blogfest: Prince Ashitaka

I've signed up today for Rachel Morgan's Fairy Prince blogfest (to celebrate the release of her new book, details below) because it gives me a good excuse to talk about one of my favorite characters: 

Get ready for a gratuitous amount of images.

This is Prince Ashitaka from the movie Princess Mononoke written and directed by my favorite modern storyteller, Hayao Miyazaki. Mononoke-hime could easily be considered a Japanese fairy tale with its proliferation of gods, demons, spirits, a Prince protagonist and the titular "princess".

Ashitaka is the last prince of the Emishi tribe. He is a warrior, wielding both sword and bow and arrows, though he abhors violence and uses it only to protect. In the story's beginning, Ashitaka fights against a corrupted boar demon that is attacking his village. He fights without fear, killing the boar demon but earning a cursed wound in the process.

Wise Woman: My prince, are you prepared to learn what fate the stones have foretold you?
Ashitaka: Yes, I was prepared the very moment I let my arrow fly.

Ashitaka is told that the infection in his arm will slowly spread through his body causing him a painful death. Due to the laws of the Emishi, Ashitaka must cut his hair and leave the village, henceforth considered dead to his people.

Wise Woman: You cannot alter your fate, my prince. However, you can rise to meet it, if you choose.

 Ashitaka's one hope is to travel west, to the source of the corruption that cause the demon to become consumed with anger and hate. The Wise Woman of his village tells him that it is his fate to go there with eyes "unclouded by hate" to see what he can see. Ashitaka bravely takes on this fate without any bitterness in his heart for what has happened to him.

In the west he becomes embroiled in the conflict between the humans of Iron Town who are consuming the resources of the land to make profitable iron to fuel human civilization and the spirits and gods of the nearby forest whose land is being encroached upon by the humans. He meets Princess Mononoke ("princess of the spirits"), a human girl who was raised by the wolf gods of the forest when her family was killed in war, a human who now hates humans. Another angle to the conflict arises when the Emperor sends a mercenary monk to the forest to cut off the head of the Forest Spirit whose dual nature of life and death can offer healing or destruction. But the emperor wants the head to give him immortality. Ashitaka takes no side in the fight, but tries to convince all the players that violence and anger and hatred cannot lead to anything good.

Ashitaka: Look, everyone! This is what hatred looks like! This is what it does when it catches hold of you! It’s eating me alive, and very soon now it will kill me! Fear and anger only make it grow faster!

And in the end it is only because of Ashitaka's devotion to life and to protecting that which is worth protecting that the world is not consumed by the Nightwalker, the destructive side of the Forest Spirit. Ashitaka is my favorite prince because of what he stands for: the courage to life a life of peace, the bravery to honor and love all life. He never sees anyone as the enemy, he knows they are all victims. He never sacrifices or falters in his convictions. He protects everyone and earns the right to live again.

San (Princess Mononoke): Even if all the trees grow back, it won't be his forest anymore. The Forest Spirit is dead.

Ashitaka: Never. He is life itself. He isn't dead, San. He is here with us now, telling us, it's time for both of us to live.

Also, his music is awesome:


It's release day for The Faerie Prince, the second novel in the Creepy Hollow series! Woohoo! If you're keen to read it, you can find it at the following places online:

Amazon US | Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Apple iBookstore

CreateSpace (print)

Guardian trainee Violet Fairdale is just weeks away from one of the most important occasions of her life: graduation. After messing up big time by bringing a human into the fae realm, Vi needs to step up her game and forget about Nate if she hopes to graduate as the top guardian of her year. Everything would be fine if she wasn’t forced to partner with Ryn, her ex-friend, ex-enemy, current ‘sort of friend’. They might be trying to patch up their relationship, but does she really want to spend a week undercover with him for their final assignment? On top of that, the possibly insane Unseelie Prince is still on the loose, free to ‘collect’ as many specially talented faeries as he can find—and Vi is still at the top of his list. Add in faerie queens, enchanted storms, complicated not-just-friends feelings, and a murder within the Guild itself, and graduation is about to become the least of Vi’s problems.

In celebration, The Faerie Guardian is on sale for a limited time!

**GIVEAWAY**

There will be a giveaway running from now until the end of the blog tour (Sun 9 June). A giveaway where FOUR people could win something! The prizes are a signed copy of The Faerie Prince (or The Faerie Guardian, should the winner prefer that), an Amazon gift card, a mini book pendant and necklace, and a Creepy Hollow pin badge. Check out the pic below!
Giveaway is open internationally

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My Anime: The Book of Bantorra

Last night my husband and I finished watching the anime The Book of Bantorra. It was good. Really good. The first anime we've tried in a while that made me want to stay up way longer than I should to keep watching. It also made me question some things about my story preferences that I thought were true.

First, let me give you a quick summary of the show's premise. In Bantorra's universe when people die their bodies slowly turn into books (which look like vaguely book sized slabs of rock) which other people can touch to read and learn the deceased's life story. Bantorra Library is home of the Armed Librarians (how cool is that?) whose job is to collect, organize and protect the books. The Armed Librarians are in conflict with the Church of Drowning in God's Grace (also called the Shindeki Church) who believe that being human means that you have the right to seek happiness at all costs. The top ranks of the Church are the True Men, who use others to gain happiness and thus create the most beautiful books of their lives that they can. Then there are the Mock Men who serve the True Men. Lowest of all are the Meats who the True Men have brainwashed to forget their humanity. Meats are used as cannon fodder and guinea pigs in various experiments the Church carries out.

To say more would be to give away too much. The anime is full of intrigue, of world-changing secrets and interesting plot twists. It's well worth the watch. So what assumptions did it call into question?

1. I thought I hated character death.

Of course I don't mean ALL character death. Sometimes it's appropriate or even necessary to the story. But I have firmly hated and condemned the kind of character death that G.R.R. Martin engages in: where characters seem to die right and left and the only purpose of it seems to be either a glorification of violence or "Ha! You thought you could root for him? You never know whose going to die or when in this book! Don't get too comfortable, reader. Muahahahahaha!" OK, that may be a bit of an exaggeration but I think you know what I mean.

Many characters die in Bantorra and only some of them are bad guys. The first episode introduces a group of Armed Librarians. As typical in anime they are all given a unique look and unique abilities and unique personalities. They are presented as whole characters. Only a few of them will survive to the end. And while it hurt each time one of them died, somehow it fit into the mood and theme and direction of the story perfectly. And perhaps this is the key to why it worked for me: (semi spoiler) the climax involves a two layered fight involving the still surviving characters and all the characters that had died thus far all working together in their respective realms to win the conflict. It was awesome.

Three of these characters die.

 So while many of the deaths seem pointless at the time, ultimately they have meaning.

2. I thought I hated unsympathetic, morally questionable main characters.

In truth, there's not really one main character in The Book of Bantorra. But Hamyuts Meseta, the acting director of Bantorra Library, is certainly one of the most important characters. (She's the one in the image above with the ridiculous cleavage.) She's also a terrible, terrible person.

In the very first episode she uses her power to blow up a ship despite all of the people that are still on it including her own Armed Librarians. The rest of the series establishes that she is ruthless, bloodthirsty and extremely deadly. She is clearly keeping some ominous secrets and no one really knows who she is or what her goals are. And at first I didn't like her. But then...

One of the things I love about anime is how EVERY SINGLE character is far deeper and more complex than they appear in the beginning. But animes tend to take their time about revealing the full picture of their characters. Each new storyline will deepen your knowledge of the characters. It's like each character is a puzzle. In the beginning of the series the frame of the puzzle is intact and slowly new pieces are added with each arc the character goes through until you can finally see the whole picture. It's fantastic. Hamyuts is no exception.

One of the other characters, Minth, has an ability called Sacred Eyes which allows him to look into people's souls. He once used it on Hamyuts. He expected, he says, to see nothing but evil and villainy in her soul, but was surprised. He finds that her main trait is self-loathing, her thoughts are void, and she wishes for love.

By the end of the series I could believe that, even though in the beginning she had seemed a villain. Slowly, gradually, so that you barely notice it consciously, she is deepened. And in the end it is possible to sympathize with her and even root for her to win. It is expertly done.

3. I thought I wanted romances to have a happy ending.

Tragic romances are all well and good when you are young. But being a wife and a mother has made me prefer seeing a good happy ending for lovers. It's gotten to the point where I'm likely to shun a story if I think it's going to be too heartbreaking. And yet...

There are several romantic or semi-romantic couples in The Book of Bantorra. The only couple that has something like a happy ending are never at any point physically together (they live hundreds of years apart). Three couples are separated by death. Two of those three never consummated their relationship. It was always on the brink of something more. All four of these relationships were beautiful, each in different ways. And they were heartbreaking and I loved them.

I would totally ship Noloty and Enlike. 

So what's the moral here? I think it's that there are no rights and wrongs when it comes to story telling. Anything can work. It just depends on how well you implement it. But you can't know how well you might or might not be able to carry out a particular technique or trope until you try it. At that point, you should let the readers decide whether it's good or bad.

The A to Z Fantastic: Exploring Life After Death

One of the great things about fantasy is that it allows us to explore things that are impossible or at least impossible to know in this real world. One of my favorite impossible things to explore is Death and Life after it.

Currently my favorite example of this is the anime series Bleach.

 

Bleach is about Ichigo Kurosaki who has always been able to see dead souls. Then one fateful night he meets Rukia Kuchiki, a Shinigami (lit. death god) whose job is to help those wandering souls enter the after life. Ichigo is drawn into the world of the Soul Society where dead souls go to reside and where the Shinigami protect the balance of life and death. Not all souls go peacefully to Soul Society, he learns. Some become monstrous Hollows and when Hollows linger in the living world to eat human souls it is the Shinigami's duty to end their existence (with super awesome sword powers).

What I like particularly about Bleach's version of the after life is that it doesn't at all seem like an afterlife. Soul Society is a real, fleshed out world where souls live like normal people. While souls do not need to consume food unless they have high spiritual power (and those who do tend to join the Shinigami), water is still necessary for existence. Thus life after death continues to be a struggle for survival.

Over the course of the series you meet members of rich and powerful families residing in Soul Society whose sons and daughters almost always join the 13 Court Guard Squads of the Shinigami. You also meet those that came from the poor and the destitute sections of Soul Society where people scrape by a living, and where those with unusual spiritual power often suffer more than most, being lucky if they can one day join the privileged Shinigami. 

The interaction between the living world and the Soul Society is the crux of the show, Ichigo being a sort of  fulcrum between the two. It's a fascinating world. And it could only be explored through fantasy.

Why Anime is Some of the Best Storytelling

That should probably say "Why Manga is Some of the Best Storytelling" since most animes I have seen were based on manga. However, I don't read manga, but over the past couple of years I have somehow become a huge fan of anime.

(Why, if I love anime so much, don't I read the manga? Isn't the book always better than the movie? Well, I just don't like the graphic novel format compared to the animated series format. And anyway, by all reports, anime tend to follow their manga far, far more closely than any movie ever followed a book.)

It started with InuYasha, a story about 15 year-old Japanese school girl Kagome who goes through a magic well and finds herself in the Feudal Era where she meets and teams up with a half demon called Inuyasha to find all the shards of the Shikon jewel before the evil demon Naraku can use it it make himself more powerful. In one sense it's a pretty straightforward action/adventure fantasy story. There's lots of fighting and lots of people with cool powers. (After watching and loving nearly 200 episodes of InuYasha I still cannot bring myself to swing a sword without shouting the name of Inuyasha's signature move: "Wind Scar!!") But on another level it's the very emotional journey of a group of people whose lives have been irreparably altered by the power of the Shikon jewel which inspires terrible acts of hatred and greed wherever it is found, even just a piece of it. (I highly recommend it.)

That's the great thing about manga/anime. There are always multiple levels.

On the surface anime is generally flashy and fun, down and dirty storytelling. It doesn't mess around. It knows what it is and it isn't afraid to play by its own rules. Those are: 1. all fights are liable to take place over the course of several episodes because all the participants do a lot of talking in between actions. 2. all characters who get into violent conflicts on a regular basis have at least 10x the amount of blood that normal people have. 3. whenever possible, do everything with style. 4. the phrase "less is more" has no meaning here. More is always more. 5. drama and comedy go hand in hand. 6. anything can happen. 7. there tend to be a lot of very, very pretty men and boys and very, very well endowed women and girls.

Eye candy from InuYasha: Sesshomaru

(There are more principles of anime, I'm sure. But that's what I can think of off the top of my head.)

But despite all the style and flashiness, excitement and fun that makes up the top layer of anime, there are many, many other layers to explore. But for heaven's sake let's be simplistic and only talk about a couple of layers today. Let's talk about story in general.

I can no longer think of many movies made by Hollywood in recent years that weren't entirely willing to kick good storytelling to the curb in favor of flashy special effects and stylistic flair. Anime is not. The animes that I have watched so far have all been incredibly well rounded in the story department. Superb visualization and conceptualization of the setting, deep and meaningful characterization, forward moving and compelling plot, and thematically rich.

Over and over again I have been continually amazed to find that the best new stories I have experienced over the last couple of years have been in anime format. I think manga/anime is getting a lot of things right that a lot of people over here in the west have forgotten. I'd like to do some posts where I highlight my favorite animes and the aspects of storytelling that they excel in.

 Have you watched any anime? If so, what are your favorites and what do like best about their storytelling?