Bleach Series 7 - Part 1   Starring (voice): Fumiko Orikasa, Masakazu Morita, Hiroki Yasumoto and Kentarou Itou Manga Entertainment RRP: £24.99 MANG9057 Certificate: 15 Available 26 September 2011

Ichigo Kurosaki, having gained the powers of a Soul Reaper, returned to Earth a changed boy. Not only can he see spirits, but now he has the skill to combat them. With the Bount crisis resolved Ichigo returns home with his friends but his original dealings with the Hollows have not disappeared, if anything they have become worse, while he was away. Now a new more powerful form of Hollow appears...

Bleach: Series 7 - Part 1 (2007), the season was also known under the collective title of Arrancar: The Hueco Mundo Sneak Entry arc. The season’s episodes were directed by Noriyuki Abe. Season seven ran for a total of twenty episodes and followed Ichigo’s journey to rescue Orihime, who under the orders of Soul Reaper Captain Sosuke Aizen, has been kidnapped by an Arrancar and taken to Hueco Mundo. The first part of the season is presented as a two disc DVD set containing ten episodes.

Before the main arc kicks off the first four episodes are standalone fillers, which will annoy purist. But, in reality, they are engaging enough. So we don’t actually get to the arc until episode 136, the last episode on disc one. Disc one has no extras, only options for either an English or Japanese (with subtitles) 2.0 audio track.

Disc two has a further five episodes - 137 to 141 - overall not much happens to push the plot forward, but then again this is Bleach, a show which can spend several episodes where another would spend one, to tell a story. Conciseness, or even generally getting to the point, has never been a big feature of Bleach. So we have Ichigo practising his hollow mask, great power, but it only lasts for eleven seconds. Orihime, gets to say goodbye to Ichigo, in a genuinely touching scene and the stage is set, after only six episodes to set off to rescue Orihime, which is likely to be dragged out over innumerable episodes.

The level of animation isn’t great, but is sufficient for the job. On a brighter note the quality of the animation has remained reasonable level throughout the seven series. The extras are nothing special, but at least something is better than nothing and we have some production art, textless closing and some trailers.

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Charles Packer