There’s so much I should be doing with my life right now and writing this is not something I should be doing.
Honestly, anime isn’t really my cup of tea. Granted, I’ve only watched two in their entirety, but generally it’s not something that’s appealed to me. I’m really not fond of the way a lot of the (drawn out, never ending) fight scenes play out. I hate when a character goes “Ah, you seem surprised that your shininosuma attack fire x-z did not damage me. It is due to this, my shield protect fiyazuma, a result of my years of training and hey why don’t you break out some tea and let’s sit down and I will explain every detail of my fighting style and how I will use it to beat you.” What is this. I don’t know want an encyclopedia. Just stab the motherfucker already, don’t stand around talking about it!
But if they did that then they’d have to come up with some new way to fill up time, and it’d probably involve objectifying women’s bodies. OH WAIT THEY ALREADY DO THAT. Yeah I don’t know what they’d do then.
Regardless, I’ve watched 200 some episodes of Bleach. I haven’t seen any of the new ones from the past few months, but even though Bleach definitely falls into that “I will explain everything while fighitng” annoyance of mine (what anime doesn’t, though) it’s got an intriguing plot and some really awesome characters running around that make it great.
There’s quite a few characters I grew to like while (somewhat forcibly) watching the series, but I, like almost every other person in the world who’s watched Bleach, was really interested in Ulquiorra. And no I still can’t say that fucker’s name.
Ulquiorra is one of the ten Espada that guard super-evil-main-antagonist Aizen. It’s been a while since I watched the series, but the Espada are basically hollows (evil...heartless? things) that have gotten so crazy powerful they have regained humanoid forms. Because now this lets us draw them with expressions and pointy colorful hair!
But, essentially, the Espada are all evil guys. And each Espada is meant to embody death in some way, based on their own view about life (what). Ulquiorra’s is something like super depression. I don’t quite recall.
I think Ulquiorra is interesting because he is one of those tragic evil fellows, but not in the sense that he’s like “oh lament me I had no choice!” He never really seems to question his tasks, motives, the harm and death he causes. He doesn’t seem hung up, he doesn’t appear to have a conscience or any moral hang ups about the generally terrible things he does. And yet, it’s much easier to pity him rather than hate him.
I can’t place my finger on why. I think part of it is that you can see the way he just doesn’t understand. He literally has no concept of love. That’s painful to watch, to see someone who is strong and resolute for a damaging cause, and for no real reason. He’s just so empty, you have to feel sorry for that.
What really makes it worse, I think, is the fact that he remains a bad guy to the end, but you can see in his very last dying moment the potential for something else. That’s what makes him truly tragic for me. The way he seems to just grasp the concept of caring at the very end of his life, like three seconds before he dies.
Damn! It makes you want him to come back, it makes you want him to not be dead. It makes you really miss this soulless dude who was determined to kill the protagonist of the series.
Probably one of my favorite fictional villains, all in all. That’s one of the trickiest things, I think, to create a villain who is sympathetic, or maybe even likable, on some level, who is actually mourned when he dies, while keeping him an antagonist.
PLUS LET'S BE HONEST HE LOOKS LIKE A BADASS
