Bleach Ep. 15: Kon’s Great Plan

The first season takes a breather and slows down in this comedy centric episode starring Kon, the stuffed lion. When Kon can no longer take being treated like a toy, he runs away from home to find a better place. But there is a moody parallel story as Rukia finds herself becoming too attached to others in the mortal world. So what does a mysterious black cat appearing mean for our heroes?

Bleach’s comedy is not for everyone and is often over the top. This is one of those episodes, but is leavened by a growing melancholy that quickly becomes foreboding. There are no fights, but plot development is carefully advanced as the next big storyline is setup.

The duality of the episode is introduced early on with a brooding Rukia in bed and a crying Kon dealing with having been put in a ridiculous dress by Ichigo’s sister, Yuzu. Both are suffering for very different reasons and each handles their problems quite differently. At least on the face of it…

Taking advantage of having no supervision while Ichigo and Rukia are at high school, Kon decides enough is enough—it is time to run away! Though most of the comedy in the episode left me cold, I did enjoy the serial killer expression on the stuffed lion’s rage face. Sadly for Kon, things do not go well almost immediately after becoming a runaway. Not only does he blow his cover, he loses his cool (as if he had any in the first place) upon encountering girls from the high school.

While his travails begin, Rukia and Orihime run into each other on the way to morning classes. Bubbly as ever, the redhead’s stream of consciousness amuses the diminutive Soul Reaper. When discussion turns to Ichigo, it is clear that the buxom girl harbors a crush on the boy. It is a rare scene of normality for the series and one that makes the characters more likeable. But since Bleach does not do normal, there is a mysterious black cat watching the girls to inject a sinister tone.

Forget the cat for a moment, for it is Rukia’s behavior that is more worrisome. Watching the other students with a sad expression on her face, it is clear that something is very wrong. Tension fills the classroom, the result of the events introducing Uryu Ushida to the story.

The girls physical education class appears to be an opportunity for Kon to enter his perverted idea of heaven. Hopes, desires, and lusts are one thing and reality (albeit anime reality) is another, especially when you are just a stuffed animal. Maybe running away from home wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Okay, you can remember the cat now. Having made its way to Urahara’s store, it is greeted with immense delight by the owner. Oddly enough, Yoruichi the cat is supposedly his best friend. Mister Hat and Clogs is an established weirdo, but this takes the cake. He is way too happy to see the cat.

One of the better comic bits is the tale of two lunches, when the boys and the girls have their separate gatherings. On the male side, uncomfortable silence and a resumption of the bickering between Ichigo and Uryu contrasts quite a bit with the female get together. There, typical girl talk pulls Rukia in and she finds that she has become one of the group. She also displays one of the most amazing spit takes ever when asked about the nature of her relationship with Ichigo. Even Danny Thomas never created a rainbow with one of his spit takes.

I admit I found what followed very amusing, what with Orihime’s bizarre fantasy about all the girls falling in love with Ichigo and her very strange rational for why it would be good. Of course, anything that mocks harem animes is alright with me. Even the irritating lesbian stalker bit manages to be funny, simply because of Tatsuki’s extreme reaction to it and how her defense of her friend is animated.

At the end of the day, Rukia is unable to say something important to Ichigo and Kon learns the bitter lesson of how much better it is to stay at the Kurosaki residence. But not without further horrors, for it is the mod soul’s fate to be abused. Frankly, the pervert deserves it for being an intensely annoying character. That goes doubly for the English dub, no pun intended.

As day fades into night, a shocking revelation about the black cat and Rukia’s decision about her future mark the end of the humor. Darkness is beginning to fall in more than a literal sense.

Thoughts

Kon’s Great Plan is a very uneven episode, with much of the humor misfiring for me. However, the growing melancholy of Rukia Kuchiki makes up for it and adds an air of impending tragedy to the proceedings. I think the animators did a good job of showing the increasing emotional weight pressing down on her.

Oh and I forgot to mention the end (or ED) credits changing music and animation with the last episode. Gone is Life is Like a Boat by Rie Fu and in is Thank You! by Home Made Kazoku. Featuring a white clad Rukia looking incredibly sad, the visual tone is one of unhappiness while the song is about expressing gratitude. Just a tad ominous, don’t you think?

The cliff hanger ending of this episode fits well with the new ED and why they chose to change it for episode 14 instead of this one I do not understand.

Technical

I had an interesting technical problem after taking screen captures. When I pulled the DVD out of the BD-ROM drive, a quarter inch chunk of plastic had broken from the center hub. Fortunately, the plastic was held in place by the screen printing on the disc, otherwise I could have had a wrecked drive. It appears the DVD began to delaminate layers and the top layer fractured there.

In all the years I have owned and rented DVDs, I had never seen this happen before. At least it was cheap for me to buy a used copy of the fourth DVD volume, which has the same content!

From now on, I will be ripping episodes temporarily to my hard drive like I do for Blu-rays. Better safe than sorry.

BEWARE! HERE BE SPOILERS!!!

 

 

 

A talking cat was not what I expected when I first saw this episode and certainly not one with a voice that deep. Yoruichi appears to know what is really going on and delivers a warning to the ever shady Urahara. Good, bad, in-between—you really do not get an indication to the alignment of the cat.

Rukia’s decision to run away parallels Kon’s, but her reasons are completely different. It is fun to write parallels and I think it worked well in a language major kind of way. I was going to write “English major” but this is a Japanese cartoon, after all.

Now that is a proper cliff hanger with out being too dramatic. The two mysterious shinigami look effectively sinister, but do not actually attack. I do have to complain about the English dub, because the tattooed one does not sound anywhere near the original. The main plot is about to finally begin.