This is the second Friday in a row that I've been up all night for. I dunno why. Last week, it was caffeine...there was no such thing this time. Maybe it had something to do with the Snickers and peanut-butter-jelly sandwich I had. No, I did not put Snickers on the sandwich....

Either way, there was Bleach and Naruto this week. Naruto finally got back to the part that matters. And Bleach, well, it continued being Bleach, and really didn't get anywhere except to actually take some time setting up plot-relevant information. Which was nice.

Unohana just didn't say what I wanted her to say.

*spoilers for Bleach*
*fine, I'm putting spoiler tags*




*spoilers*





I was expecting her to say something that would heighten her own power...let us know that she's on Captain Broken's level...but instead, she actually said something that confirms a number of theories and also sets up another plot point. Now, standard rules of drama say that it can go one of two ways: either Ichigo sees the shikai release and has to find a flaw in its design, or Ichigo will have to fight to not see it. Of course, the money really leads toward the former.

HOWEVER...

Bleach has already defied a number of rules. Perhaps the most grievous violation being "When you introduce a threat that is stronger than the strongest good guys and the good guys outnumber this threat, certain good guys are going to die sacrificing themselves against them." It broke that one to pieces. Words said in dramatic expository tones have proven empty later on.

It is also straying dangerously close to violating the ultimate rule of doors in stories: when a door is revealed to be locked and a key's presence is made known, the key will be used to unlock the door. It's a law that's older than written word. Pandora's Box is an example. Which actually traces its origins even further back to the absolute very beginning, when God put a lock on the Forbidden Fruit. He said, "Do not eat." And Adam and Eve ate.

Trace it onward through every sort of literature. Pandora's Box. The winds of Aeolus. Several instances with King Arthur and his knights. The wardrobe to Narnia. Pippin and the Palantir. Raiders of the Lost Ark. When Luke Skywalker was told to stay behind on the Death Star but found out that there was a door to the princess, he went to that door. Final Fantasy VI. Ocarina of Time. Avatar: the Last Airbender, many, many, many times. Remember Zhao and the Moon Spirit? Aang said that he had no idea what kind of imbalance a murder of the Moon Spirit could bring...and sure enough, we got to have an idea. The third-floor corridor in Hogwarts.

And this is not just literature and fiction. Any number of instances have happened in the Bible, in history, and I'm sure in your lives. Door-peeping might not be the exact case here, but tell me the last story that you've encountered where a door and a key showed up but weren't opened....

Speaking of doors, FMA comes out this week. YAAAAAAAI!!!

Unohana was fun in this chapter.

And Mayuri is back to his old evil ways. Very good. I like him evil.

And Yammy is a complete joke. A JOKE.




Good manga coming out soon, though.


PRAXIS next Saturday. I am...TOTALLY unprepared.


I need to study my math.








Oh, and it's my dad's birthday today. So I'm gonna wish him a happy one.