Bleach for DS is missing two essential things, breasts. There are only two playable female chaaracters in the game. Bleach is a hip action anime that is popular now on Cartoon Network in the U.S. The show features a twist on the high school kids vs demons genre.

They fight against ghostly monsters called Hollows. The story line calls into question themes such as final judgment and earthly attachments. Like a good anime it includes the flashy battles as well as deeply rooted spooky mythological challenges. The series has a heady aspect to it, as well as romance. None of that is reflected in the game however. Bleach fans and collectors might like to own this one, but playing it isn’t all it should be. I would get it for the Wii, so that it can be played full size on a TV.

The Bleach for DS game is a 2-D fighter developed by Treasure, the company has developed action titles before. They did a good job of representing the cast of Shinigami or Soul Reapers. But the female characters are glaringly missing. Out of 18 possible female characters in the anime only two were selected. The main character Rukia is not a playable character and Rangiku (10th Squad Lieutenant) is no where to be seen either.

Each character has a unique set of fighting abilities. Some use only ranged magical or projectile attacks, others have elemental powers, swordplay or brute strength. The story lends itself perfectly to a fighting system game. It’s for that reason that the game is too big and overwhelms the DS. They should have gone with an approach like in Full Metal Alchemist, or made it an RPG. The scale is too tiny for you to see the characters without a microscope. It seems like a console game was miniaturized for DS and it just isn’t that enjoyable. If all you have is a DS and you are a Bleach fan, then you might like it. Otherwise get Bleach on a console.

Game – play itself has many diverse moves and each character has about 3 or 4 individual attacks. There are special moves and super moves that you activate from the touch pad. The big combo move that the Captain level Soul Reapers have called the ‘ban kai’ is also there for some characters. These have a cut-scene that is displayed with them. The story mode sort of follows the story arch in the first season of the series. You can play it in the various modes like player vs CPU or vs a local player it has wi-fi too so you can go up against other players to test your skills.

Other than being able to see the Bleach characters and play them, I found the game to be lacking the unique use of the DS features. They should have made a separate game for DS and not a mini version of something that needs a big screen. I give Bleach DS a disappointed 6 out of 10.