The Diamond Dust Rebellion is the second feature length film of the Bleach franchise and, unlike the first film, this one doesn't focus on Ichigo, but on Toushiro Hitsugaya instead. In case the decision to focus on a character that isn't even in the original main protagonist group surprises you, the explanation is rather simple: the Shounen Jump magazine runs yearly character popularity contests and Captain Hitsugaya was placed 3rd in 2007 and 1st in 2008, proving to be even more popular than the protagonist at that point.

So, in order to promote this film, Tite Kubo even created a one-shot manga story to tell a little bit of Toushiro's past, which this reviewer could not confirm an official English release for yet. Also, those of you who follow the Bleach TV series may notice that during the original release time of this film in Japan, the opening and ending featured scenes of the movie to promote it.

The film opens with a procession meant to transport a magical device called 'Ouin' (King's seal), which the Tenth Squad is supposed to guard. The procession is attacked by a Soul Reaper wearing a mask and two powerful Arrancar-like girls who possess fire and lightning powers, and they manage to defeat several of the squad members until Hitsugaya and Rangiku interfere. Toushiro is caught by surprise and is stabbed by the mysterious Soul Reaper, but manages to back out before suffering more severe injures and commands the stranger to identify himself. A quick fight follows in which Hitsugaya is shown to go for his foe's mask before the latter escapes with the 'Ouin'. Distressed by what he has seen, Hitsugaya goes in pursuit of the thieves.

Back at the Soul Society, Hitsugaya's disappearance is seen as treason and all the members of the Tenth Squad are made to surrender their Zanpakutous and stay under house arrest.

This is the setup for this feature, which has greater production values than the original TV series and clearly had a bigger budget than the previous film, considering the overall technical quality. Following the standard set by the previous film, all characters from Ichigo's main group and the Soul Society have at least a cameo, with the more popular ones having longer airtime than the others. This film is also detached from the TV series, so little time is given to character development, except in the case of Captain Hitsugaya.

The final battle is grandiose, with several of the characters going all out. Zaraki Kenpachi's appearance and Ichigo going into Vizard mode deserve special mention and act as a reminder of what makes Bleach so well loved by its fans.

Both Japanese and English cast still deliver a convincing performance and similar to the first movie, when you select the English dub, you do not have a choice of subtitles. Unlike the first movie though, this is a bare bones release, with no extras whatsoever on the disc, which is quite a disappointment as the previous was packed with storyboards and interviews with the creative team.

Overall, this is a better movie than the first Bleach title, with the only disappointment here being that the disc has no extras at all.

According to Wiki, this film is best viewed after episode 167.