Bleach

I believe the other review mentions that this is simply a rip off of the acidwire arc, but I'd like to go ahead and point out to anyone reading both reviews that this is the original one shot that gave birth to the entire bleach series, so keep in mind that in a sense the acidwire arc was taken from this one shot. With that being said:

The bleach short story is top notch as far as one shots go. The artwork may not seem to compare to Kubo's current style, but at it's time and even on it's own it is extremely well drawn in it's own right. The proportions are stylized but still visually appealing. The story is very well constructed and once again shouldn't be compared with other arcs in Bleach. It really does a nice job of showing the darkness even in our good intentions. And the comedy is universal and so that shows why the one shot was well received internationally. The characters are original and well built, and they backstory for the characters has enough depth to make them interesting but not so thick that you have no idea what's going on.

Overall I enjoyed it, and I think anyone who really loves Bleach would too. It's the starting point for one of the most popular manga to date, and so that in itself makes it interesting enough. Even on it's own though, it is a great read and tells a very touching and truthful story.

When I began to read this,I thought it would be something I hadn't seen before.After looking through it,it felt like deja vu.It was basically Acidwire all over again.He was just replaced with Orihime's dad.It's been done before.Don't do it again.No offence to anybody who liked this,but I just didn't like it as much as I liked the original.If you feel like reading the same thing over again,that's your choice.I personally didn't want the Sora story all over again.

This was a idea that became what is now Bleach and I have to say Im happy this got popularity and became that great piece of art that it is. Some parts that were changed around im pretty happy with because it would have sucked if some people died that originally hadn't or the jobs and people changed in ways they didnt in the new one. In all I enjoyed it and am happy it was created. The original (this) changed some things in the current bleach that in my case I would prefer since I cant say what it is ill let it go as jobs, death, and reasons.

Bleach (Manga) 9/10/10/10/10

First things first. My "reviews" system is explained on a blog entry. Which can be found through my profile.
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Oeh.. now that I've re-read Manga... figured to write a review about my all time favorite battle shounens. (I've seen Anime total of 4 times including the movies.. but re-read because... Anime final arc is still not animated and I wanted refresher of final arc)

✦Story
As it's extremely long running battle shounen, it would be too tedious to make more of "detailed" review. So to put it simply. It has a very battle, drama, tragedy rich storytelling that also has spice of character relationships and even romance to it. Like any story, there is certain pattern and the longer is series the more prominent those patterns are. Does it ruin enjoyment? No. Or well, depends on how you are watching something. As I'm more of a "live" viewer than "predictor", thus I got tons of joy out of this story.

✦Art
I got nothing to say. It was simply spot on to my tastes. It had rather sharp and clear style to it. Absolutely amazing character designs, power designs, world designs and godlike awakening/power-up designs.

Also plenty of waifus to choose from and plenty of amazing weapons.

✦Character
Once again.. character variation is amazing. So are the stereotypes and personalities variations.

Characters with more importance or value have more backstory to them and as well more roles in the story itself. Thus they get better development and backstory. Lot of interesting characters, interesting villains and even often likeable villains.

Ichigo, our MC is amazingly enjoyable tragic hero. Whenever it's his relations to characters or plot twists that get found out or his journey of combat and power-ups and awakenings. Are simply absolutely enjoyable.

As far as battle shounens go, style-wise it's my all time favorite.

✦Enjoyment & Overall
I would have more comments about Anime, but since it's manga I'll keep it shorter.

Long story short. It's one of the first "spot on" Anime that I fell love with. It has simply way too many elements that match my tastes and thus amplify the enjoyment to unreal amount. One of few series that I actively hope for final arc to be animated. On top of that I collect images, music, games, fanart, doujinshi and so on. (now and then)

In another words. I absolutely adore this series (and Anime adaption is simply my utmost favorite Anime of all times).

It has it's ups and downs but all things consider I find storytelling extremely pleasing that is filled with twists, surprises, changes, awakenings and extremely powerful emotions.

It even has rather complex story and especially abilities. On top of that there are plenty of story points that just twist your gut because of some characters master plans.

Probably the weakest point of the story would be last 2 arcs where their contrast was rather odd. Fullbring arc that felt the weakest and final arc that was a bit way too over the top with it's powers and characters. Especially with the very specific/niches that tons of characters had as their abilities.

Nevertheless it was wrapped up rather nicely. Sadly if it wouldn't started being pressurized to ending the story, we would gotten a lot of more explanations and prolonging chapters that would balance out the pacing of the story.

At least finale was great, which showed some insight into characters future and best of all. Love that bloomed.

As far as "perfection" goes. It's one of the closest ones to my enjoyment and tastes. Obviously it has it's duller moments and issues, but so does everything.

+TOPFAV
(might revise for clarity)

You know that feeling of wonder one might have when starting a book or a movie or anything else they heard plenty about, to find out for themselves what it's all about? Well then I'm sure you also know the feeling when all that excitement deflates into apathy as you find it to be just what you expected. That's Bleach, it's bad, not spectacularly bad but just bad in the least entertaining way possible, but let's go over it step by step.

Art:
If there's one aspect of Bleach that doesn't require shutting down perception organs to tolerate, it's art. Not to say it's great but for a weekly series it's not bad either. Bleach starts out a bit rough, angular and cartoony, very fitting for the time period when it got first published. Few volumes later it smoothes out and starts to look a bit more attractive as lines get cleaner, sharper and proportions become more realistic.
Character design quality varies wildly, at best they look stylish, fit character's personality to a tee and simply are nice to look at. While worst of them look like edgy teenagers OC they painstakingly polished for weeks to post on deviantart alongside their fanfic.
Architecture is worse off with absolutely nothing to show off. Over the course of the manga you'll see: modern Japanese suburbs; dense european city looking environments; desert full of nothing; large squares and cylinders with equally exciting interior and finally heian era looking areas.

Story
Characters: Hoo boy are they nothing, simply nothing. Their personality, goals and purpose can be exhaustively described in one short sentence or less cause many miss one or two of the aforementioned points. Thanks to genius way the plot is structured, many characters lose relevancy when their ark is done with and will mostly appear only when there's a need for an asspull of which there are many (sasuga Kubo sensei!). One of them is so amazingly useless I can't help but mention it for your amusement. Near the end the main baddy, Jewish nazi god Yhwach breaks Ichigo's sword to a point where even time and space denying healing power can't fix it. Out of nowhere comes a guy, stabs Ichigo in the back to implant him with the past where his sword isn't broken by Yhwach and that somehow allows them to fix the sword. Whole thing lasts only a few pages and has no point at all.
Last off I want to give Ichigo a special mention for being the most pathetic shonen hero. His entire adventure is nothing but getting beat up half dead by everyone until he gets a powerup and steamrolls their opponent.

Plot: there is one, I think? Each ark is kind of self contained and follows some basic plot that revolves around saving friends and beating a bad guy. Soul society is the only one with any buds of ambition as initial save a friend premise then out to be a plan of baddie's clever keikaku to fuck everything up but it still ends up to be dumb and simple. None of it matters, events, characters and new powers are quickly forgotten and don't have any effect on overall story.
Fights were outsourced to nearest kindergarten or at least they must be to explain why each one of them is the same. A fights B, A or B is getting clobbered until receiving a powerup, then positions are reverse until A or B wins. No clever planning, choreography or tricks like in JoJo or HxH, just mindless back and forth.

Fun factor: none, I can't even recommend it to people who love shonen, even Naruto at any point had more going for it, even Hero Academia which I dislike a lot is a better time than Bleach, there is no point to reading it unless you want to personally familiarize yourself with what somehow became one of the most popular shonen manga to date. If you have that desire you're probably deep into this hobby and need any reviews, otherwise avoid it.

Now I'm not going to be doing a review about the entirety of the bleach manga, just a certain part. That part in particular is the thousand war blood war arc. To me every page of this saga was an absolute masterpiece. I'll try my best to not give any spoilers seeing as it'll be over a whole year until it's animated.

This saga starts off a bit slow in the first volume and doesn't really look that good. But Jesus Christ does it pick up...and quick too. By the second volume everything goes up to a hundred. A full on war in the soul society. The main enemies this time, the quincies. A group of hollow slayers that were mortal enemies to the soul reapers. They battled many years ago, but lost and were thought to be all slaughtered.

Unfortunately for the soul reapers though, they were just in hiding. They quickly reer their heads and show that they are a serious threat. I mean these guys are lettered from A to Z and have all sorts of crazy powers. One guy has flames, one has lightning, one even zombies. These guys have the deck absolutely stacked against the soul reapers. And you can really see that these foes drive them to their limit.

And if your like me and love the captains (and who doesn't) you'll see them in plenty of great battles. Battles that see them pulling out things like never before. Some of them even have to battle multiple times to defend their home. And you'll also see many welcome returns to the story, buy I don't wanna spoil that. Personally the characters this time around go through personal things that will truly change their lives forever. At the time of me reading this, the saga hadn't been announced yet to be animated. So there was no way I could've just waited on a miracle to happen; I made it my mission to buy every volume and finish bleach the way it was intended to be.

All in all this saga was amazing, surpassing everything that I had hoped for it. Many things happen, changes in both life and the world they live in. It's safe to say that the bleach world will never be the same again. And if your like me and can't wait for a year, then you should definitely give this a read...I guarantee that it'll change you. "BANKAII!!!!"

I'm well aware that I'm not saying anything groundbreaking here, but I felt like writing down my thoughts anyway. Finally reading this after being so engrossed with the DS game as a kid some 12-13 years ago was quite the trip. While it does contain several shounen tropes that hold it back, the Soul Society arc is genuinely engrossing and well done. It's an intricate but simple story with effective characterization that makes every fight feel important. The series is essentially diet Yu Yu Hakusho at the beginning, but during the SS arc it really comes in to its own and displays signs of the stellar ensemble storytelling that you'd see in something like FMA. As someone who dislikes the other two big 3 series (at least as of this writing; One Piece is so acclaimed that I'll have to go back and give it another try at some point), I have to say that this arc alone is enough to make Bleach my favourite of the 3.

Which is why it was genuinely shocking to me how quickly and dramatically it falls off the rails immediately afterwards. It basically switches up from the character based storytelling I mentioned before to an endless wave of incomprehensible and over indulgent battle scenes that pit the good guys against interchangeable jobbers who basically get introduced just to be defeated in quick fashion. I found it extremely difficult to care, or care to follow, anything that was going on from, like, volumes 23-45. The chaotic and messy fights, the excess of characters I had no reason to care about, the incredibly convoluted abilities, the pseudointellectual dialogue and the wonky power scaling just became to much for me to handle. And how the author thought it was a good idea to do ANOTHER massive rescue arc so soon after the Soul Society eludes me. Things pick up ever so slightly towards the end of the Arrancar Arc, but this is still mostly based on it being a direct continuation of the Soul Society stuff that I was invested in.

So yeah. Generous 5/10 all in all, and it seems that the consensus is things more or less stay the same or get even worse after this, so I so no reason to continue. It's a shame, I really think this could have been one of my favourite shounens if it maintained the same energy of the second arc throughout.

I really enjoyed Bleach from beginning to end. I avoided watching/reading it for a long time because i've seen many people talk about how bad it was but thanks to my brother for pushing me to start it, i can definitely say that starting from that moment, i've stopped asking for other people's opinions about anime/manga. Compared to the first few chapters of bleach, Kubo has really improved. He is INSANE when it comes to character designs, solid 10 out of 10. If there are some stuff i will have to say that i didnt like about bleach is the last arc. Yamamoto was so goated and he didnt deserve to die. We got to see his bankai (which was OP af) for a while and then boom, he's gone. Kinda felt disappointed by his death but oh well, we can't always get what we want.

My overall experience with bleach was a joyride. I enjoyed it from beginning to the end. Also, dont trust everything you read when it comes to reviews. Everyone has different taste, some may not like bleach and some may. Don't judge a manga/anime based on secondhand information. If you do, then you may have missed some good ass anime/manga that are so worth it.

If it weren't for the ending, I would've given this manga 8 or even 9 out of 10 simply due to nostalgia and everything good this manga used to be once. Now it will go down in history as one of the stories with the worst possible ending everyone refuses to acknowledge (myself included). Given that I loved this manga (although the final arc in general was pretty weak plot-wise), it is very hard to be at least a bit objective.
I am afraid this review might sometimes turn into a rant from someone who was hoping for the best until the very end.

Story: 6/10.
It started off in a very typical shounen-esque fashion as we were introduced to the main two characters right away. One boy. One Shinigami. Oh, those words sum it up perfectly as our main character is no ordinary Japanese young man, oh no, no, no, he has a very important purpose to serve. For the sake of his family and friends, he becomes a Shinigami and so his adventures begin.
The first two arcs are the most solid ones and I've heard that Bleach was supposed to end with Aizen's defeat (which is chapter 423, correct me if I am wrong), so I consider said chapter the original ending while the rest is just WSJ's attempt to milk this cash cow like there was no tomorrow. And I believe most of us know what it led to. The sales began to drop along with the manga's popularity, too many unnecessary details were added and eventually this manga ended so badly people are still salty. We will never know if Kubo ended his manga that way out of spite or because he's a bad writer. If you ask me, - and it is just a speculation, - I believe the former is more likely, given that the final chapter is the exact opposite of everything he'd been working on for 15 years.

Art: 8/10.
I like Kubo's art style as it got better as years passed. I think it's one of Bleach's strongest qualities regardless of what it had become in the end. So thank you, Kubo, for a well-drawn manga.

Character: 7/10.
Here comes one of my biggest complaint because 15 years of decent development were flushed down the drain in a blink of an eye for reasons I will never know or understand. But oh boy, I am starting to get pretty salty, it's not good for my nerves, is it? So let's talk about the positive side of this coin.
Ichigo and Rukia are the main characters and they ARE Bleach. They were the very first pairing I shipped for real because their interactions and chemistry are amazing. Their relationship is based on partnership, strong friendship and equality. I still ship them because these two complement each other just the way they were supposed to from the beginning.
Bleach has a lot of supporting characters and mentioning all of them will take too long. So, if you'll excuse me, I will only tell you about my favorite minor characters: Chad and Ishida. Oh, these two deserved so much better. Being Ichigo's best friends, they play a big role in his life and development as a character, they have decent personalities and are very interesting on their own.
Unfortunately, Kubo created more characters than he could possibly manage. The fates of most of the cast members remain unknown and the destiny of those who are present in the ending make you wish you never laid your eyes on this weak parody of Bleach and its former glory.

Enjoyment: 7/10.
With the last arc and horrible ending this manga is hardly worth 4.5 out of 10. But without it, if you read it until it's supposed original ending, it's actually pretty decent.

If you ever decide to read this story, I recommend stopping at chapter 423 to save your nerve cells. If you do, you will get an interesting story full of action and awesome adventures.

I do not like open endings. But in Bleach's case, it would be the best possible option. Only Kubo knows why he stepped over what was left of his fanbase. Bleach used to be good. And I believe that this good part still deserves to be loved, although it could've been so much better. I hated the ending, but ignoring just one chapter is not that big of a deal and I thank Bleach for everything it gave me. What is one chapter (for it to be canon, the rest must be ignored, so it's not valid) worth in comparison to all the good things I've got?

This is my first review, I'll try my best not to spoil anything. I'll try to keep this short so that you won't have to read paragraph after paragraph.

Story: 6/10

The story is of a freshman in high school who becomes a Shinigami after trying to protect his friends. Cliche, but not bad cliche. Further into the story, battles become less interesting as they drag on to the point of having the urge to skim through the chapters. Like most mangas with overpowered characters, there are bound to be asspulls, such as in this manga. Quite a bit of plotholes and unanswered questions. If you're fine with those and just want to enjoy the series, you should be fine.

Art: 8/10

Not much to say about the art. The art was great. It added to the badassery of the fighting moments. You can notice how the art changes throughout the manga.

Characters: 6/10

Firstly, there are too many characters and complicated names. There were a high amount of times when I had to google search the characters mentioned. Second, lots of characters were dislikeable. There are noticeable characters that you'll see that are being dragged along for the purpose of the main character's power to grow. Other than that, they're utterly useless. It seems as if the author was trying hard to make the characters become somewhat close to the main character's power to try to fit them into the plot. I can say more, but it would include spoilers.

Enjoyment: 4/10

As mentioned before, there were many moments where I would skim through the chapters as fights were dragged along and plotholes were everywhere, not to mention the unanswered questions which leave the reader to their own imagination to answer themselves. There are some more problems with personal reasons on why I didn't enjoy the series, but it would include spoilers.

Overall: 6/10

Too many plotholes, unanswered questions, disliked characters, useless characters, and asspulls. If you're fine with those, you might as well read Bleach. Story was fairly great, but wasn't enough to keep me entirely focused on events such as battles as they were dragged along.

If you're looking to pass time, Bleach would be pretty good for you, but don't expect too much.

Bleach has always been one of the most infuriating mangas for me. The first 20 volumes are a solid 10/10. The art style starts out more rough, but very beautiful. I think early Bleach is easily one of the most gorgeous mangas I have ever read (especially the colour pages). The story is simple, but good, and the characters are interesting and unique. Combined with the beauty of the art, it is emotionally moving.

Then, there are another 20 volumes of decreasing quality, where the story slowly gets repetitive and the characters start to degrade. Orihime, for example, goes from a girl who is enthusiastic about fighting and wants to grow up to be a killer robot, to an idiotic healer who heals enemies that are *in the process of* trying to f*ck her up. Without being coerced or having any reason other than "I feel bad for them". I'm not exaggerating.

After that, Bleach loses its soul. The art becomes very polished, and while it is still gorgeous at times, it is more a manufactured, mass-produced sort of aesthetically pleasing effect. It devolves into a ton of fighting. There are still some fantastic moments, but they are a lot more spread out. I read it out of loyalty to the series, and tbh, other than Orihime (who by this point is just a pair of massive breasts) it was okay.

I'd probably give the last 30 volumes a 6, but the first 20 volumes of sheer glory make it hard for me to decide how to rate it overall.

Before I say anything. allow us to compare my scores from the first couple arcs and the total end of the series...

Soul Society Arc:

Art and Page Layout: 10/10
Characters: 9/10
Story: 8/10
Overall Enjoyment: 9/10

The End:

Art and Page Layout: 4/10
Characters: 5/10
Story: 4/10
Overall Enjoyment: 4/10

You may notice a very distinct fall in quality according to my rankings. The beginnings of Bleach are fantastic. I loved my time reading it and find it to be one of my favorite shonen tales of the lot. It destroys the beginning of One Piece and goes well beyond the start of Naruto.

Based on what I've heard. It appears that Bleach's decline is a direct cause of Tite Kubo's will to write. With so much executive pushing, I can feel the whole story falling apart at the seams. The story never truly regains the glory of the Soul Society Arc and slowly starts to deteriorate from there.

The Hueco Mundo Arc isn't awful, but its familiar and repetitive on Kubo's part following a similar plot structure to it's previous arc. One can more or less stop reading once this arc ends and the villains are defeated, there is nothing for you after this. It was after the Hueco Mundo arc that the story and characters truly started to break down. The art grew incredibly more dull along with the general beautiful composition. The ending to the series is dull and lifeless, and is not the way it should have gone out. It deserved better than the sloppy mess it got.

By the end, Bleach was a HOLLOW shell of its former glory and its sad to see it fall apart. It was a series I grew to quickly love, and quickly started to grow bored with. I stopped reading midway and switched to Kiss X Sis of all things!!

All this factoring in, it saddens me to give this series a of 6/10.

I'm not entirely sure why I feel the need to review everything I encounter on this website, but I feel the need to review everything I encounter on this website.

Bleach is a classic, right? I finished off the manga a while ago, so I'll try and review it the best I can. The story is on point. Not a moment is wasted, which is more than I can say for the anime. The character development that's seen is insane, and the attention to detail by Tite Kubo is very impressive. Hints to Ichigo's future can be found at the very beginning of the manga, so Kubo clearly thought out his story extremely well.

The art is also very well conveyed; I don't normally feel like I can sense movement in things like comics and manga, but I could with Bleach.

I've already mentioned character development, but the character personalities and the diversity of character types was very well done as well. Each character really felt unique and fleshed out. The ending, of course, is one of the most debated endings in all of manga, but the entire story really does make up for it all.

It's a great read. It'll make you laugh, cry, bite your nails, the whole nine. Definitely check this out, even if you just want to finish the story that you got from the anime. It's a good manga for everyone, especially if you're new to it.

In the world of action manga, most people have attributed 3 titles as the "big 3" or various names. Of these three manga, one really stood out for me by starting out truly spectacular but unfortunately losing a lot of steam.

Story:

Agent of the Shinigami/Soul Society Arc (10/10)

Arrancar/Hueco Mundo Arc (7/10)

Turn Back the Pendulum Mini-Series (8.2/10)

Fake Karakura Town Arc (2/10)

Fullbring Arc (0.1/10)

Ending Arcs (5/10)

Since this is an ongoing manga (as of this review being posted), I feel that it is appropriate to give some sort of numerical value to each of the arcs. I normally shy away from rating individual arcs of stories but Bleach is quite the unusual case.

So Bleach is somewhat of a rollercoaster of a ride. It starts out so hyped up, lives through that hype for awhile, then steadily makes the fanbase angry by dragging on too long. Then, as a follow up throws in a very boring arc only to be followed by a interesting "ending" that is still ongoing.

To give you an idea of why most Bleach fans praise the start of the manga is because the story does literally everything right. In fact I am bold and confident enough to say that all action/adventure manga/anime should take the time and pay respects to both the manga and anime versions of Bleach's beginning arc(s). The Agent of the Shinigami and Soul Society arcs was filled with everything you need to have a perfect action packed story. These aspects are, a main character that must become stronger in order to overcome ____ challenge, a person (usually a female (also sometimes a weakened female)) that needs to be saved, and of course sub-plots that work in tandem towards the climax of the main focus of the story. The Soul Society arc has all of this tied neatly in a bow with cherries on top. You had interesting characters, a fast moving plot, and multiple ideas of who the real antagonists were.

The arcs that follow; The Arrancar and Hueco Mundo arc were not per say bad; they just had no chance to live up to the hype that the first arcs had brought to the playing field. The mini-series arc that occurs before the Fake Karakura Town arc was very interesting since we got to see said characters of the arc pasts which made them more likable. The downfall of the manga though is universally the same for all bleach fans, the Fake Karakura Town Arc. Without spoiling anything, this arc has such a huge build up with so many fights going on only to end with the main "bad guy" wanting to lose. It was so pitiful to see all this buildup, no what was supposed to be the CLIMAX of the manga fall so hard on its face. In all honesty though due to the events leading up to this arc conclusion, the manga could of ended here and been good. But it doesn't.

Instead of leaving on a somewhat decent note, we get the Fullbring Arc which confused us all in wondering what the hell is going on and why the author ever thought it was worth putting in the manga. You get antagonists that are bland and idiots and on top of that, it's just plain boring to read.

The ending arcs to the story just seem rushed and boring. We dive into a couple characters but at this point their character development seems unnecessary.

Artwork: 7/10

The artwork in Bleach has always looked and felt unique even through all the noticeable changes. The action scenes look great, characters look unique, and the settings are very nice and feel relevant to what is going on. It was for awhile getting better and better but towards the ending volumes it started to look bland and uninteresting. Backgrounds began to look very simple and devoid of life.

Characters: 6/10

Basically you have a lot and I mean a lot of characters that do feel unique and spectacular. You also have a bunch that really drag down the show and really hinder the flow of the story. Ichigo is a really good action character since he usually can keep his composure, he is compassionate, and he has such potential to grow due to his circumstances. The supporting cast in most of the arcs do a pretty good job of moving the story on but there are some cases where some characters that get introduced really seem useless. The villains of the middle arcs are what really let me down in this manga. They had everything going for them but become bland and uninteresting.

Overall: 6/10

This manga has problems and these problems unfortunately taint the perfect start of the manga. It also has a specific problem that most people have grown tired of seeing; a main character that has to "power up" or "level up" in order to face some sort of challenge. If you do not like this (IE: Goku's leveling up) then go away. If however you want a really engaging manga that stays interesting for quite some time, then by all means pick this up. Even though we all bit#@ about the failings of the middle arcs, we would still go back and re-read this manga. It has too many good moments to be ruined by the failings of the troubled arcs.

Enjoyment: 7/10

Thanks for reading my review! If you liked my writing style, would like to see some other reviews, or just want to talk, please stop by my page!

Sincerely,
Awesome Drummer

Bleach

I started reading the manga when the anime came to an end after the Fullbring Arc. I was a little curious about what would happen next in the story and whether Bleach would finally bring a story to the table. And no, it never got that far.

I started reading from the "Invasion Karakura" Arc in the hope that some detail of the manga in the Aizen Arc might have been lost and no, it was not.


And then it came, the Thousand-year Blood wWar Arc, and for heaven's sake it was a stab in the heart. I heard Tite Kubo was pushed to complete the arc quickly. Nonetheless, the fact is that Bleach's final arc turned out to be by far the worst. It only rained Asspulls and Plot Armor from the sky and not even the fighting was convincing. Except for a few that you could read through on YouTube with suitable background music. And even then, there was no sign of quality.

Bleach is a title that offers and can entertain cool scenes and characters. But if you are looking for story or character depth, you are enormously far removed from it.

In the end, there was no such thing as a main storyline. But just a bad guy according to the other scheme. And that to the bitter end.


Story

Where should I start ... the whole concept of the Soul Society and the Shinigami is interesting but poorly implemented. It got particularly bad with all the antagonists. One follows the other. There are endless fights with poor power balance like Dragon Ball and it just keeps getting worse and worse. Until the end I gave up trying to classify the strengths of the characters at all, because the mangaka did what it wanted. Depending on the situation, everything was adjusted at will so that it simply results in something.

Until the bitter end, there was no real story either. Among the Shounen, he has been cursed with one of the weakest acts.

Drawing/illustration

The Bleach Manga has improved and increased immensely from the first chapters to the last. The character design, the fights, and the environment were extremely solid.

One could see in the mangaka, however, that hardly anything had occurred to him in the area of ​​fighting and choreography.

Characters

There are an enormous number of characters with massive recognition value. And also those that I will never forget because of their personality. Unfortunately it was already. The characters are all completely superficial. There are cool, funny and personable personalities. But there is no trace of well-written characters here.

At least I have to admit that among all the long-term shounen, Kurosaki Ichigo is definitely one of the better and smarter characters. Even if his plot armor reserve seems infinite.

The antagonists in particular are a prime example of how cool you can look, but how empty you are.

Conclusion


The anime will soon be finalized as an anime and I really hope that you will make some changes to the final arc. As it is at the moment, you can hardly touch these half-finished grits. As long as it's epically animated and musically supported, that's all well and good, but otherwise you have to fundamentally change a lot.

Unfortunately, it is too late for the arcs that have already been adapted because they are of the poor quality of the manga.

At the end of the day, Bleach is your average shounen no matter how you look at it. It had its advantages, but nothing more.

*NOTE, THIS REVIEW WILL GO INTO SPOILER TERRITROY AFTER THE SECOND PARAGRAPH. IF YOU HAVE YET TO READ BLEACH I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT INSTEAD OF READING THIS NONSENSE REVIEW*

After just having finished Bleach, I am conflicted heavily; but happy. Bleach is a story that's been with me for a large majority of my life, but it's always remained in the shadows of other Shonen like Dragon Ball, or Naruto. This year, I finally decided to read all of Bleach. I had never been so intimidated to take on such a massive body of work before reading Bleach, but I'm beyond glad I did. On one hand, Bleach suffers from a lot of poor long term writing, with most fights ultimately boiling down to "main character conveniently pulls out deus ex machina to win a fight they probably shouldn't have" but it never really becomes a real problem I'd say until TYBW, at which point the story gets a little too bloated for it's own good; while on the other hand Bleach contains some truly brilliant foreshadowing and set up that can keep you addicted to each page turn.

On the whole, when compared to a contemporary such as Naruto, I find Bleach to hold up honestly very well. I'd say everything up until Fullbringer, roughly +500 chapters, has been some of the best Shonen manga I've ever read. Substitute shinigami, Sul Society, Rescue Rukia, Hueco Mundo, Arrancar, Fake karakura are ALL incredible arcs. The villains are terrifying and awesome, the fights are straightforward and bombastic (in a very shoneny way), and a shit ton of fun. Soul Society hands down is one of the best manga arcs I've read, and if you have no idea who the antagonist of these arcs are PLEASE read Bleach. The twists are brilliant.

but the pace with the arcs comes to a near GRINDING halt one you hit the Fullbringer arc, which is really a shame; and it only spells the future of Bleach from that point on. I myself liked Fullbringer more than most others, but I could very clearly see the direction Bleach was being sent down after finishing it. And that leads me to some of Bleachs real problems.

1st: There's far too many characters and this applies to minor villains as well. Too many characters only feel there to fill very specific purposes to ultimately benefit the main characters as sorts of tools, instead of being real characters that have desires, personalities, and goals. To address minor antagonists, they just become really forgettable with this problem beginning with some of the Arrancar (genuinely tell me if you remember all of them, and their abilities, and what they even stood for. You might get three or four of them), but it's in full efect with the Quincies of the final arc. Quincies even begin to recycle powers that had already been established, causing their fights to feel super bland.

2. Speaking of Quincies, most of their fights dragged on unbearably long. The pacing of the final arc was a real mess. While I do recognize the immense pressures being put on Kubo by way of his health issues, stress from higher ups, and frustration with Bleach (and absolutely cut him slack for even pushing through all of that mental and physical strain) I do still think it's fair to criticize the end product. Fights could last ten chapters with a Quincy whose powers were absolutely nonsense, or would be whiplash inducingly short. But there were some real treats during TYBW which helped make up for it. A lot of the side characters introduced during/after Fullbringer are just boring and forgettable. Not really worth mentioning outside of that.

3. Fullbringer arc was kind of boring through and through. It's only existence was to bring back Ichigos powers which could've been cool in concept, but he doesn't GAIN anything from the arc. I see people complain that Ichigo just got his normal powers back early on, but my problem was that they didn't evolve in any capacity and just went back to being the Zanpakuto/Getsuga Tenshou again whcih was ashame.


But for all of Bleachs genuine missteps, Bleach does a shit ton right. The main cast of characters feel very unique, with genuine and personal relationships to one another that make them have great interactions. An obvious example would be all the Captains of the Gotei 13. All of them are memorable, with recognizable designs, motivations, powers, etc. Hell, even the VICE captains and 3rd seats are all pretty memorable (for the most part).

If there's any point to talk about it, then I htink nows the time to mention the art. Bleach has some fucking fantastic art. Not only are all the characters given a recognizble identity through style, with fantastic designs, each Bankai release is jaw droppingly beautiful. Each one DRIPPING with an unimaginable degree of hype, and this is maintained all the way up until the very end of Bleach. In the same vein as the art, the chapter covers just have to be mentioned here. They are beautiful. Kubo is a graphic design wiz, with sleek and beautifully made chapter covers. The volume covers are also great, but that's because Kubo has a perfect understanding on how to use negative space in every context. The use of Negative space is done brilliantly throughout all of Bleach, always being used to display exactly what Kubo wants you to see and make you feel exactly what you need to at that point. There's never an unnecessary distraction, never any clutter, just buttery smooth aestheticism.

This review is already too bloated, paced poorly, and pretty much unreadable. But I wanted to try and get my thoughts and feelings about Bleach at least somewhat consolidated in one space. In a MASSIVE tl;dr I absolutely love Bleach. I wouldn't have read 74 volumes of the manga if I didn't love it. I've had Bleach involved to some capacity ever since I started watching anime and even reading manga. But Bleach really isn't approachable for everyone. It's a massive work, with a lot of real flaws. But it's a series you can feel the heart and soul Kubo put into crafting this story, and for that Kubo I thank you for giving us Bleach. And if you have that feeling, an itch to read Bleach. An inexplicable feeling that slowly draws you in to read Bleach, please read it; and follow it all the ay to the end. I think it was worth it.












































This is probably going to be the only time I actively review a series, and update the review, as I read through the manga. The reason I'm going to review Bleach like this is due to the sheer volume of this manga; 700 chapters is a monumental undertaking of a manga and I would only do this for something of equal length (i.e. One Piece).

As of Jan 15. 2021 I am about 230 chapters into Bleach and I am LOVING IT, but there's problems that I'll probably focus more so on later. Initially everything leading up to the Soul Society/Rescue Rukia arc was perfect shonen writing (and even beyond that it has been able to maintain that degree of hype which is fantastic). Each of the main beats of Soul Society was probably some of the best shonen fiction I've ever read, Kubo keeping my eyes glued to each panel and my jaw firmly planted on the floor. The fights flow perfectly, and the pacing is fantastic; but I know that it won't be able to maintain this consistency (especially leading up to/into the fullbringer arc but I'm not quite there yet).

The addition of the Arancar as the primary antagonists, their goal, Ban-kais, etc are incredibly woven into the story. Their leader, cold, calculating and menacing is fantastic and really does tie them together. Ulqiorra and Grimm Jow being the main focus as Ichigos direct antagonists is good; Ulqiorra feels like Ichigos anthithesis while Grimm Jow feels eerily similar to Ichigo and I constantly look forward to their encounters/fights.

I really want to address the powers finally: I'm really mixed. While I think Bankai are really cool, they don't feel all too unique seeing as each character of the main cast has a Bankai. Even the supporting characters have Bankai, despite them apparently being incredibly rare. Imo they could've been introduced far better, but I don't mind all too much. I do have an issue with orihime and Chads powers however, and that after nearly 170 chapters there's still nothing known about them other than "You got them because you were around Ichigo a lot, around Hollows, and around Ichigo in his SHinigami form." if that were the case then why don't his sisters have any unique powers yet? What even ARE Orihime and Chads powers? Very obviously they are tied to their attachment to Ichigo and their desire to fight by his side and protect him; but that's it. I wish they had theirs powers more thoroughly developed instead of just accepting that they have them (and maybe they're going to be? it's just taken an incredibly long time with only some vague hinting's occasionally). Also in the same realm of unexplained powers, what's up with Ichigo? I understand that his situation is going to be explored throughout the story, being a shinigami/hollow and all, but his immediate acceptance of his abilities just kind of irks me. Yes initially when Rukia gave him shini powers that made total sense, but why does he never question the fact that he just DEVELOPED such overwhelming Shinigami powers, fuck even Bankai? The apparent END ALL BE ALL of Shinigami powers? Yes knowing what I do know now about Ichigos family it makes sense TO ME, but it shouldn't to Ichigo. So far those are my only complaints.

Next I wanna talk about Kubos art. It's phenomenal and that's all I really have to say about it. Kubo is a master artist.


CHAPTER UPDATE: January Eighteenth (can't type the number since my eight key doesn't work) 2020. I just finished chapter 422, and I can safely say this would have been the perfect conclusion to Bleach and I can very clearly tell that I am not the only one who shares this sentiment. 422 would have been a masterful ending of Bleach in every regards, standing proudly shoulder to shoulder as an equal in story telling with peers like FMA; but alas we were not so fortunate. I can really only see anything beyond this as a sort of "Bleach Gaiden" due to how phenomenal this ending point is, but for a series that I love one must take the good with the bad. If you want the true Bleach experience, you have to steel yourself for what's to come. ITS TIME FOR THE FULLBRINGER ARC.

Okay, if you are looking for some serious mind-games kind of manga, just hit cross on your tab, this ain't your cup of tea.

Bleach is that kind of manga which is a bit slow paced yet highly entertaining, and it keeps you reading. I, for one, couldn't stop reading until the very end.

The only disappointment that I felt was the recent "Xcution arc". It was a blot in the franchise name, as if Kubo had gone blank in the upper department.

But if you want a simple to read, easy on eyes characters (both male and female winks*), with honest to heart action and character development, this is for you .

15-year old Ichigo "Strawberry" Kurosaki has a special ability right out of The Sixth Sense. He can see dead people. He tries to help out the spirits when he can but his homelife is pretty hectic because his father runs the Kurosaki Clinic along with his two little sisters Yuzu and Karin. His life gets even more complicated when a pretty girl dressed in samurai robes and bearing a sword appears in his room! Her name is Rukia and she is a "Soul Reaper", an agent of the "Soul Society" sent to destroy "Hollows", which refers to the spirits of dead people which feed on the souls of the living and the dead. Apparently, Ichigo is like a beacon to the Hollows because his spirit energy is so powerful and one shows up to devour him. In the midst of battle Rukia decides to transfer some of her power to Ichigo but the problem is that ALL of her power goes to him! Will he be skilled enough to save not only himself and Rukia, but also his family?

Bleach was a little too slapstick for me at first, but once it settled down into telling its story, it got quite good. There are some moments that are quite cheesy, but nothing damaging. The art is nice and clean and the characters are charismatic and likeable. It is quite funny but can also have sequences that are touching. Overall, this is a good start but I hope the following volumes continue to build on the plot.

It is a complex story to read. You have to read it especially slow and analyse it with care. The plot is good though the ending is rushed due to Kubo's poor health (He never putted a hiatus on Bleach for us). The art is great though near the ending it starts to look a little rushed too. I think that Ichigo is a good protagonist because he is one of the few rare realistic protagonists out there. I really enjoyed reading the series because it makes you think about things happening throughout the story. Actually the story is not looped. The soul society arc and the arrancar arc are more like mirrored to show the 2 different societies. If you want to understand about the story and if you are confused well I recommend going to Youtube and search DBZimran's video called the 'Rise Of Bleach' I think he explained it very maturely and in an unbiased way. It is only an hour long explaining Bleach and I found it really helpful.

*Spoilers TOWARDS THE END*

I loved reading the final arc of Bleach, but the thing that frustrated me was the lack of emotion that the final villain had.

The art is awesome, the characters are also awesome (Although they definitely deserve alot more detail and development, there is just so many of them...). I will probably end up purchasing the Character books due to the fact that I don't think I got the fill I needed from the manga or anime.

I want to know what happened in details that were not provided, and hope that to some degree certain things can be wrapped up.

****Spoilers but not in too much detail****



The manga ends very abruptly. You don't get to see the remodel (those who have read know what I mean), or the healing, or the burying of the dead.

All things that I would have loved to witness because it would have offered me closure.

And then on top of that, where the hell did Nel go? Or Yurichi? And since when was "She" the rando person THE KENPACHI.

So many things happened and there was so much growth in such a short period of time it felt so rushed and I just wish that Kubo would have had more time instead of having to rush for deadlines.

I just hope someday something is published or offered by Kubo to Bleach fans, because while I love this manga, I see what it could have been and its a disservice to not fix it.