Bleach

A treatise on strength and its two founts, courage and power.

A person's resolve to shatter the millstone of fate.

A willingness to depict different aspects of power in a manner both directed and artistic.

A recognition of solitude swathed in sorrow, held upright by words.

A panache unbroken by the plethora of distinctive character designs and fighting abilities.

A stark portrayal of the soul within the blade.

My #1 favorite manga as of writing this review. Give me another shounen manga with the same level of art and attention to how power is conceived... BLEACH is great, it really is. Don't view it as just another trope-infested shounen rife with flat characters restricted to one-liners, repetitive fights, lots and lots of fights with little constructive dialogue, fights that follow the same formula with variations, fights that end as expected. If you can look past all that, change your perspective and realize that Bleach is something different -- an exploration of sorts, Tite Kubo's means of showing us Humans the possibilities and potential residing within life energy, reiatsu in this case, using characters as mere vehicles or even vessels that carry such power to varying degrees and combinations. Ichigo is the centerpiece, but still with the many character dynamics going on it's all part of a spiraling wheel of Fate, or millstone as Kubo deemed it. The anime is best viewed, I think, after the manga such that you can enjoy it as a moving, sound-backed representation of the source.

But even then, the anime is a poor manifestation for the vision Kubo strove for with mere black and white is enough. Even with just those two shades, there is a certain ineffable flavor or quality that resonates within the created shadows and parameters of light. The general human design is also quite clear-cut in a manner not so cut out by Kishimoto, Togashi, or even Oda. What I like to call "focus" or the mangaka's ability to present certain parts of characters or flickers of movement with truncated panels, the counterpart to anime and films' directors, is a heavy component of what makes Bleach a strong manga. It utilizes the capabilities of the medium and can't really be bettered by any other. To illustrate just look at Hunter x Hunter, which was floored by the 2011 anime adaptation, or Boku no Hero Academia, whose anime literally looks like the manga colored and given movement and sound.

You could gripe about the lackluster character development and progression. Call out the sheer prevalence of fighting. Criticize the imperfect writing. Label Bleach as just a mainstream shounen that doesn't deserve anything more than what its genre demands.

But let me tell you this. Align yourself with the artist's mission, the intent behind the making, and perhaps you can see more clearly. Break free of the limits placed on you by popular perception. If you haven't seen the blade unsheathed, keep it that way. If Naruto is a story about the meaning of Hokage -- if One Piece is a story of pure adventure -- Bleach is a story of the strength held in a blade and its origins. Watch Ichigo get back up, again and again, witness his courage, and ponder the process of black being bleached to white.

Bleach is a manga that has a lot of potential which is why it's one of the most popular ones in recent history. But popularity alone can only get you so far. It's how well it lives up to that potential that determines if it's truly worthy of certain recognition. it doesn't matter how big of a fan-base a story can build by pandering to a certain audience, in this case to young Japanese boys between the ages of 4 and 12, when you're looking at something critically but it does help at looking at something and understanding how it got so well received in the first place.

It's important to make clear from the start that Bleach was only decent from the beginning despite its vast potential as a huge Jump series. Of course a lot of the long running series have the same kind of beginning that usually depends on the fact whether it's gonna be a marketing success or not. Therefore only once Bleach had its established place in the magazine it could start focus on a more broad scope of things knowing that there'd be time to close it all.

Problem is that the things presented in the beginning partially contradict what it slowly becomes. A lot of elements and details are conveniently forgotten overtime like the very mechanic of the introduced souls leaving bodies etc. This isn't uncommon for battle shonens, especially for long-running ones, but it still doesn't excuse the repetitive usage of lazy and predictable writing techniques almost even abused during the first proper arc of the series, Soul Society.

Soul Society is a decent arc overall with tons of exiting fights, mediocre story-line, entertaining characters and a new and interesting environment. it's not as hugely impressive as some other stories opening arcs and happens rather late overall but it gives you at least a sense of where the story can go and even ends with a surprisingly good cliffhanger. Although the beginning parts of Bleach isn't still anything to write home about it still explains enough of why it got popular among children, even overseas. And unlike the anime filled with filler, the manga actually steps from what it set up with Soul Society straight to the story-line that follows it.

Now the parts that lower Bleach as a story from pretty decent to nearly kind of average mostly start during this area of the story. In which again, there are interesting environments introduced, new exiting characters, enjoyable action and a hugely mediocre story progression that kind of stops and continues at weird times (even more than in the first arc). This part of the story serves as interesting enough to keep the reader's attention but still fails to make a conclusion satisfying enough because you feel like you've read just the same thing again, just with less certainty of what it's supposed to be.

And that's the main problem that the series has all through it. It ignores the well established theme and doesn't give the feeling that the events in the story have a point towards something. It's not a parody but it's not serious enough either, the plot gets filled with characters but is too generic to use them, the premise is refreshing and deep but isn't taken full advantage of.

The third arc is very poor compared to the rest while introducing some interesting aspects and is overall forgettable because it would honestly work better as an individual story. The final arc which covers almost half of all the content suffers from mostly the same problems as the second one except this time the beginning is actually exciting for much longer which makes it even more disappointing when it just kind of derails to a mess of writing and inconsistent usage of techniques. The fourth arc has also the worst fights all out and makes a bunch of the best characters the story had to just simple "this is my real strength"-"no this is my real strength"-characters along with the new bland villains introduced.

A lot of the last events in the manga end up as just empty and flashy fights between previously well-developed characters. Instead of using all this time to tie in all the opened plot-lines the author decided to fill most of the endgame content with shallow and repetitive scenes. As an addition to everything there are also old characters brought back for fan-service that barely have a role to play which makes the ending even more satisfying when it actually happens.

Overall it's an entertaining but rather empty series all out. There are many poorly constructed moments but also redeemable aspects to keep it going. It has flashy action, a too huge but still mostly enjoyable cast, good art style, average designs, impressive panels/ compositions, interesting symbolism with rather low effort, lacking fights and a decent story compared to the demographic and genre it represents.

Pretty much what you'd expect from a hugely popular battle shonen, nothing more, nothing less.

Recently I've become quite obsessed with Bleach so I am writing a review for it. Honestly, I'm not good at these stuffs, reviewing story, art, moreover I haven't read many shounens yet, so I guess I will just go with my personal ideas.

When I first read some chapters of Bleach, I thought that "wow, it is somehow similar to some shounens I've read before, but it's still cool". But things turn out different when the Soul society starts. When the cast of Shinigami are introduced, I'm kinda surprised that they can not be considered good or bad, I mean I can not judge them by basic morality. They are not black and white, they have dark sides, and depth.In Bleach, they are considered protagonist. The same goes with the Espadas who are antagonist. I appreciate that. I love Gotei 13 and don't have much feeling for Espadas but I definitely have respect for them. The characters are one of Bleach's strong points. Some people say that characters in Bleach lack development, which I strongly disagree. Take Byakuya for example: At first he only obeys rules and don't give a damn about others, after a fight with Ichigo, he becomes softer and even learn how to express his care, feeling towards his beloved sister. It's a great change. Ichigo also changes, he is more grown up and reliable. I even see some of his dark sides in the Arrancar arc when Ulqquoiria asks whether Ichigo comes to rescue Inoue or fight him. At that time, I know that Ichigo's aim is not pure anymore.

What I like better is the complexity of the world and justice Bleach shows off. All the characters and storyline, the hidden messages support this. People in Bleach don't fight to defend the rights, some fights because of responsibility, the debts they owe, some fights for hatred, others fight because they want to protect someone. I don't like Aizen but I have to admit that many things he said are true, the Arrancars have no aims for life, all he does is to give them a reason to live, which is not supposed to be a bad thing. The points of view of some characters are dark, but somehow it's true. At the beginning of the last arc, with the appearance of Quincy, the story is getting darker and more complex. Soul Society eliminated Quincy years ago, no matter how you look at it, it's a sin, and when the Quincy return then kill off recklessly, it's also a sin. So who is right? There is no proper answer.

What's more special? I guess it's the bonds among the characters. Rukia see through Ichigo, the captains and lieutenants have irreplaceable bonds and the bonds between Ichigo and his opponents are extra-ordinary. That's why I love seeing Bleach characters together.

It's true that Bleach has a lot of shortcomings, its randomness, the holes in the plot but I still think that it's worth a try. Read carefully and be sure you don't miss anything because even small details make sense in the plot.

When I was still starting out reading manga, one of the first series that I picked up was Bleach. At the time, I thought pretty well of it and hoped to see it develop further to better things. Unfortunately, the series failed to deliver on that more times than I care to mention.

STORY:

Bleach follows the generic shonen manga formula: Fight. Fight fight fight. Fight. Not to say that there's anything wrong with simplicity or fighting manga in general, just that there needs to be more substance in the plot and characters in that case. The problem with Bleach is that it doesn't make up for that simplistic formula and instead tries to craft story lines that fall on their face. It follows the arc system of story development, where the overall end goal is reached through a series of arcs. The first major arc, and the point when the series was at it's peak, was the Soul Society arc, but after that, a problem quickly become evident. After that, almost every arc reads like the Soul Society arc and Bleach has become so formulaic that it's not that hard overall to predict what happens. There will be a character who's main goal is to fight Ichigo, regardless of what plans the boss has laid down. There will be a stoic character who tries to stick to the plan, but ends up experiencing an emotional epiphany by the end of the arc and does something against the plan. One or more of Ichigo's friends (usually female), will end up getting kidnapped, or attacked, or brainwashed, or some other way of giving Ichigo a reason to rescue them. And rather than develop the abilities they already have, Ichigo and (possibly) the friends who aren't in danger will receive a power-up that will become obsolete in time for the next arc. Lather, rinse, repeat ad nauseum. Formulaic plots can work, but they work best when the formula for them is simple and easy to make each use of it unique. If it's possible to describe an arc in such vague detail that it can apply to any of the other arcs, your formula is WAY too complicated.

Another big problem is that Bleach frequently uses a "tell, don't show" method. What I mean by that is that many things get hyped up beyond belief or a character is established as being great, but these things are only done through characters talking about it. When we finally get to whatever it is that's been hyped up, it very rarely lives up to that hype, and in some cases fails to live up to it even before the hype even happens.

ART:

I've never really been interested in the art of a manga, or really most illustrated things I read, unless it's horrendously bad, but I feel like I should give credit here. The art of this manga is actually pretty good. Some of the character designs look good, even though at times it feels like it's just the same few characters drawn with different hair styles, clothes, etc., and Hollows look threatening without entering nightmare fuel territory and without looking too cartoony. That said, this manga has a problem with backgrounds. If there are any at all, it's essentially just black or white most of the time.

CHARACTERS:

Now that the good is out of the way, let's get into the characters. There's a lot of them. Too many of them in fact. Every arc introduces some 20 - 30 new characters that receive very little story time, exist just to be there and in general just take up space. We never find anything out about these characters, just that they exist and than we move on. The character's that do get focused on can barely be called characters at that as they are essentially just one-dimensional character archetypes more than anything. Each of them relates to some general archetype (whether it's the stoic, the hero, etc.) and never receive any development beyond that.

OVERALL:

I've said a lot of bad things about it, but at it's core, Bleach is just a lot of cliche and mediocre work, especially the later chapters. Still, I'd be lying if I said that I've never enjoyed the series. It has a pretty promising start, but the problems of the series become clear as it drags on. If you don't mind a repetitive plot, than you might like it, but otherwise, I'd advise staying away from it.

Bleach
One of the top 3 Shounen mangas in popularity. It suffers the same problem the Naruto does: it starts with good smaller arcs,with puns and some character development, or at least a well driven long one ( which I totally recommend reading), and then goes into the infamous, unending and slow advancing DeicideArrancar Arc which could have been summarized in an 8th part of it's length.

I must admit that I stopped reading after finishing that second arc, as the next one didn't quite hook me a lot. This means I'm not doing this manga justice by reviewing only the first part of it (still that's over 400 episodes for 2 story arcs, and only the first 180 seem enjoyable ).

So to sum up the good and bad points of this manga:

Good Points
-The art
-The first story arc and the jokes we find in it all together
Characters like:
-Kenpachi, but not even him can save the plot from becoming dull and slow
-Kon

Bad points
-Story after 1st Arc
-Main character power levels at a ridiculous pace
-This may be the first manga I read that the bad guys personality matches it's story arc: slow unending buildup that looks more like filling content of an anime that goes faster than the manga, which has absolutely no relevance in the end
-Side characters, with a couple of exceptions seem to play absolutely no role at all in the story (call me biased, but interesting side characters is something that made me love Rave Master, Fairy Tail, One Piece, Full Metal Alchemist, etc)

(Light spoilers onwards)
Just tell me why, Tite Kubo. What a way to mess up with all.
Many Bleach fans have already seen the anime and the arcs animated as well. I think we all loved the Soul Society arc and the next ones were very good too. The biggest problem of Bleach were the insane powerups but the general quality was good...until we reach the Quincy Arc, the last arc and this manga's biggest mistake. I will talk about entirely about this arc in this review, while the rest of the manga has been valued to the overall score too.
The Quincy Arc started pretty good, with a good premise, badass villain and many things, Yamamoto's bankai, etc...but since then, it turned out to be so bad. Even if the chapters at the Zero Squad were pretty good and i enjoyed the fight between Ywach and Ichibei, the last 70~ chapters have been absolutely horrible: pointless powerups, many characters don't have a proper ending and many things remain completely unfinished, those Quincies absolutely unkilliables, powers not explained, and many many more mistakes.
Let's talk about the ""final fight"". Ichigo had many types of power, new sword, new bankai, new hollow development, control of quincy blood...and we didn't see a shit. Ywach just destroyed him again, and again...Tite Kubo just overpowered Ywach so much, to an insane point. Ichigo's new bankai just breaks again and again vs Ywach. Why even bother to design ichigo's new appearance and bankai to fuck both of them in just two chapters or so. The way they defeated this guy was a complete asspull, and the ending has no sense at all. What a way to destroy a manga, a show, that i enjoyed so much for many years. As i said,may things incomplete and unexplained...Zero squad? Vizard? Fullbringers? Grimmjow and Arrancar? Why Aizen is still in the fucking chair? The couples at the end have sense but that's not the big deal here. I don't know...this arc just destroyed Bleach.

Talking about art, it improved along the series,but it's so clear that Kubo doesn't have any helper. The backgrounds are so plain, boxes are so big and there are very few dialogue, what slows down the manga. Look One Piece in comparison and you'll know what i'm talking about.
Overall, the last arc illed my Bleach enjoyment. Was pretty awful and painful to see, specially if i was a bleach fan for 10 years. Thank you, Tite Kubo.

*Review may have some spoilers, but mostly talks about issues with writing and story telling in generic way. The intent is to help prospective reader decide if it's worth reading 700+ chapters of manga.

I started watching and reading bleach the same year it released. Let me introduce you first hand to the suffering of many bleach fans such as myself after this ordeal of 15 years.

Are you having a bad day by any chance? Or a bad week or even a month? Whatever it is, be thankful that you are at least not Tite Kubo, who essentially retconned his entire career worth of creative work down the shitter, for seemingly no good reason. Let's begin!

What made bleach popular:
This might be outdated 15 years later, so if you start bleach today none of it might even hold true anymore because manga/anime has changed so much since then. Bleach in its own time was revolutionary. From the style of character designs, to the concept of soul society, to the distinctly emotionally intelligent/melancholic way the characters expressed themselves, to a huge line up of characters with amazing powers and untapped potential, bleach had it all. And boy did it deliver! Bleach's soul society arc is one of the best (maybe even the best) battle manga I came across in my time at least. The fight scenes were amazing, the characters were unique, the momentum of story telling was explosive. Could you ask for more in shounen? You couldn't, but Kubo delivered even more! The complex relationship dynamics between the characters, be it Rukia and Ichigo, or Byakuya and Renji or Rukia and Byakuya or Soifon and Yoruichi (SPECIALLY these two, because yuri hints in shounen in those times were an anomaly), it was these dynamics that made readers invested in the series like no other shounen. Readers wanted to know if Ichigo can master an attack, but more than that they also wanted to know what is he feeling in his heart. Even the relationship between Ichigo and the soul of his zanpaktou is very dramatic and full of mysteries.

What led to the slowdown:
Now comes the period when soul society arc is over. Kubo has pretty exhausted all the awesome plot devices and character designs he started out with and needs to come up with a new story. In the meantime he still had bonus material to work with like Ichigo's hollow transformation. The real issue begins with Hueco mundo arc, from completely unoriginal plot to long dragged out fights, to gazillions of unfleshed characters with same faces/personalities to seemingly non stop ass pull winning moves, the dominoes started to crumble one after the other. The exhaustion of not being able to write compelling scenes or develop the characters was clearly apparent in Kubo's writing. He would still pull his magic here and there but we could see a genuine decline in the story as well as a drop in quality of drawing.

What utterly destroyed bleach:
I don't know why, in a shounen to boot, Kubo came up with a plot device for hero to lose everything to make bad guy stop once (not even kill him, just restrain him) but I think that was the definite moment bleach tanked fully because there was no saving it from this deadend. Now in order to make bleach progress in any way, Ichigo needed his powers back, so Kubo had to come up with an entire asspull arc to provide a premise for Rukia to give Ichigo powers for a second time. The entire arc focused more on development of Rukia and Ichigo's relationship, isolating Ichigo from all other characters except Rukia, than it did on creating any meaningful plot that justified the existence of the full bringers in first place. Anyway, we can understand. Kubo did a major oopsie with the end of HM arc and needed something to fix it. And Ichigo needed some mature/romantic development. Gotcha! So now bleach is on track! And what does Kubo do in next arc? Utterly destroy and retcon every single character of the manga including the MC. It's not even a shounen at this point, it's a tragedy. If he had known any better, he would have stopped bleach at HM arc. If he didn't want to completely throw bleach into dustbin he would have at least stopped at fullbring arc. But making of the last arc required him to undo essentially the entirety to bleach and play with the bonds characters share with their fans, because he had no other ideas to create "wow factor" at this point to stir the pot. Bleach was already failing for years at this point and a large fraction of readers were passive or had zoned out completely. So here goes - What's that? An established villain? Let's make him good guy and save the hero. A dead person? Revive him. Revive ten of them actually then kill and revive them again. Let's create an utterly useless sidekick fight for 10 chapters and finish the series in one chapter which doesn't connect to anything that happened in the 699 chapters before. NOTHING in the last arc makes sense. The ending chapter is so OOC you might as well insert a fanfic there and it won't a difference, because there was no prelude whatsoever leading to the blank period, in fact the final boss battle ended mid fight with no conclusion. If you were reading a physical manga, you would think someone ripped a few pages off the chapter because it ends that abruptly. What's worse, by the end of the series, every character and plot development regressed back to zero, essentially making the whole point of the manga NADA ZILCH ZERO. If you were to ask today why did Kubo write bleach or what was the purpose of it, what were the goals the MC wanted to achieve, I can bet Kubo cannot answer. Somewhere during this clusterfuck of keeping a failing plot alive by nonsense plot devices, he forgot why he was writing. He forgot who these characters were. He forgot who is reading this manga, who is the core demographic. He forgot the message Ichigo was going to tell. But most of all he forgot to respect his own creation and giving it the closure it deserved. And so bleach is a story that tells itself in first half and reverses itself in second half, and if this sentence made no sense to you, congratulations, you figured out exactly what bleach manga is.

Bleach is not the first and will not be the last manga with superior potential that tanked due to poor writing. What makes bleach unique is how monumentally bad the fall was and how truly crazy Tite Kubo is to knowingly bring his manga back to square one. I wish I could say it was the mad hatter kind of crazy for those of you who love chaos and lack of logic, but with 700+ chapters of mediocrity, slow reading and lack of plot, it's the kind of crazy you don't want to deal with.

With that, this bleach fan... oops.. this EX bleach fan, signs off.

Bleach has been in the top rated manga/anime charts for years, its success is even known by people who arent huge nerds like us ;). Being someone who has been reading and watching for most of my life, I was always a little curious as to what all the hype was about. Finally my curiosity got the best of me and I picked up the manga for the first time.
I didn't put it down. For all the popularity and discussion this was a read that definitely did not disappoint.

Story-10: The general idea of the story is about Ichigo, a high school boy who has a particular ability, and also, well, a loud personality :). He, of course, encounters a life changing incident that takes him to unimaginable places, and leads him to make complicated decisions. The manga itself is over 500 chapters and supposedly not even halfway over yet. The development is a tad bit slow, but the plot is always interesting and the fighting is pretty intense. Its definitely a great shounen manga storyline, interesting enough to capture readers of all ages and gender.

Art-8: I suppose 8 is a bit harsh considering that the characters are pretty well drawn and there are some pretty epic designs for many of the characteristics in the manga. The characters were all very distinguishable and unique, and their clothing, weapons, and 'masks' were all awesome and drawn nicely. However, the backgrounds in the manga are usually pretty lacking, sometimes nonexistent, and since the manga started over a decade ago, the art is of course something that took time to improve. Overall the art is great, and I hope this doesn't deter you from reading this manga.

Character-9: There are so many interesting personalities in this manga! Very loyal friends, family that does anything for eachother, funny and serious characters, you name it! But that, I suppose, is the small flaw I find in the characters of this manga, there are SO many. The development of each one is absolutely perfect! They spend just enough time to let you get to know each character and a bit of their story. But with there being so many, you might come to like a character and then not see them for another 100 chapters. Once again, this really isn't something to worry about if your wondering if this manga is worth the read; all of the characters become part of the Bleach world that you will immerse yourself into as soon as you pick up the manga...

Enjoyment-9: I expected a bit more comedy, because everyone I asked to recommend me a funny manga told me Bleach. For me it was a little to shounen-ish and not enough comedy to suit my taste, but for anyone who loves action and being on the edge of your seat, you wont be disappointed!

Overall-9: This is exactly what your looking for in an action, shounen manga! The hype isn't for nothing, and even if it is overrated, its still a pretty amazing read! Make sure you have a long weekend and your fridge is stocked because once you pick it up, you wont put it down!

If you read this shit while it was publishing sit the fuck down. I read this shit for the first time in like three months in 2020 after hearing for TEN FUCKING YEARS about how bad this shit is to form my own opinion. Why the fuck would you all lie to me like that?

The cast? Iconic
The art? Iconic
The fights? Iconic
The arcs? Iconic

You all are dumb as a bag of rocks.

Ok to dial it back real quick I could get being annoyed while reading this weekly but tbh that's y'all's fault for reading a battle series weekly instead of just waiting for it to end to read at your own pace. This shit on a binge is legendary.

Bleach is a truly cohesive work that plays to the strengths of the battle series genre with little fluff and fat. The characters are always moving forward, the story is engaging and iterates on itself smartly, it's constantly refining and executing on its themes, it's a near perfect showing of the battle genre. It pays off on investing in side characters, it rewards thinking about the themes and visual/textual metaphor with a deceptive amount of depth. It employs a mature cast and a strong grasp on real, tangibly complex emotion to great effect.

If you like battle series but have been shrugging this one off due to hearsay or the public opinion being SuperEyepatchWolf's, stop. Read it. It's good.

Failure and success seem to have been allotted to men by their stars. But they retain the power of wriggling, of fighting with their star or against it, and in the whole universe the only really interesting movement is this wriggle. (E.M. Forester)


PLOT: -

Among the most popular mainstream Shounen, Bleach has arguably the most controversial plot. The main reason of being that way is the Seinen vibe that this manga has got and the mangaka’s lack of control over his plot and characters.

Kubo has tried his best to mix the Shounen and Seinen elements. That is plus and negative point of this series at the same time. We see a hero who is a lab rat of villains and wants to protect the things precious to him. We see godly villains and a good terminology (not that complex like Naruto and not simpleminded like One Piece). These things make Bleach a unique series from other mainstream series and thus making it successful.

But these things have backfired many times during the course of the series. With the background of his lead character, Kubo can’t make him a real tragedic person like Guts from Berserk neither he can make him like a typical mainstream hero, hence messing up his personality (that goes for many other characters as well). With Kubo’s art level he has drawn epic fights but he couldn’t show any gore because of Bleach being a mainstream series. He can’t also kill good characters. Thus killing hypes and staining the name.

So far the plot in Bleach has used the ‘arc method’ i.e. despite having a main plot, each arc has its own mini story and climax. This is another thing which has lifted Bleach to great heights and at the same time stained its name. The problem with Kubo using this method has been that the things have always gone in one direction for him. Apart from his art, which has been great throughout the series, other elements keep wavering. E.g. if in one arc the story is bad, the character development, climax, plot devices etc will be messed up as well. If the things are going smoothly, everything will be going fine.

Another problem with Kubo is that he isn’t great in hype department. Throughout the series we see instance where a character got too much hype or a great hype was ruined idiotically.

CHARACTERS: -

Bleach has a great cast that has been planned out pretty well. Kubo has managed to create great characters (powers, sketches, personalities etc). However he has messed up in certain areas as well.

There are certain occasions where Kubo has handled his characters pretty badly. That includes the hype, development and screen time. The poor usage of these elements have stained some of the great characters of this series and puzzling the mind of the readers that ‘how can someone having such a messed up character handling technique, create such awesome characters’! Well that’s another beauty of Bleach :P

ART: - If there was any series other than Berserk which makes millions only because of its art, it has to be Bleach. The character designs in Bleach are magnificent. The mangaka is well versed in drawing human anatomy and complicated perspective. The battles are beautifully illustrated, just like perfect action movie wallpaper, they have been neatly framed. I feel Bleach is more suited to Seinen genre beacuse, its plot sure has a deeper meaning which can be made into a seinen, plus the author focuses much on the characters which is probably an unnoticed feature of Seinen manga. The way in which the mangaka draws unique but simple shapes of faces and dressing, shows that he does a top notch work (in terms of art at least).

CONTENT: -

Bleach uses a good range of terminology which is complex and easy to understand at same time. Kubo also uses poetic stuff from time to time, and along with some great quotes adds flair to the series. Though there are certain rants and yaps from some characters that annoy the readers as well.

TARGET AUDIENCE: -

All the mainstream fans and those readers who can bear with a wavering story and look up for great art, bleach is a perfect series for you.

TIPS: -

* Don’t put too much faith in the story, as it keeps on wavering. Getting your hopes up will end up in you getting Kuboed.
* Tolerate the white backgrounds.

Early Bleach was great, but it eventually became redundantly redundant.
The story is at the same time very simple, and very complex. The plot is nothing very impressive, but the whole story behind it and the detail and put in it is really impressive and the result is definitely great.

The characters in Bleach are pretty cool and the fight scenes are very interesting and creative. Surprisingly, the main characters of Bleach are ok, and the side characters are really awesome and each one of them should have their own spin-offs. They all have very interesting designs and cool clothes (DAMNIT KUBO! Stop doing manga and become a fashion designer, I'll wear anything you draw!)

On the downside, as I said earlier, Bleach becomes bad, if not terrible, after a while and it seems the effort put in it is slowly fading. In the recent chapters, very little happens, useless dialogue and the backgrounds are missing. Bleach is definitely overrated, but it's still a fun ride in the beginning.

(I put 9 in enjoyment because it truly is a great manga in the beginning.)

STORY: 5/10
So this is a shonen manga, and in my opinion it's a bad one. If you've seen Inuyasha, Dragonball Z, or Yu Yu Hakusho then theres no point in reading this. Bleach pulls absolutely everything it has from those other series. flying and energy blasts from dragonball Z, spirit energy (yes, they actually call it the exact same thing) from Yu Yu Hakusho. And the miain character has a Man-sized sword that can shoot waves of energy just like Inuyasha. If i could rate the originality i would give it a 0.

The story goes on forever. First one girl gets captured and they go and save her. Then to move the story along guess what the mangaka did? A different girl got captured and they had to go and save her. HE HAS SO FEW IDEAS HE'S COPYING HIS OWN FREAKING WORK!

ART: 3/10
Now to the art. When they're standing still its not so terible...but this is an action manga. I can't tell whats going on in half the panels during the fight scenes. It doesn't help that the mangaka uses only a pure white and pure black. Theres very little shading so it's hard to make out whats what a lot of the time.

CHARACTER: 4/10
Character development: theres none. Theres a gooft girl, a serious guy, a smart guy, a quite guy, and a serious girl. When one adjective can describe each character thats a bad sign. Theres also about 60-70 characters. I prefer quality over quantity.

ENJOYMENT: 5/10
There is some enjoyment in the manga. I actually laughed out loud at some of the comedy twords the begining of the series. But once you get about 25% into the manga the comedy becomes a lot less frequent, and a lot less funny. I couldn't really understand what was going on in most of the action scenes so i can't really judge those. It gets a 5 just because of the comedy at the begining.

OVERALL: 4/10
Overall i would give this manga a 4 because theres absolutely NOTHING original. Heres a prime example for people who've read it: Remember when the big guy and ulili-something came to ichigo's town? That scene is identical from when vegita and nappa came to earth in dragonballZ. no difference. How people rate this manga above a 5 is beyond me.

I think my 4 is pretty generous

To start with, Bleach is a fantastic manga to read. Maybe a little cliche with the whole 'save the girl' aspect, but it's still enjoyable. The characters are fun, interact with each other, and you can see their development. It's quite promising. And in the Soul Society arc, it delivers. There's the mission, the new characters, the fights and the plot. I'd recommend reading up til the end of the Soul Society arc to anyone looking for something new to read.

But after that? I say give up. Drop it. There's not much in store other than way too many generic fangirl/boy fodder characters with weak personalities and no history. Even the characters you met before this point become pathetic and dull. And the plot? Gone. Oh wait, sorry. There is one - save the girl. There's an original for you.

The best part after the Soul Society arc was the Turn Back the Pendulum arc. And that was probably only because it concerned two of my favourite characters. Actually, there's another point - the characters are hideously neglected, especially if they don't rank highly in the popularity polls. The panel-time is skewed and uneven between those that are supposed to be main characters.

The artwork is also another point worth making. The amount of wasted panel is astounding. You frequently find a whole page dedicated to an incomprehensible spattering of ink that you're sure is supposed to mean something, yet it really doesn't. It adds to the over-all sloppy, lazy, I-really-don't-care-anymore feel that has become Bleach. Also, for me, the chapter titles became an issue. I felt like breaking things when it got up to "Deicide 23". 23???? That spans three volumes. For nearly six months Kubo was using the same title. Words fail me at this point.

I have continued reading up til this point (430), but I honestly don't think I can last any longer. I'm only really continuing in the dying hope that I will get to see my favourite characters again (who haven't been featured for over a year now). I don't find it enjoyable or interesting to read at all, and I get annoyed at myself for going back to it, as it leaves me in a bad mood. It used to be good, but now Bleach is a pathetic excuse for a manga, and should be dropped.

This manga/anime makes me feel so much, I don't think I've ever felt so amazing in my life. The morals and the experience you get from this is just out of this world. My life feels so different now. I've read plenty of manga before you list me as a casual, view my profile.


Was never bored once, Kubo took a realistic setting with relatable characters and mixed in a fictional world. Art was phenomenal and so were fights. Sometimes there was little character development but this manga was so fucking entertaining that I don't care. Not a dull moment.

Don't listen to what others have said about Bleach. Experience it for yourself, most hatred comes from ets.litis

To start off with Bleach I think its a good manga in the beginning; it had a lot of potential and was doing a good job in my opinion in the beginning. I started watching it first I believe on Toonami back when it was late and on adult swim, so wanted to get into the manga.

In my opinion if it had ended possibly after the Hueco Mundo arc it possibly could have ended on a better note. From the beginning till the end of Hueco Mundo arc everything in a sense kind of lines up together and although the art work was a bit unorganized in a sense the story still felt great an original. There is a scene when reading where the protagonist grows through in a sense a power up and it's appalling to see that it was kind of stolen from another manga.

The originality of it steadily decreased as time went on. They could have stopped it at certain point which would have left it in a bitter sweet moment, but the push to keep having it go just made it feel dragged. The worst part in my opinion was the ending. It just didn't flow right. I'm sorry if I sound like a pessimist with this review but I felt as a reader I deserved something better especially when the other arcs were fantastic. Had they ended it were it felt perfect to end possibly this review would be praising it.

Well... A prime example of how looks can be deceiving. Bleach looked good, oh so very good. In the long run it is one of the few manga I have regrets about reading.

Bleach is another overrated Shounen manga. Sucked in by another promising plot Bleach follows a young man named Kurosaki Ichigo, a high school boy who can see spirits. One day a girl who claims shes a shinigami comes into his life and everything changes. This grabbed my attention for the first little while until the story started getting repetitive.

The author of this manga goes through the same process twice over and that has made up what the series is so far. I believe that the latest arc has been going on for roughly 3 years now.

Ichigo only knows one move and he takes no effort to learn new moves. but instead of fixing his weakness of having one move he powers up that one move so he will be unstoppable.

His training methods consist of losing a fight then training in the midst of battle (which isn't exactly the best way to do things)

On a lighter note Bleach does have some pretty interesting characters such as Chad: The burly friend of Ichigo who is kind and extremely powerful even without powers. Uryuu: Spirit bow wielding bad ass. As well as other interesting characters that I'm not at liberty to speak about at risk of spoilers.

Bleach would be a better manga if it changed things up a bit. The story has gotten dry and I find my self losing the thrill I once had reading it.

Overall rating:
6/10

Ok so I’m pretty new to the wide world of manga and admit that I primarily read shonen manga and anime. However I do not like what I read in the reviews and would like to throw in my 2 cents.

Story:
The story most people seem to think has 2 arcs. I personally break it into smaller pieces. The first being Ichigo Kurosaki as the substitute shinigami. He fights hollows with the powers he stole from shinigami Rukia Kuchiki. His friends Chad, Orihime, and Ishida have obtained their own powers and can also fight hollows. They are all helped by the mysterious Urahara and his crew. This is the first arc. I think so anyway this is before the multiple sword forms and giant cast of characters. The story takes a turn for the awesome with the introduction of other shinigami and the kidnapping of Rukia. The Soul Society was a wonderful place that brought a lot of new characters, concepts, plot that fueled my delight right and wrong were blurred and the intrigue of the going ons of the soul society were fascinating. The ending twist was fantastic and perfect and I was ready for the next arc. This is where most critics of the manga and even the fans say the series died and ruined it for them. I disagree I missed fighting hollows and now the shinigami had a real reason to use their zanpakto's abilities that was not directed at other shinigami. The arrancar were real threats to the soul society and was a perfect opposite. They would finally force those who were too powerful to fight at their fullest back in the soul society. Aizen was terrifying and magnificent and lead a front that made the series amazing and I wait with baited breath to see what comes up next. The story is not without problems things drag sometimes and there are a lot of characters who don’t get enough screen time and those who get too much and yes the characters tend to be generic. But I’m looking for that in a shonen manga and it helps that I think the concept is amazing. Tite Kubo is not only writing a story he is creating a world.

Art:
I dont know much about drawing but i would say Mr. Kubo does a great job of displaying things clearly and smoothly his style is appealing and his concepts are really original.

Characters:
Good. There are alot of them and they never die. This leads to characters getting left on the side of the road with little to no use. Best example Chad. He had alot of potentail but is just nowhere near what the lead characters are. He is basically Krillin. This is happening more and more in the manga which is unfourtunate. He is working on the back story on some characters but only those who were mentioned to be uber powerful beforehand. Overall problematic but i like it.

Enjoyment:
Well I like it and the other people i have introduced it to like it as well. Obviously people like it or Bleach would not be as main stream as it is.

Overall:
I understand why people are complaining about some things. However not a big deal in the overall to the story but they make it seem like a damning offence. Then there are people who i dont know why they read this long manga all the way through to bitch about it. Unless there is a golden vault of shonen manga im missing out on. If so please refer me to it otherwise stop trolling Bleach cause quite frankly it feels out of place to read

Bleach was the first manga I read. In the beginning it was a great story with great characters, but after the Soul Society Arc the quality in drawings, story, and characters went down and down and down.

At first the drop in quality wasn't overly bad. The Arrancar Arc had some great points. We found out that his father wasn't just a human which was a bit of a twist. A new character, Shinji, was also introduced and revealed to have the same powers as Ichigo. We had an understanding of what arrancar and vizards were. And the fights were pretty decent.

The Hueco Mundo Arc followed and left us wondering is Bleach turing into a fairytale where the knight, Ichigo, always has to save the damsel in distress, Rukia and Orihime, from danger in a foreign land. I will say there were some cool fights in this arc and we get to find out a bit about Orihime's powers.

The Fake Karakura Town Arc was next and this is where it took a huge drop. The arc was too dragged out. At the end of the arc I felt that it had been as long as it was just for the sake of making readers wait in suspense for the final battle. Besides a few new shikai's and bankai's there was no character development, if you can even call that development.

I will tell you the next arc is by far the worst arc in Bleach. I'd advise anyone who is at the end of the Fake Karakura Town Arc to just go on Bleach Wiki and read through the summary and then start at chapter 459. Cause trust me NOTHING HAPPENS.

I'd overall give this manga a 7/10 cause I really don't want to down the great story in the beginning.

I don't understand why so many people give Bleach such bad reviews.

YES, it is true that Bleach has lost its way. It has been taken over by filler episodes, arcs, and movies(but I love the movies anyway)
BUT, that does not make Bleach a bad manga(or anime) overall! Bleach has a great story and great characters. But it has been pushed too far. WAY, too far.

Story8/10
Bleach starts out with a good story and keeps it good until way too many fillers and arcs come in. I really lost the point of Bleach. The story became such a blur. But, I am not going to give it a bad rating because Bleach is truly a great manga(and anime). Just skip the fillers if you like to get right to the jist of things.

Art8/10
Boy oh boy. The art. In the beginning volumes of Bleach, I will just say the art was rather...bad. Not horrendous or anything, but, it wasn't great either. But look at Attack on Titan; such an amazing anime/manga but the art in the manga sucks, and still sucks at this point in time. But BOTH have improved amazingly. When a manga has a great story, art doesn't matter. Walk before you can run! Therefore, art gets an 8/10!

Character9/10
There are so many enjoyable characters in Bleach...Yoruichi, Rangiku, Urahara, Kenpachi, Renji, TOSHIRO....love 'em all! Some people say Bleach has crappy characters and I'd like to know where that came from...but whatever. 10/10!

Enjoyment9/10
With all the random fillers, I can only give my enjoyment for Bleach a rating of 9/10. I'd like to give a 10/10, but, man, THOSE FILLERS!!!!

Overall8/10
Basically, Bleach is a great read(and watch). It looses its way and has been pushed beyond the farthest reaches of the universe, but, I would recommend this to anyone who hasn't already read/watched Bleach...(slim pickins' der)

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

Back when I was just beginning to watch anime and read manga, Bleach was one of the first subbed anime that I picked up. I eventually started reading the manga and I really enjoyed it. However, after the end of the arc where Ichigo manages to save Rukia, everything went downhill from there.

The story was very good up to the end of the Soul Society arc as it was always very suspenseful and the fights were well-contrived. However, after that arc was done, you have a plethora of new characters and new plot devices stuffed down your throat and you are never quite given the opportunity to find out about anyone's backstory except for a few of the main characters. You eventually end up reading a manga where the sole focus is on Ichigo and how he gains power-ups in order to save the damsel-in-distress. In the Hueco Mundo arc of the series, everyone is turned into a fraction of what they were in the Soul Society arc, especially Renji. You can't help but feel mad that characters such as Renji and Chad are virtually useless. The story follows a very sequential and contrived plot where if there are a number of fights, the fights are shown one by one and after the 5th or 6th fight in a row you just want to stop reading.

While the manga art is good at times, in most fight scenes you end up with frames that you don't even know what's going on in the frame; it just looks like one big blotch of ink. It isn't just one or two frames per fight that uses this technique, there are half a dozen or more frames within a fight where the frames don't give any detail at all; they just give you the illusion that the characters involved are moving very fast. Not only that, but Tite Kubo can also use up a whole page to draw one frame, or a whole page to draw three or less meaningless frames that don't move the plot forward at all. He also uses wide margins so that his frames use up less ink. This isn't good art, and this isn't a good manga and you can very much tell that Tite Kubo is bored with his creation.

The series is dying and it doesn't look like it'll be revived anytime soon. It's a one-way trip to Heuco Mundo for this once-decent manga.