Forum - View topicWhatever Happened to Bleach?
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Hyperdrve
 Posts: 276 |
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I couldn't make it through all of it and would rather stick my head in the freezer than try to watch that abomination again.
I just rounded it to 50 because all the best parts had already been done by then. I found Ichigo's bankai to be anti-climactic and not very original. |
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Exalted Incarnate
Posts: 283 Location: In the memory of time... |
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Wasn't bleach popular because of the epic fights? I did not know bleach's anime was cancelled years ago but as long as the manga is still continuing there is still hope for the series to make an epic comeback.
And people are talking about Aizen as if he's dead, last time I checked the spoiler[hogyoku made him immortal!]. |
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residentgrigo
 Posts: 2518 Location: Germany |
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I wrote a MU/amazon review on the downfall of Bleach in 2013 and haven´t touched it in years. I also quit One Piece a few months ago and thank god that Naruto ended (kind off but no Baruto for me) so i didn´t have to kick it out of bed too. Here it is:
Why is it still this popular? (4/10) I stumbled upon the anime many moons ago when it was new and i was an older teen. I liked it just fine but switched to the manga later to save time as episodes became too drawn out even without the filler. I then quit the manga just before Vol. 50 entirely and started to hate it now. I am currently 24 and still deem the first two arcs (till Soul Society ended) as decent in retrospect but the word "empty" describes them best. Good art (but never backgrounds), fine choreography and decent ideas were commence but any from of substance was lacking. To quote user strixflash "Bleach was never a plot driven manga" and that was true even then but the narrative utterly stopped when arc 3 began and the unending action scenes turned into the following: Two "awesome" underwear models with mullets of power meet, begin to stand in the air and beat each other up with super moves for no reason till someone wins or they agree to become friends. Noone ever dies but the word death / i´ll kill you are the most dominant sentences in the entire manga. The female characters are big breasted moral support only too but i will note that their sexualisation isn´t as dumb as in most such series. I thus quit the manga after that arc was finally over and never looked back. The series apparently still sucks (500+ chapters and a dead spin-off are the stats now) and it finally started to loose both fans and an anime (!) but i am out for good. As many problems i have with One Piece and Naruto now i still have fun with them so go for the rest of the Jump trinity instead. Claymore (8,5/10), Hunter x Hunter (9/10) or Rurouni Kenshin (10/10) are lastly how modern shounen battle manga need to look like. Don´t even get me started how much better the action (or everything else) is in the adult targeted Berserk, Kamui Gaiden or Until Death Do Us Part is but these were done by masters. The only thing of note about Kubo Tite is his glamorous hair and that he created the memetastic Aizen while the "prequel" Zombie Powder is even less interesting than Bleach. I wonder if he will even start a third series as the final arc of Bleach was apparently changed back to not being a finale... Money never sleeps. Even among the dead! Last edited by residentgrigo on Fri Nov 06, 2015 2:19 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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bj_waters
 Posts: 234 |
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I won't deny that much of my zeal for Bleach has faded for many of the reasons listed here, but I still think he can do great stuff. (I admit that a large part of my faith in him is based on how awesome Zombie Powder was. I kind of wish he could finish that series!)
However, I do want to ask a question: I was under the impression that dragging out the fight with Aizen was an editorial decision, not Kubo's. (I think SJ did the same thing to Toriyama with Frieza.) Is this not the truth?
That's probably because they have the same series director: Noriyuki Abe. |
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CrowLia
 Posts: 5527 Location: Mexico |
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Beyond any shipping wars or whatever, this line is 100% incorrect. Orihime is not Ichigo's love interest, he has shown precisely ZERO romantic interest in her (or anyone, for that matter), he's not even aware of her feelings. She is in love with him, but that's not the same as being a romantic interest for the protagonist.
The sales may be well past their glory days, but the volumes still rack up about 500K per volume, it's still one of the top 5 sellers in Shonen Jump as far as volume goes. Toriko, which was supposed to replace it, never even got to surpass those numbers
Not really, Kubo left a shitload of unanswered questions and loose plot threads. Isshin's backstory, Unohana's secret, Kenpachi's zanpakuto off the top of my head. One of people's favorite things are Bankais, and there were still a lot that had yet to be revealed after Aizen's defeat. I was certainly ready for a lot more after Aizen's defeat, especially since the Deicide portion of the battle was terrible and I'd never liked Aizen as a villain because he was so overpowered
It was clearly explained that it took Urahara a long time to prepare the reiatsu zanpakuto they used to infuse his powers back. You know, the one that Rukia stabbed him with
I wish people would stop piling on the Lost Agent Arc. You focus too much on the ridiculousness of Ginjou's plan (true) and the disposable villains (also true), but the main point of the arc was establishing Ichigo as a hero. Ichigo started his journey as a Shinigami out of necessity. Unlike other shonen manga heroes who choose their "profession" (Luffy chooses to be a pirate, Naruto wants to be a ninja, Soma wants to be a chef, Hinata wants to play volleyball, etc.) Ichigo never wanted to be a Shinigami. He turned into one when the situation was desperate and his family was in mortal peril. Then he continued to be one when Rukia was abducted, once again, out of necessity, because he had to save her. When he lost his powers after defeating Aizen, he says he was at first relieved because he had never wanted to have special powers or even the ability to see ghosts. He'd never liked it. But during the course of this arc, Ichigo realizes that he wants his powers back. He doesn't want his friends fighting Hollows and risking their lives while he sits and watches, powerless. And then, when he gets the Fullbringer powers from his Substitute Shinigami badge, he remembers all the great moments he had as a Shinigami and how proud he was of them. The arc makes Ichigo realize his calling to be a Shinigami and protect people, and how important that aspect of his life is for him. That was the whole point. The package may not have been the best, but it worked to deliver that one major character moment for the protagonist nonetheless, so I wish people would stop saying it was a waste of time. In fact, I think the Thousand Year Blood War arc is much worse than the Lost Agent arc. The pacing is glacial, the villains are, like the article says, too forgettable, and there are several plot decisions that don't seem to make much sense. Kubo has also become really trigger happy, randomly killing off characters that had much potential. The worst of it all is how overpowered the Quincy enemies are, they're pretty much insufferable. Yhwach is like an even worse Aizen, omnisapient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. However, I do think there have been some brilliant fights: Rukia & Byakuya vs As Nodt was beautiful, Kenpachi vs Gremmy had an absolutely genius finale and the two latest ones, while slow and sort of boring, gave us great character moments with both Mayuri/Nemu and Kyoraku/Nanao. It's also interesting to see how Kubo still has it in him to come up with creative and interesting sets of powers, like Ryujin Jakka's Bankai, or Osho's Zanpakuto (even if the conclusion of both fights was utter bullshit). While I do agree that the story's quality has declined, mostly because the amount of characters became too much for Kubo to juggle them, I think the article exaggerates in terms of the manga's failure or "has-been" status. While individual chapters rank extremely poorly in the magazine, the volumes still sell a lot and it is still one of the most popular series in recent history. |
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Ryu Shoji
Posts: 674 Location: Cambridge, United Kingdom |
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I must confess that I actually really enjoyed the "Lost Agent" arc and would actually list it as my favourite since "The Substitute" (aka, the first one). I loved how it was set entirely in the human world and brought the story back to where it started - ordinary hollows, not that Arrancar nonsense. The Xcution members were interesting characters (especially RIruka) and their powers were incredibly creative.
As everything was wrapping up however, Kubo decided to derail the train by bringing the Soul Reapers back and taking the spotlight away from Chad, Orihime etc. At this point however, the only reason I'm still reading Bleach is because I pay my Weekly Shonen Jump subscription to read Food Wars and Nisekoi, so I might as well spend five minutes or so a week to see how this series ends, considering how much time I've already spent on it. "The Thousand Year Blood War" arc has been absolutely terrible but I at least thought that it was drawing to its climax after spoiler[Ywach absorbed the Soul King] but nope - instead we're having to endure a series of fights that I frankly, don't care about (spoiler[I mean, Mayuri was fighting a freaking hand!]). I also just don't care about Ywach and the Quincy; they're all just awfully bland. and unmemorable I wholeheartedly agree that the series should have ended with the fall of Aizen; just adjust the stuff about Isshin a bit and shift the reveal to have occurred before then and we're good to go. In fact, when was the last time we actually saw just a standard Hollow in the series? One thing I can never take away from Tite Kubo however, is that he is arguably one of, if not the best Weekly Shonen Jump artist right now. It's fascinating to look back to the beginning of the series and how crude it appears compared to now. I agree with leafy sea dragon that he would perhaps really benefit from being part of a writer-artist duo.
This is really the only thing that comes to mind when I think of reasons why the series should have continued Post-Aizen; although aside from the Isshin stuff, a lot of it (such as bankai reveals) could have happened a lot sooner. In fact, even if Kubo slightly tweaked it to remove spoiler[Ichigo's mum having her powers zapped by Ywach and instead have her simply fall in battle], I see no reason why the conversation couldn't have happened say, while he was training Ichigo just before his final fight against Aizen. Last edited by Ryu Shoji on Fri Nov 06, 2015 1:53 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Ambimunch
 Posts: 2012 |
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Bleach is not in the top 3 anymore, but it's still one of the world's most popular series and sells quite well by comparison to thousands of other manga.
I completely disagree with 99% of what you said, your opinion is not universal. Plenty of people love bleach, many fans will say the current arc is one of the best ones (I personally love it too), and your excuse of it being "a mess" is pure self gratification for losing interest in the series. While about 1% of what you said does have some merit (the Aizen part), the rest of this article is akin to that of a YouTube comment from an upset fanboy. A very unpleasant read, and not for you having an opinion, but for such poor structure, quality, arguments, and delivery of everything in this article. |
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Zhou-BR
Posts: 1454 |
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I'm not as down on Bleach as the article's author, but I agree that Kubo made some big mistakes. The first one was stretching out the Arrancar arc too much, which made it seem like the series would end after Aizen's defeat. No wonder so many readers took the end of that arc as a jumping-off point.
But I think Kubo's biggest miscalculation was the Xcution arc, which was actually decent overall, but killled the series's momentum and didn't really contribute anything truly important and long-lasting to the main plot. Had he skipped that and gone straight to the final arc, I think readers would have been a lot more invested. Frankly, I don't give a rat's ass about the Sternritters and I think they aren't half as interesting and memorable as the Espadas, but the resolutions to mysteries like the name of Zaraki's Zanpakutou, the real reason behind Masaki Kurosaki's death and the nature of Kyoraku's Bankai keep me interested in this series, so I'm in it for the long haul. Last edited by Zhou-BR on Fri Nov 06, 2015 3:58 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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zawa113
 Posts: 7358 |
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Man, I think I dropped Bleach around episode 150, when the anime needed filler so desperately that they introduced a character specifically for the filler purposes and then they went off and baked cakes. As annoying as the Bount arc was, at least it had an ongoing plot I suppose (and it was widely known it was a filler arc, point is, I found it easier to hold out through that arc than the next one, scattered with random useless filler). And it didn't help that, during the non-filler episodes, they would spend literally half of the episode recapping previous episodes, leaving perhaps ten or fewer minutes of actually new anime. I think that was my tipping point for "nope, screw this, I'm outta here" and I haven't looked back since. Think I quit the manga around the start of Arrancer too. (around early 20s)
All I can think now is "man, 150 episodes, imagine how much other anime I could've watched instead!" but that's not entirely fair for the first 63 episodes where characters were interesting and things were paced properly and it was fun to watch. So, ok, still could've watched better anime for almost 90 more episodes, right? That's what I think every time I see a dauntingly long anime now (say, Legend of the Galactic Heroes), I think "but you wasted all that time on garbage, and LoGH is actually good!", or "pfft, Dear Brother is only 39 episodes long, that's shorter than the worthless Bleach filler!" and of course, both of those series were awesome. But I am always glad to hear that it's a good thing that I didn't stick around. You always want to hear that you made the right choices, based on the opinions of others, just something about validating your choices that humans like. Other series have proven that they can last and still be interesting and well written (albeit with some retcons to certain things), it's honestly a shame that Bleach just kind of.... gave up. If you enjoy it, more power to you, but man, I could rematch Avatar and Korra again! 113 episodes of greatness! |
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MajorZero
Posts: 359 |
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Eh, what anticlimactic can be about friggin superpower, it's not like bankai gave him an edge over everyone in the manga if anything Ichigo probably lost more fights than every protagonist in shounen manga ever. |
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#847198
Posts: 7 |
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I think most people who really are upset about bad plot don't really understand how hard it is to write a coherent plot for 10 years. Have some respect and understanding. If you like it great, if you don't, don't watch!
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Tensai GinAce
 Posts: 119 |
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Thank you ! |
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jojothepunisher
 Posts: 799 |
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The thing that initially caught my eyes about Bleach was its fusion of punk-like aesthetic with classical Shounen fights in a lot of its promotional images like the very first anime opening. But this aesthetic was weakly present in the actual plot line, which is a damn shame considering how unique and attractive it was.
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theNightster
Posts: 1328 |
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this article is a load of shit, this arc has been pretty good for the most part aside from some uninteresting villains (this guy thinks that Naruto was still good at it's end, Kishimoto did an outright awful job giving his character's closer yet gets more praise then Kubo) and the sales while not up there what it used to be is still selling pretty well considering it lost it's anime 4 years ago.
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Blue21
Posts: 244 |
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One Piece and Berserk have been going on for longer and have coherent plots. So did the finished Naruto. Kubo is supposedly a professional and professionals are supposed to keep their s*** together. If people hold back on their criticism because they pity the author, that just encourages him to not correct his mistakes. |
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