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Bleach Manga Enters 'Climax' In 2 Chapters


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EducatedRuffian



Joined: 09 Apr 2015
Posts: 90
Location: London, UK
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 5:54 am Reply with quote
CrowLia wrote:
Why not kill Toriko which doesn't really rank high and sells even more mediocre? People who read that agree that it's also being rushed to a conclusion/cancellation.


I believe that they are killing Toriko as well as it is hurtling towards a conclusion/ending/thing. And although I'm like one of the last few "loyal" readers, I'm not really butthurt about it *Cough*Bleach fans*Cough*
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SHD



Joined: 05 Apr 2015
Posts: 1752
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 6:02 am Reply with quote
Ambimunch wrote:
Go re-read the multiple times I stated that WSJ acted unprofessionally towards Kubo by not officially giving him the heads up a few months in advance rather than 4 weeks - that way such a long series could have wrapped up better and not upset the fanbase this manga had for over a decade. Are you autistic? Do you honestly need an explanation why forcing a 15 year old running manga to end in the middle of its arc in a few chapters is a d!ck move?

Correct me if I'm wrong, because I haven't read back the entire thread, but from what I see you never managed to provide a credible source for Kubo not getting a heads-up more in advance. Just because readers get information at a certain time doesn't mean the author hasn't been aware of it since much earlier.

Bleach will end almost on the exact day of its anniversary. It's way too convenient a timing for it not to have been planned beforehand. For all we know Kubo had known it for a long time and yet he still managed to eff up the pacing because let's face it that's never been one of his strong suits. For all we know Kubo thought WSJ would give him an extension and never expected not to get it. For all we know Kubo is sick and tired of Bleach and doesn't really give a damn one way or another.

Personally I used to like Bleach a lot. I even liked the Fullbringer arc (!!!) in the beginning because I thought that finally we'd get some focus on my favorite character group (Ichigo and his friends, sans the shinigami). I gave up on it when it became an endless shinigami parade once again. I was kind of excited about this latest arc because I thought Ishida would get some focus... and then it became an endless shinigami parade once again, with pointless fights between side characters being extended forever, chapters where literally nothing happens, etc. Characters who were set up to be important (*cough*Ishida*cough*) becoming completely sidelined, characters getting brought forward as if to make them do something cool or get some development, only to brush them aside in favor of completely predictable and boring developments (*cough*Orihime*cough*).

I have zero goodwill for Bleach or Kubo at this point. Whenever he was informed of WSJ wanting to end the manga, Kubo must have expected it. He should have known he didn't have long. And yet his pacing stayed horrible, he spent way too much time on predictable battles and an army of interchangeable, minor enemy characters that nobody actually gave a damn about. This is what happens when you know you should pull yourself together and you still don't do it.
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Black Turtle



Joined: 21 Jul 2016
Posts: 110
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 6:52 am Reply with quote
CrowLia wrote:
One last point I want to make -even though this whole discussion is pointless by now- is about the claim that "even if they gave him one more quarter, he would've extended it longer". He might've, true, but in all likeliness he wouldn't. Because there was only the final villain left and with one more quarter, it would've had the right time to finish that fight and tie the important loose ends (we were never going to see all those other bankais, Kubo proved he didn't care about those when he had Hisagi one-shotted TWICE and wrote Shinji off for no reason in the fight against Gerard). And with that extra quarter he would've fulfilled the 5 years-worth of story he had planned. He did drag things longer than they needed -there were so many useless plot points this arc from the beginning- but he was in no way taking longer than he said he would from the start. It wasn't a matter of letting it run forever and see if it ever caught on again, the manga would've ended naturally in 20 more chapters at most even in spite of Kubo's glacial pace. That they cut it off at this point while giving Toriko the chance to continue further and have a more conclusive wrap, is what I find insulting and unfair about this whole thing

Well, I have a small question for you : are you sure it's only a few weeks it's rushed. To me it's been more. I'm sure it was supposed to still go for a while. The Kenpachi not being able to use the full form of his bankai, the completely not logical choice about Ishida, to make him the the heir, the ishida fight being fairlt short for a bleach fight (well it's long, but because it's cut with other fight), all the character yourself admit that didn't get their Bankai, the totally underwhelming Kisuke fight, Ywach stating ichigo don't use his full power. It's been month since Kubo began to accelerate the thing, when you rethink it. but before that, the manga could still have gone for a year. So yeah now it got axed. but the nearly to the end is not a valid point, since it was already "slowly rushed". the real problem is that even with a cancellation in target, he could put more narrative content in his chapters. and letting him more time is letting him 9 or 18 chapters (to get a full number of volume). which would have led to new series fall or new year period, and not summer. You guys continue to act as Kubo wasn't aware of the polls and sales for the late years. He chose to no take it in account, so be it.
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Ambimunch



Joined: 30 Aug 2012
Posts: 2012
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 12:53 pm Reply with quote
@Monster Hunter - Sigh, I'm tired of arguing. Think what you want, my goal here isn't to change to community. Me and hundreds of thousands other Bleach fans are disappointed by how WSJ handled one of its oldest series, and I feel bad for the author. Conspiracy theories can go on forever, but the Bleach community's impression of the situation is in unison - it is highly unlikely that this was Kubo's intentional way of finishing off Bleach (for reasons already mentioned).

Anyways, my opinion did not change in the slightest, and I disagree with everyone who is defending this bloody outcome.

SHD wrote:
Correct me if I'm wrong, because I haven't read back the entire thread, but from what I see you never managed to provide a credible source for Kubo not getting a heads-up more in advance. Just because readers get information at a certain time doesn't mean the author hasn't been aware of it since much earlier.


I agree with the readers of this manga, not getting a formal announcement that this year would be the final one, and the horrendous pace of the manga since the announcement that it's ending - lead us to believe this outcome was not planned but spontaneous.

I think you got the wrong impression, I am not swimming here in 'proof' trying to change people, I stated my disappointment with how WSJ ended up concluding its 15 year old manga - for which I got attacked by angry children who seem to be filled with tremendous hate for the author. After that, this discussion went to shit rivaling the YouTube comment section.

Now you should go ask every one of the people here if they got proof that Kubo stringed along his staff, or that he knew of this deadline, or that he intended to end Bleach this way all along. I'll check back to see if you did that.

SHD wrote:
For all we know Kubo had known it for a long time and yet he still managed to eff up the pacing because let's face it that's never been one of his strong suits. For all we know Kubo thought WSJ would give him an extension and never expected not to get it. For all we know Kubo is sick and tired of Bleach and doesn't really give a damn one way or another.


For all we know Kubo had sex with the wife of the CEO of WSJ because she was tired of her alcoholic and abusive husband and wanted to get back at him. Please stop with theories. I expressed the opinion that WSJ as a business acted disrespectfully towards its customers (readers) for allowing such a long running show to end this way, and the community (including myself) believe they screwed Kubo - these are opinions (with minor backups) that anyone is entitled to.

SHD wrote:
I have zero goodwill for Bleach or Kubo at this point.


Your opinion, you can have it. All I can say is that it's unhealthy to be angry or wish others bad.

SHD wrote:
he spent way too much time on predictable battles and an army of interchangeable, minor enemy characters that nobody actually gave a damn about.


You must feel pretty good about yourself to speak on behalf of the entire world. Calm down, and don't take it upon yourself to speak on behalf of "everyone", you are entitled to your own opinion, but you have no right to force it on others, m'kay...? You don't like Bleach, then don't read it, end of story.
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Somewhere



Joined: 27 Sep 2013
Posts: 361
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 1:59 pm Reply with quote
'Hundreds of thousands of Bleach fans'... hmm, yes, there are four hundreds of thousands of Bleach fans going by the Japanese volume sales. Not sure how disappointed they are though, as if they were to complain, it wouldn't be on English language sites. Cancellations are more of a fact of life there there though.

This is directed less at you (of course, remember that you've sworn off responding to me) and more at the general lurker reading:
The western Bleach fanbase is more bark than bite. There's a lot of noise on the internet. A fair amount of puffing up the chest and going 'WE'RE STILL BIG THREE! BIG THREE! BIG THREEEEEE!'.
Here's the dirty secret, the money isn't exactly where the mouth is. The USA is the largest English language market for manga, yes? By the Bookscan numbers last year, new Bleach volumes sell in the 4-6k range. It's comparable to One Piece's numbers in the USA, except that One Piece has the reputation of never taking off here as much as Naruto/Bleach did. Naruto slaps them both by hitting low 20k with its latest volumes here.
By the way, manga sales numbers in general here seem to look small relative to the talk online, don't they? Hell, the majority of the manga fandom in the US (that discuss online, at least) consume manga in such a way that the publishers never see money from. Yes, I'm referring to scanlations. Don't kid yourselves; I've looked up the sites on Alexa and know that the leading source of scanlation site traffic comes from the US.
So what am I getting at here? Well, look at it this way. If you see 0$ from someone when they're happy, and 0$ from the same person when they're angry.... do you really give a damn about what they think then?

Oh, yea, we actually did just have an Answerman column addressing that Bookscan don't include all sources. That is true! Then the question becomes, how much higher would the real total be, compared to the Bookscan number? I don't have an answer to this, but it's interesting to think about. How many people buy manga via Barnes & Nobles or Amazon, as opposed to at conventions, mom and pop places, or specialty online retailers like Rightstuf? 50/50 split? More? Less? I'll just say that I strongly doubt that the real total is an order of magnitude greater than the Bookscan number.

Then we take a look at ACBD's report for France, which is the largest western market for manga. Bleach does do well in France actually; new volumes sell 40k there last year.
"BIIIG"
One Piece and Naruto sell 146-170k there.
"THre-...oh"
Also, random fun fact: the French like Fairy Tail (90k per new volume).
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theNightster



Joined: 14 Mar 2014
Posts: 1328
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 3:43 pm Reply with quote
EducatedRuffian wrote:
CrowLia wrote:
Why not kill Toriko which doesn't really rank high and sells even more mediocre? People who read that agree that it's also being rushed to a conclusion/cancellation.


I believe that they are killing Toriko as well as it is hurtling towards a conclusion/ending/thing. And although I'm like one of the last few "loyal" readers, I'm not really butthurt about it *Cough*Bleach fans*Cough*

I'm a Bleach fan and I'm not butthurt, because I knew the ending was inevitable, don't generalize. that said I do wish the last could have been a tad bit better because spoiler[I thought it was going pretty well with Aizen screwing with Bach, but the last chapter was pretty anti-climatic]
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GrayArchon



Joined: 28 Feb 2011
Posts: 393
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 5:11 pm Reply with quote
EducatedRuffian wrote:
CrowLia wrote:
Why not kill Toriko which doesn't really rank high and sells even more mediocre? People who read that agree that it's also being rushed to a conclusion/cancellation.


I believe that they are killing Toriko as well as it is hurtling towards a conclusion/ending/thing. And although I'm like one of the last few "loyal" readers, I'm not really butthurt about it *Cough*Bleach fans*Cough*


Toriko has already been essentially cancelled from what we can tell. One arc truncated, 3-4 more arcs skipped, and a bunch of info dumps for exposition so we could enter the final battle. It's quite obvious - all but certain really - that they told the author to wrap up the series by a certain date or chapter number. So they aren't going to suddenly give him even less time than was already agreed to.



As for Bleach I doubt it was cancelled. It's ending at 700 chapters on it's 15th anniversary issue. That's not something that happens coincidentally with a sudden cancellation. Nor is Bleach the sort of series that gets axed on short notice. Much like with Toriko, if it was cancelled it would have ample notice for Kubo to revise the story to be tighter. It's basically guaranteed that Kubo has known for 6 months to a year at least that Bleach would end at it's 15th anniversary. Plus WSJ in Japan has been running Bleach character profiles for quite some time now that look like this:

http://i.imgur.com/grCwcqu.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/l9hwrMe.jpg

Reaching Ichigo and his immediate friends shortly before the announcement the series would be ending. That's not something that happens by coincidence either.

The bottom line is that this is no sudden cancellation. They did not sit down, and go "Ok, what series do we cancel to make room this time? Eh, let's just cancel Bleach and get it over with." Bleach ending at this point in time is something that has been in planning for a while.

What people don't want to admit, is that the situation is equally well explained simply by saying that Kubo screwed up. That he knew when the series would end well in advance, agreed to it, but simply underestimated how much time he would need, or over estimated how much time he should devote to some things. That like with Aizen, he wrote himself into a bit of a corner with the final boss, and the result is somewhat unsatisfactory.
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Errinundra
Moderator


Joined: 14 Jun 2008
Posts: 6540
Location: Melbourne, Oz
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 6:01 pm Reply with quote
Everybody, particularly Ambimunch, cool it. Your opinions have been clearly stated so you don't need to re-hash them.
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theNightster



Joined: 14 Mar 2014
Posts: 1328
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 7:34 pm Reply with quote
GrayArchon wrote:


As for Bleach I doubt it was cancelled. It's ending at 700 chapters on it's 15th anniversary issue. That's not something that happens coincidentally with a sudden cancellation.
Wrong it's ending at 685 and it's this coming week, it's pretty apparent that Bleach is getting the ax, that last fight was a little too quick considering Kubo's usual pace
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Nonaka Machine Gun B



Joined: 03 Feb 2009
Posts: 820
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 8:46 pm Reply with quote
There are:

-685 Normal Chapters
-Fifteen negative-numbered chapters. -108 through -97 (12), Chapters -16 and -17 (2), and finally Chapter -12.5 (1).

685 + 12 + 2 + 1 = 700.
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GrayArchon



Joined: 28 Feb 2011
Posts: 393
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 9:11 pm Reply with quote
theNightster wrote:
GrayArchon wrote:


As for Bleach I doubt it was cancelled. It's ending at 700 chapters on it's 15th anniversary issue. That's not something that happens coincidentally with a sudden cancellation.
Wrong it's ending at 685 and it's this coming week, it's pretty apparent that Bleach is getting the ax, that last fight was a little too quick considering Kubo's usual pace


This coming week is it's 15th anniversary. It started 2001 in issue #36-37, and will be concluding in 2016 in issue #36-37. Chapter 685 is Bleach's 700th chapter. It's labeled 685 because Bleach had 15 negatively numbered chapters over the course of it's run that were included in it's volumes. The Turn Back the Pendulum arc alone was 12 chapters that were labeled chapter -108 to chapter -97. A quick look through the chapter lists on wikipedia reveals 3 more negative chapters in the volumes.

So yes, it is ending at 700 chapters, on it's 15th anniversary. Kubo artistic choice for chapter numbers means that it's 700th chapter doesn't carry the number 700, and Jump's publishing schedule means that it's anniversary issue has drifted away from it's anniversary chronological date, but it's still 700 chapters, and next week's issue is still considered a 15th anniversary for Bleach.
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theNightster



Joined: 14 Mar 2014
Posts: 1328
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 9:20 pm Reply with quote
GrayArchon wrote:
theNightster wrote:
GrayArchon wrote:


As for Bleach I doubt it was cancelled. It's ending at 700 chapters on it's 15th anniversary issue. That's not something that happens coincidentally with a sudden cancellation.
Wrong it's ending at 685 and it's this coming week, it's pretty apparent that Bleach is getting the ax, that last fight was a little too quick considering Kubo's usual pace


This coming week is it's 15th anniversary. It started 2001 in issue #36-37, and will be concluding in 2016 in issue #36-37. Chapter 685 is Bleach's 700th chapter. It's labeled 685 because Bleach had 15 negatively numbered chapters over the course of it's run that were included in it's volumes. The Turn Back the Pendulum arc alone was 12 chapters that were labeled chapter -108 to chapter -97. A quick look through the chapter lists on wikipedia reveals 3 more negative chapters in the volumes.

So yes, it is ending at 700 chapters, on it's 15th anniversary. Kubo artistic choice for chapter numbers means that it's 700th chapter doesn't carry the number 700, and Jump's publishing schedule means that it's anniversary issue has drifted away from it's anniversary chronological date, but it's still 700 chapters, and next week's issue is still considered a 15th anniversary for Bleach.
never said anything about whether or not it's 15th anniversary, it very much is the anniversary, but I guess we can count those chapters if we're being technical
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Nonaka Machine Gun B



Joined: 03 Feb 2009
Posts: 820
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 9:47 pm Reply with quote
"Technical?" Volume 36 is made up of nothing but negative chapters. For twelve weeks in a row, Weekly Shonen Jump published these chapters. They weren't extras tagged along to a normal chapter either. Forget the numbers; Kubo has had his work featured in Jump 700 times for 700 weeks.
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theNightster



Joined: 14 Mar 2014
Posts: 1328
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 9:53 pm Reply with quote
Nonaka Machine Gun B wrote:
"Technical?" Volume 36 is made up of nothing but negative chapters. For twelve weeks in a row, Weekly Shonen Jump published these chapters. They weren't extras tagged along to a normal chapter either. Forget the numbers; Kubo has had his work featured in Jump 700 times for 700 weeks.
you seem mad, to be fair I was mostly on the anime until it ended and continued with the manga so I was unaware of the negative numbers.
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Monster Hunter



Joined: 29 Jan 2014
Posts: 335
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 9:57 pm Reply with quote
theNightster wrote:
you seem mad, to be fair I was mostly on the anime until it ended and continued with the manga so I was unaware of the negative numbers.


The negative chapters were the chapters that told us how the Vizards became the Vizards.
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