Bleach

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Bleach resonates on a profound level, weaving themes of inner conflict, balance, and human connection that go far beyond its stunning visuals and epic battles. Each character embodies a unique struggle, one that mirrors Ichigo’s journey of self-discovery. While initially captivating with its intricate character designs, thrilling battles, and iconic OST, Bleach’s true strength lies in its deeper narrative : the search for balance within oneself.

Ichigo’s path serves as the heart of this exploration. His internal war between light and darkness is something universal, a reflection of the very human battle to accept every facet of oneself. He must integrate his human, Hollow, and Shinigami ... sides—forces in constant tension—to reach a harmonious state. This journey of self-acceptance, of balancing one's inner contradictions, speaks to something deeply personal. Just as the Shinigami maintain the equilibrium of souls across realms, Ichigo must find a similar balance within, blending black and white to reach a state of “grey”—the true theme of Bleach.

Many characters undergo similar transformative arcs. Rukia’s battle with the No. 9 Espada is a powerful example, as she confronts her guilt and comes to terms with her past, ultimately accepting it to grow stronger. Hitsugaya’s struggle to balance his cold exterior with the warmth he feels for those he cares about is another instance of internal conflict yielding strength. Renji, Byakuya, and even antagonists like Ulquiorra grapple with understanding themselves and their values, their journeys enriching the central theme of equilibrium.

Bleach, ultimately, is a story about embracing one’s entirety—strengths, flaws, and all—and finding the courage to confront and harmonize these opposing forces. It's a tale that stays with you, urging you to reflect on the balance needed in one’s own life, making it far more than just a story of good versus evil, but one of self-discovery and human connection at its core.

Bleach is my all time favorite piece of fiction
I already loved it's elements from character designs, writing , plot, Ost and of course the animation
upon the first time I watched the anime but that was just on the surface level ,
Now it resides within my heart on a deeper more personal level .

On its surface, Bleach plays unreservedly into the tropes and themes of the battle shonen genre, while also carrying an underlying tone of deep melancholy, introspection and loneliness throughout. Despite being a series that is perhaps easily read in a superficial way, Kubo always invites you to dig deeper into the series' themes and characters, and the substance is there for those willing to do so. And without spoiling too much, the journey undergone by main protagonist Ichigo is also fairly unique for the shonen genre in a way I really appreciate.

Unfortunately, the story loses a lot of its momentum for me during the ... final major arc, however the good moments within that arc are still as good as the good moments from the rest of the series.

While it's heights are not quite as high for me as those of One Piece or Naruto, Bleach's overall quality in both narrative and presentation is, in my opinion, more consistent.

While Bleach may not be a series for everyone, if it is for you, you will likely find something special.

Ah Bleach, the most middling of the big three. What can be said about Bleach that hasn't already been said? It's dragged out, repetitive, kind of a rip off of Yu Yu Hakusho, has a bland magic magic system, and Ichigo isn't what most writers would call a compelling character.
So what does it have going for it? It's cool factor? I was a teenager when Bleach was coming out, and managed to miss it at the time, so I don't have any nostalgia for its particular style, but my girlfriend watched it as it was broadcasting, and she just cringes whenever she sees the character ... designs or hears the dialogue now, so I'm not sure how well it's coolness has aged.

Story:
It's Yu Yu Hakusho. Boy gets spirit powers, fights demonic entities, fights other spirit detectives, etc etc. As for the arcs themselves, they vary wildly in terms of quality.

The 1st one (spirit detective): You get introduced to the characters, Ichigo gets his call to action, learns some new skills and eventually Rukia's brother shows up and drags her back to spirit society. It's pretty bland overall, but it's fun for the most part. Some characters like Kon and Ichigo's dad drag it down, but over all the arc is made up of small stories that generally build well off each other.

Soul Society: It's in the second arc where cracks begin to form. It's long and it all takes place in a single location that has very little in terms of visual identity. My girlfriend remembered it as being "the part in the maze", and I can't say she's wrong. Volume after volume of fights in the same corridors, with low white walls, fighting characters with samurai swords wearing black robes. It's tedious at best, soul grinding at worst. The plot here is dependent on the leader of the Soul Reapers being a complete moron, an issue that will be exacerbated in later arcs, with him just blindly following edicts from a poorly explained governing committee that he never actually interacts with. Eventually the secret villain is revealed, Ichigo gets a new costume, and Rukia is saved.

Hueco Mundo: it's Soul Society....again.
They go to hell to save Orihime who was kidnapped, just like Rukia in the last arc.
We meet all the Arancarr captains and fight them, just like the Soul Reaper captains in the last arc. Ichigo gets a new costume and power up to beat the guy who kidnapped the girl again. The big bad was Aizen, again (but at least this time his motivations are revealed). This arc is brutally bad. It's a longer version of Soul Society but without the conspiracy plot to occasionally switch up the pacing. So instead it just has more endless fights in sterile white rooms against enemies who all wear white robes (unlike the black robes in Soul Society).
This the arc where I had to fully accept that I didn't get what people liked about Bleach. It's style didn't work for me, it's characters were boring, and it's magic system was filled standard shounen powers (if I have to see unlimited blade works in another anime or manga, I'll die.)
In the end, Ichigo beats Aizen, loses his powers, and the series wraps up most of its plot points. I was content, not happy, but content that the series was over.
"Nope" said my girlfriend, with a sadistic gleam in her eye. "There are two arcs left."
"Impossible, the main villain was defeated. Ichigo's character arc sort of finished. Anymore would be pointless."
She laughed at my ignorance. "You have roughly 30 more volumes to read."

Full bringer arc: Ichigo gets his powers back. Chad's powers get explained (unlike Orihime's powers)....... There's not much else to say about this arc. It was quick at least, so I didn't have time to get bored. It's the second best arc of the series.

Thousand Year Blood War: This arc starts so strong. Soul Society gets crushed by Nazi's led by Jesus and fire captain gets killed like a chump in the best fight of the series. And then it keeps going and going, and just repeats the exact same formula of Soul Society and Hueco Mundo. Ichigo gets a new power up and new costume. A black robbed soul reaper fights a white clad Nazi in an empty void, and once that's done another set gets to do the same thing. And then they introduce the way to kill Jesus five chapters before the end.

And so Bleach ends on a whimper, much like it's more successful competitor Naruto.

Characters:
I'm going to focus on main characters and supporting characters who left an impact. For the sake of authenticity, I will use the nomenclature my gf and I use while discussing the series.

Ichigo: ichigo suffers in comparison to his equivalents in the other two of the big three by not having much in the way of a goal. Now having a repeatedly stated goal isn't exactly subtle writing, but in media aimed at children it does allow for an effective baseline of characterization. Ichigo starts with a basic goal of avenging his mother, but that plot point is solved without him long after he had stopped being concerned with the average Hollow on earth. As a result, Ichigo comes across as as an incredibly reactive character, being pushed and pulled by the whims of the plot with little agency of his own. He's a bit of a marysue, allowing the audience to imprint their own personality onto him.

Aizen: Aizen is a genius manipulator, with his genius predicated on the stupidity of everyone around him. However as the end goal of his plan is to kill God, he is able to fulfill basic anime tropes to a level I found kind of entertaining.

Ywhach: Jesus, but he wants to kill God (hey that's what Aizen wanted too). There's not much to his plan, as he and his Nazi cosplayers are just going to brute force their way through Soul Society. But I can't argue that he has presence. His character design really stands out compared to a lot of shounen villains.

Chad: deserved better. He had to listen to Ichigo's dumb speech about being persecuted due to his strawberry hair, while being a mixed race person in Japan.

Rukia/Orihime: To be honest, I kept forgetting that these two were separate characters. They both exist to get damselled, and beyond that have little identifiable character or impact on the plot. They're both basically the worse version of Sakura from Naruto.

Bucket hat: the best mad scientist of the series. And he's got a fun hat.

Fire Captain: I love characters that are repeatedly said to be the strongest character in their organizations, and then lose every single conflict they're involved in. He gets beaten by Aizen strategically in Soul Society, physically beaten by him in Heuco Mundo, and then folded by Jesus in thousand year blood war. The guy is pathetic and it's hard to take the Soul Reapers seriously due to their reverence of this moron.

Rukia's brother: his Bankai is Unlimited Blade Works. I wonder if people die when they're killed by it.

The Soul Reaper Captains: the big guy who thinks bankai are pointless is a stand out, I really feel his vibe.
The big dog is definitely a big dog.
The guy who dress like samurai had a pretty fun bankai, the children's shadow tag game was very different from the rest of the captains.
The ice kid is so forgettable that my girlfriend was convinced I was trying gaslight her about his existence. She had no memory of him whatsoever, and refused to believe she had forgotten a fan favorite character like him.
The rest of the captains are there, not much more to say about them.

The Arrancar/Quincy Captains: they're the soul reaper captains, but in white and are (debatably) more evil. Most of them are introduced to be killed off in a few chapters, and most of their gimmicks aren't that memorable.

The Cat: 10/10 no notes, 2nd best character.

Pesche: G.O.A.T. I love him. I read this series for him. I made a mood board that was just images of him. He should've been the lead. I relate to him because I also find Ichigo forgettable. Also he's voiced by Dio in the anime so he has a sensuality that you wouldn't expect from a hollow.

The rest of the characters could probably be removed from the story without much change to the plot.

World Building:
The world building in the first arc is pretty good (until we find out that hell and Hueco Mundo are apparently different things). Each little story introduced something new, and we get a good handle on the balance between Soul Reapers and Hollows.
And then Soul Society happens. Soul Society is the afterlife (for only Japan?), run by the Soul Reapers. The Soul Reapers are also eventually revealed to be a different species from humanity, which begs the question where do their souls go when they die. In Soul Society, Soul Reapers just police the slums inhabited by the souls of humanities dead, who eventually reincarnate back into the human world. It's a poorly explained version of feudal Japan, and the Soul Reapers are Samurai. It also makes them massive dick heads, a problem the series never recovers from. Every villain that wants to destroy them is justified, tear down the system and build something new.
By Hueco Mundo, Kubo had given up. It's basically the neither world from Beetlejuice, hollows eat each other until they become sentient, and then they go to the big Arrancar tower. There's no depth to this.
The Quincy empire is so oddly explained. Is it in a pocket dimension? Did they conquer part of earth five hundred years ago in Nazi outfits? Kubo doesn't care and neither do I.

Art:
I'm going to cover this real quick. I don't think most of the character designs work real well. The Captains of the respective factions mostly blend together since they all share a basic aesthetic. A lot of Kubo's faces are incredibly similar, and his backgrounds are at best lazy and usually just white empty voids.
However, Kubo can actually draw black people, which is almost unheard of in Japan, so I was really impressed by that.

Themes:
The main issue with Ichigo being such a reactive character is that hypothetically his motivations should change arc to arc predicated on whatever external conflict he's faced with, however due to Bleach's repetitive story structure, he basically just repeats the same character arc four times. Become strong to defend your friends and protect the week. This isn't an inherently bad theme, but there's not much in the way of exploring it, making Bleach feel a little Hollow.

Final thoughts:
Do I think Bleach is particularly bad? No, it's fine as it doesn't excel at anything, but also isn't especially bad at anything other than pacing and repetitive story structure. I don't know if I would feel differently if I had started reading or watching Bleach when I was a teenager, but I have to admit that I doubt it, due to Bleach's greatest issue. It's far too long for what it is. It doesn't have the depth to sustain 74 volumes. If it had been shorter, 20 to 30, it would've been fast enough to keep me engaged, like equally simple series such Demon Slayer or JJK. But as it is, it's a slog to get through.