Jan 31, 2016
Reviewing Bleach is a hard thing to do, due to its inconsistency.
The first 50 episodes contained some of the best storytelling I've ever seen. Interesting characters,astonishing fights, shocking plot twists, awesome soundtracks, and a good animation for the 2006 standards.
If I had to rate the first seasons, I'd honestly give it a 10/10. Objectively, it might be just an 8 or a 9, but up to this point, it was the anime I enjoyed the most.
After those 50 first episodes, Bleach took a huge dive downwards, airing a complete filler Arc with about 40 episodes. To be fair, it wasn't terrible, but didn't fit
...
in the universe at all. Vampires invading heaven? Yeah, that's just a terrible idea. The character development was non-existent, and knowing that there won't be any consequences for the protagonists going into a fight, it was a pretty boring arc.
I'd give it a 4/10, because it wasn't enjoyable at all to me.
After that, the series got better, reintroducing the actual story by Tite Kubo. Many new interesting characters were introduced, creating great tensions. The feeling of a war coming up was intense, and created a great atmosphere at first. But as soon as things came down to the final fights, you could see that the plot stood in front of the characters like a huge shield. None of the protagonists faced any danger from the eyes of the viewer. The fights weren't one-sided, but the tension from the first arc ws lost entirely. All the newly introduced characters were kinda shoved away, and semmed like canon fodder. This arc displays the main part of the series with about 150 episodes. To be fiar, these 150 episodes were paced pretty good, unlike in other series. There was always something new per episode, progressing the story. Bleach had many ups and downs during that time, with some great scenes bing followed by complete trash.
There als o were many filler arcs around 15 episodes per Arc, which didn't bother me although. They were written in a good style, and fit to the universe. They also weren't attempting to extend the plot, but played in some sort of parallel timeline, which I think was very good.
If I had to rate these 200 somewhat episodes, I'd give a 7/10.
And then there is the last arc... In my eyes, it's complete trash. Bad character design, too complicated plot which made it pretty boring, and full of excuses and convenient coincidences. The quality of the animation got way better, but that's the only good thing about it.
I'd give this arc a 4/10
So, to sum it up.
Great beginning, which then got pretty bad pretty fast, with some highlights, which couldn't make the series better as a whole.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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