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I'm writing this review completely fresh, having finished A girl on the shore just a couple of minuets ago, and it left such an impact on me that I felt I had to come straight to MAL and write my first review in over 3 years. Not because this was such a thought provoking or inspiring work that I felt I simply needed to tell everyone to read it as fast as I could, no quite the opposite, I feel as if this is one of the most DISAPPOINTING Manga's/Anime's I've had the displeasure of watching/reading. I honestly can not believe this is written by ... the same author of Solanin, which I love to death even though it did have it's problems. "A Girl on the Shore" is nothing but problems however. Where do I even start?

Well I guess I'll start on a high note and say that the art is average. Scenes are well drawn and detailed, however (and this is a problem I have with all of Inio Asano's works) the faces -specifically the eyes- give me a weird uncanny valley feeling. So that's the best thing I can say about this manga. Buckle up because now we 'bout to get super negative.

The plot could not be any.... you know what I can't even finish this sentence because too many negative adjectives come to mind. It's all over the place, it has abysmal pacing, terrible direction, and even though a lot does happen, the plot never, ever, EVER, feels like it's going anywhere. I never felt like tension was building, or any conflict was moving the plot forward. If I didn't know any better I'd say that the plot only existed as a vehicle to move the 'story' between the sex scenes.

Oh yeah, the sex scenes.

There are sex scenes. So be prepared for that, because I certainly wasn't. Now I am no prude, and I am not one to just turn my eyes the second something edgy or challenging get's presented to me, but this manga was just too much. I don't want to spoil, but there are some sex related scenes that just serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever and only seem to be in there to shock you. If the blurb for this manga makes you think its a traditional romance, well it isn't, so if that's what you want, look elsewhere.

Now then, the worst part, the characters. Again, the only other work I've read by this author was Solanin, which had (in my opinion at least) EXTREMELY well done and realistic characters who where all relate-able in one way or another. "A Girl on the Shore" however, is the complete opposite. Absolutely none of the characters left an impact on me in any way shape or form. I don't remember a single name, and like I said in my first paragraph, I literally JUST finished this manga. Not only are they not relate-able or memorable, they aren't even LIKE-ABLE. A bad story can really be saved by good characters, but in this case the characters drag the story down EVEN further. EVERYONE is an asshole. EVERYONE. Everyone treats everyone like shit, so you don't root for anyone, so you don't care about anyone, so you just start speed reading to get this fucking drag of a book over with. It isn't like the twists near the end are unpredictable. Fucking hell you know the ending word for word by the 5th god damn page. This is not realistic character depiction Inio! No one acts like this even in middle school!

Overall, all I can say is do not fucking buy this. It's a waste of money and a waste of paper. My heart goes out the the tree that had to die just so it could produce this fucking mess. Even reading online is a waste of time, and if it's porn you're after, well buddy if you haven't heard you can find tons of it for free without a fucking tragically retarded story blocking everything. I'll be honest though, near the middle of the book there are 1 or 2 moments that had me thinking "My god is this finally going somewhere". But obviously no, it went right back to being shit. It gets one point added to it just because it fucking trolled me. It's safe to say that I'll continue to cherish Solanin, forget this exists, and never take a chance on Inio Asano again.

I wrote this review when I was like 14. Please ignore everything. Im sure you will after reading "Bleach remains one of my favorite mangas...." anyways. Just dont bother with this series watch something good

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Bleach remains one of my favorite mangas of all time, and I was excited to see it as an anime, but after finishing it, I wish I had just stuck with the manga.

Lets start with story; Which the anime did a decent job of conveying from the manga, that is, when the anime CARED about the actual story. There is so much filler in the anime. There are entire filler ... arcs that completely de-rail the pacing of the rest of the show, adding filler characters that have their own filler back stories. FILLER INSIDE OF FILLER.The plot also moves at a snails pace in the anime, one issue of the manga boils to about 4 episodes at best. Some times it just feels like a chore to watch, but it has its moments.Overall, the story is very good with many, many, unexpected twists that you won't see coming, and a very satisfying ending, (I'm actively trying to forget anything happens after the fullbringer arc)

Art and Sound; The animation is nothing special, very stereotypical stuff. Does nothing to shake up the formula, but doesn't really need to. As for the soundtrack, its very, VERY hit and miss. The beginning of the show hosts some great openings, decent at best endings, and at the time, a GREAT in show soundtrack. Notice how I said 'at the time'? Well it's true, in the beginning, every song seems so cool, but with 366 episodes and only 1 or 2 songs added in, the background music quickly gets repetitive and tedious,except for the series's "signature song" 'Number One', and it's many re-mixes

Characters; Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. Here we have Bleaches biggest downfall, the cast. While they're a certainly great, funny, relate-able, and bad-ass characters in bleach, their screen time is very lacking. The main cast that has most of the screen time are either 2cool4u edgemasters (like Ichigo, Renji, Byakuya, Rukia, the list goes on...) or just annoying as fuck charecters (KUROSAKI-KUN, KUROSAKI-KUN, KUROSAKI-KUN....) It's not a completely hateable cast, its a 50/50 draw of whether you will like a certain character or not. For the most part, you can put up with them, but it is by no means a solid cast.

Overall Enjoyment and Recommendation; Bleach the Anime is very, very long. And in my opinion, the amount of enjoyment you get out of it vs the amount of time you put into it is not equal. It's so painfully average in everything it does while just being able to barely keep you enticed for the whole ride. My recommendation is that if you really want to experience bleach, just Sod the anime and read the manga. If you are hellbent on watching the anime, I would quit after the soul society arc, because it goes far downhill from there.