Bleach's Thousand Year Blood War arc had, in my opinion, a superb first cour and a bit of an underwhelming second cour. After a long wait, I was excited to see if the extra production time benefitted the season, and I also wanted to see if season 2's sacrifices ended up benefitting season 3 as many people told me it would. And it did.
==SPOILER WARNING==
Bleach's third cour has so many strengths. It has - for the most part - very good animation and detail. It's new director has incorporated a ton of versatile and unique shots that add gravitas to the individual fights. It's voice
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acting is, as always, superb, and its soundtrack is the best it has ever been. Most notably though, it adds a ton of new contact. We got brand new fights, none of which felt out of place or tacked on, as well as extended battles that we'd only seen brief fragments of in the manga. The additions elevate the story and help to flesh out individual character arcs. For example, Uryu's additional fight with Renji help to portray the character in a more ambiguous light, and his extended battle with Ichigo makes his perceived 'betrayal' that much more impactful because we see how well the pair understand each other.
Bleach's fights fell apart for me in cour 2 but I think they've mostly recomposed themselves. For starters, it helps that there aren't too many fights, whereas the second season felt over bloated. Secondly, cour 2 fell into the issue of unexpected power up reveal followed by unexpected power up reveal which made the season feel very repetitive. That isn't really the case here. We have a lot more actual combat where the characters play around with the arsenal that is available to them and therefore when one character gets the upper hand in a fight, it feels much more earnt - for example, in the Mayuri vs Pernida fight or the Yoruichi vs Askin fight. That doesn't mean there are no deus ex-machina type moments - I'll get to that in a bit - but on the whole the fights feel stellar. The pacing of this season was well done, in my opinion, with no fights feeling prolonged to the point where it damages the viewing experience.
The season's opening is stellar, with amazing animation and superb creative choices in regards to its use of colours. It's ending is also good, although its reversed version feels a bit half-baked as a concept and you can tell it doesn't fit properly. Nonetheless, both great themes.
The season does a very good job at fleshing out characters with backstories. It also reveals the stories in segments, as opposed to one heavy dump, which allows the backstory and current events to run concurrently and keeps the episodes well paced. The Friends flashback sequences were very well done and I very much enjoyed how the episode switched between the past and the present to maintain good pace and action.
Bleach has always been a character driven series and its character work is really something here. There's a lot of great moments between characters like Shinji and Momo, or Shunsui and Nanao. The story also progresses nicely, with some of the key villains falling, and the Soul Society going on the offensive. The change of setting is very nice and as much as I loved the red skies of the Sereitei and the dazzling blue of the Soul King Palace, I think the backdrop of darkness is the best in TYBW so far.
There are some flaws with this season, however. I'll first discuss a couple things I would've liked to have seen done differently, but don't impact the score:
- Bleach only introduces backstories directly before we see the pay-off of them. For example, we only see the Shunsui and Nanao flashback during the fight where it becomes relevant. It is the same with the Nemu and Mayuri flashbacks. I don't mind this, but would have liked a change of pace every now and then with some being at least partially introduced before they became integral to the plot, as I feel they would have then had more emotional impact.
- I would have liked Pernida to be hand-drawn as giant Gerard was. The CGI just looked a bit weird in my opinion.
- I would have liked the antithesis to have played into Renji's survival and his inclusion with the Gerard confrontation felt a bit janky.
There are other issues I can't look past and ultimately pull the season down a bit.
- Episode 1 begins with a lengthy recap - I think there are production reasons for this so I understand it but it does ultimately harm the viewing experience. The ending of episode 14 with Askin also felt like a weird way to end the season: it would have worked maybe partway through or in the penultimate episode but alas.
- Episode 2 is not well animated and I was very surprised to see people enjoy the episode, as for me it is visually the weakest episode of all of TYBW. All detail is completely lost during the Yhwach vs Ichigo fight but this isn't replaced by good choreography or fluid animation - a lot of the fight is janky and simply comprised of different coloured lines flying around. It also was filled with awkward movements, especially the sequence with Ichigo stabbing the Soul King. This episode really hurts the overall quality of cour 3.
- Nanao's sword feels just as much of an asspull in the anime as it does in the manga. It should have been foreshadowed, perhaps in the episodes were the Soul Reapers were preparing to head up to the Soul King Palace, as there was a lot of room for character interactions. It even could have been hinted at in the first part of the Shunsui vs Lille fight. Instead, it just ends up feeling cheap and a silly convenience.
- Uryu's actions in episode 14 feel very silly. It doesn't make sense, to me, why he would just decide to tell Ichigo his plan when he did - why not do it sooner? Why not keep it a secret? I am excited for the consequences but it just felt so nonsensical. He gets surprised when Haschwalth appears but this doesn't make sense to me because he knew Haschwalth had the almighty. I am also confused as to why Haschwalth was referring to his normal schrift despite saying he'd swapped powers with Yhwach, and also as to why Yhwach wouldn't suspect Uryu if he too can see into the future and would know Uryu is a traitor, but because I feel like that will be explored in cour 4 these don't really affect me. Just Uryu's actions do.
- Some of the dialogue feels corny but hey its a Shounen. I will say though, the soul reapers' reactions to Byakuya decapitating (?) Gerard in the final episode was ridiculous. How is killing your enemy, who threatens the entire universe as you know it, going 'too far'?
Despite its flaws, Cour 3's strengths heavily outweigh them. This feels like a very solid season, with a good balance between different storylines, great pay-offs, emotional moments, exciting action-packed moments, and simply unforgettable moments. Paired with killer animation, composition, and an ingenious use of colours, along with a director with a unique vision, Cour 3 learns from Cour 2's mistakes and lays the groundwork for what could be a truly mind-blowing final season.
I give this season a 9/10
Dec 29, 2024 Recommended Well-written 
Bleach's Thousand Year Blood War arc had, in my opinion, a superb first cour and a bit of an underwhelming second cour. After a long wait, I was excited to see if the extra production time benefitted the season, and I also wanted to see if season 2's sacrifices ended up benefitting season 3 as many people told me it would. And it did.
==SPOILER WARNING== Bleach's third cour has so many strengths. It has - for the most part - very good animation and detail. It's new director has incorporated a ton of versatile and unique shots that add gravitas to the individual fights. It's voice ... 
Aug 25, 2023
This review is a repost, for some reason it only said I'd seen 3 episodes by the time of the review when I had input 7.
Bleach is my favourite anime, and when the television series ended I read the manga. Everybody agreed that the beginning of TYBW was amazing, but then it became an absolute shit show being both rushed and bloated and featuring formulaic fight after formulaic fight. Most people came to the consensus that the 2nd invasion is where this arc decides to go downhill. I have been hoping and praying that they'd make some changes to improve it. But as of right ... 
Feb 17, 2021
FLCL is a ride. A wild ride. It's an experience, it's not meant to be a narrative driven journey, it's a mish mash of different ideas that somehow, despite seeming like they'd fall apart, stay together and work alongside eachother.
I interpreted FLCL as a different way to someone else, and that someone else will most likely interpret it in a different way to the next person. FLCL is a story about many things: about how childhood only lasts for as long as you let it, about how life can be with a family who don't seem to care about you, about how it's hard to ... 
Feb 12, 2021
Jujutsu Kaisen
(Anime)
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BEWARE: POSSIBLE MINOR SPOILERS - I see a lot of people comparing Jujutsu Kaisen to Naruto in how it's similar to it, and whilst I do agree, the way I see Jujutsu Kaisen is basically Bleach without swords.
A lot of the story beats near the beginning are pretty similar- the first episode for instance: he's a normal high school kid who has 2 people close to him attacked by a weird monster, where he decides to go fight it despite being told to go by someone who knows about how to fight these monsters. In Bleach, Ichigo's a normal high school kid who has 2 ... |
