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Bleach fans REJOICE!

Being one of the first anime I fully watched, I can thank bleach for turning anime into a passion for me (or maybe not? hahaha), which lead to me loving Japan, and the next thing you know, I have been living there now for a bit and am much thankful for it.

Does that make me biased? Hell yes, and aren't we all in some way?

Let me pull out a bit of negatives before I fanboy away; Bleach has never been the best in terms of consistent plot, nor has it been with power scaling, and a lot of people would mention that ... it doesn't have very deeply developed main characters, which I generally agree with (although they do fit with the anime). BUT out of the big three shounen, I would say it has the best "VIBE": it has good music, awesome villains and STYLE; no seriously did you look at the DRIP that the characters have? Kubo should really have designed clothing... I am basically stating that, Bleach is a vibe.

It helps that I love supernatural settings (hello Yuu Yuu Hakusho) too; I just can't get enough of that sense of "mystery" that just pairs well with the music (or maybe it's the music that makes it that way?) and the story in general and it's... uniqueness; and no, not in terms of the generic shonen story, but in terms of the overall feel it gives compared to other shounens. I guess if you don't like it, you just don't get the vibe???

Jokes aside, let's talk about the current anime. I have read the manga until the end and yes there are scenes that I am kind of disappointed that are cut, but in the first place; those were cut because of complaints (from what I have heard, which is second-hand information); consumers are never happy aren't they? Ok, I agree, although I was hype, I feel like the first episode could have been a bit better, and there are bits here and there that I would have changed in the 2nd too (trying not to spoil so won't be too specific), but overall I know this arc is gonna rock and I am sure Kubo is looking at the big picture too; there are a lot of things that will happen, thus some things might need cutting. Even though I am nitpicking, I still think it was pretty well directed and executed overall and I was still hooked.

Although the new animation looks beautiful, I am not a fan of the 3d animation they used in the first episode for the hollows. The fights and cleanness from all the rest though compensates totally for it, and we won't be seeing much of it I presume as this arc doesn't contain a lot of hollows. Besides that, Bleach has never looked any better; which I am so thankful for.

The music remixes from old OST have been also a hit; the intro is a banger; I feel like bleach never disappoints when it comes to music, I would even come to say that it's the main reason why I truly enjoy the show. Music is completely subjective, but most people I know or talked to all agree that bleach's music is one of the big reasons why people fall in love with it. Some may not like it, and that's fine, surprisingly not all people in this world like chocolate either (weird right??), I wasn't a fan of the hollified remix; but I still think it fit and I am sure it's just a matter of getting used to it.

The characters are alsowhat made people stop bleach and made others into bleach fans at the same time. I agree that the main cast is very.... boring?; to a point where it gets pretty easy to know what most of them will say and how they will act at most times, and I am saying this even though I love them (let's exclude Orihime from here hahaha). Their dialogue is pretty easy to guess. This season they haven't seemed to change that much either, but I am liking the tension that stems from Uryu. The side characters and the villains thought? Broooooooooo. My favorite captains are back with style and am happy that you could see them in the first few episodes. I am also super stoked to see the villains in this arc come on air. I am also looking forward to the fights; this is the war arc after all.

For me, anime; like any form of entertainment; it all boils down to enjoyment. Even though I have some knicks and knacks, I have never felt this excited again to watch anime; and bleach, even though has never been the best show for me from a critical point of view, has always been the best at hyping me up and getting me excited to watch the next episode; a feeling I haven't felt ever since I was in my early teens, where I would go to school and just think about Bleach all day and would run back home just so I could binge watch it. I rewatched it, even with fillers, and still felt that way the second time and even when reading the manga. Rare are shows, or games nowadays that give me this feeling, and somehow, even through my nagging, I just can't contain my excitement for the next episode of this season.

Most people trash on this anime, it is "dull, predictive, slow-paced, too much screaming, etc." You know what? I agree with all of that but still gave it a 9.

Why is that? I don't even know myself. Even though I knew all of this, and it was obvious when watching the anime, the characters with almost no change in their personality repeating the same jokes, the story that you could kinda predict and fights you knew the outcome, I still clicked on the next episode and binge-watched all current episodes (132) in a week.

Cliches are everywhere, repeating a lot of "shounen-like" elements that are ... so obvious, but I think this is also what I liked about the show.

I am just a sucker for shounen shows, even though the characters felt a bit dull, I was still very attached to them and the black bulls. Even though they repeated the same lines, it's because they did so that I got attached to them, they are quite stupid and that is what made me laugh so much. I also found it funny that they used the same joke so often, it became funny because of how often it was said and not because of the nature of the joke itself.

Talking about jokes, there are some seriously funny moments that made me crack up almost at Gintama level funny (almost).

Even though the story was predictable, I was still wondering how certain elements went and what else could I learn in this magic-filled world. Yes, I did skip recap episodes and long flashback moments

I have nothing to say about the art, it was pretty good in my opinion, some mishaps here and there but nothing bad.

Music was great, all openings and endings are awesome and probably a major factor for me for continuing to watch the show and being attached to it.

This anime made me re-think about critically watching shows, people these days watch shows because of their high score or have expectations be it low or high. After getting sucked in by this anime, I realized, why the heck do I watch shows for, to critically analyze it and rate by how much entertaining and interesting it was? (Ironic because that is technically what I am doing lol) No, I watch anime for ENJOYMENT and this anime reminded me of this feeling and made me forget about criticizing it. It did a good job at me liking it.

Even though a lot of the elements were questionable and I still question myself about it, I really enjoyed black clover. Maybe I am just a sucker for generic shounen.

Ping-pong the animation, I don't know where to begin. First of all, I always wanted to watch this anime because of the good rating, and I'm not a big fan of sports anime. MAY CONTAIN VERY MINOR SPOILERS (but won't affect your watch) ^^

Something I have to mention is that I played ping-pong myself a couple of years, and everything they say in the anime about the sport isn't exaggerated and stays true to the sport (although it represented older styled TT), it made me want to to play again.


At first, the the pacing is a bit slow, but as the show goes on ... you understand why, everything grows so well and connects so well, it's just so satisfying to watch. The story itself was very good (I enjoyed it a lot), I can't think of a way of how (with these settings) the story could have been better.

As you can see (if you have watched the trailer or see the art covers) the art itself is very unique, but I think that's what makes the anime better, I wouldn't change the art one bit, if you don't like it at first, but like good anime, it's worth the sacrifice. As for me, I really liked the art, it was really free-minded and paced, it grew on me as I continued to watch the series.


The sound itself is pretty good, you can hear very well the ping-pong shots, quality of sound and voices are also normal, ost is pretty decent, op and ed are very good, nothing really bad to say about it.

The characters are what made the most of the show for me (besides the fact that it was about ping-pong), you don't really get why they act like they do at first, but each character (for an 11 episode anime) have a lot of interesting end developed backstory that merges very well with the story. Even the side characters were interesting and added humour, I really liked every single character at the end of the series.

Overall I give 10/10 because of all these aspects and my personal attachment to Table tennis, I enjoyed a lot this series and would certainly re-watch! I highly recommend the anime if you like a slow paced but fully grown story (satisfying) and want to watch a good story. Anyone that is hesitating to watch this should definitively give it a try!

Interesting setting and loved the atmosphere of the show, that shows my love for mmorpgs (I play GW2, blade and soul, played WoW, Tera, etc.). Also for a short series, I was never really bored, it was for me, like discovering a new MMO. I liked the angle of living in an RPG world without being "trapped" in a game, the world itself is a game, but that's how it always been. I don't know what else can explain why I liked this anime so much, story-wise I was so intrigued by discovering the setting and how the world of this anime works (like how ... it would work if it were an mmo) that I wasn't even concentrated in the story. I loved seeing new high-level zones, combat, analysing what kind of classes there would be, professions, new beasts, etc. I felt integrated in the world itself out of my curiosity. Outside of that, radically speaking, I really don't know why I memorize this anime so much.

In short, it's an better version of SAO, with better waifu material.

Short review of this long popular shounen, this is my favorite anime of all time (probably because I watched it when I was young) but I will try to keep a critical view (impossible lol).

The story (as people say) downgrades after the first arc, and it's pretty repetitive at some points (shonen-style level-ups; new villain, more level-ups, etc.) but that's what I like about the show. I am a sucker for shonen after all. Also, it has vibes; good style, music, awesome villains and side characters, and a good mysterious / spirit vibe which creates a somewhat intriguing setting to say the least.

The art, for ... its year, is pretty amazing, a very good-looking anime in my opinion; I would even come to say it looked pretty dang good compared to other anime of its Era. To be honest, I am just biased as I love how the characters look.

The sound is what made me like bleach so much, I'm a big fan of music and they just seem to put on the right amount of music, all at the best times depending on the mood of the episode, I remember most of the OSTs by the hearth and have most on my pc and phone.

There are a lot of characters introduced, of course, some are useless, annoying (Orihime), and not very well developed, but what can I say, it has 366 episodes and in consequence, A LOT of characters, some of them are gonna annoy you for sure (unfortunately she is part of the main cast lol). Still, I am a sucker for edge lord characters and villains; and I would say the villains in this show are top-notch.

I recommend this show to anybody who likes typical shounen anime and mystery, also I need to mention that there are a lot of fillers (which I also enjoyed) but I recommend skipping them if you want full enjoyment of the show, else if you really love bleach, watch the fillers too, I personally think they were interesting. Critically I give this show an 8.5-9/10, but in my heart, (especially because of the OST) I give this show a 10/10.

So I'll make this a short review. As a review mentionned, this is not for everyone, if you like a detailed dialogue-heavy story (thought there is some action too) and op MC's then this show is for you.

Thought I recommend to be concentrated when you watch this show, because it may be confusing at times, I still have a lot of questions after finishing the show. I also felt a bit unsatisfied at the end, I still liked the setting of the show enough for me to watch it fully though.
The Art was pretty good, the music was normal (first OP is ... a banger tho), characters were not bad, but the story and plot was a bit confusing for me, since I wasn't too concentrated when I was watching this show (why did I farm in my MMO at the same time?). Even after a rewatch; I would give an Overall 6/10.