BLEACH REVIEW
With the upcoming final part of Bleach being adapted in 2021, we can’t miss talking about this famous and long-time one of Shonen anime icons. I watched Bleach when I was around 9. I can assure you it was my jump from Digimon, Doraemon, and casual Zoids to my compulsory anime watcher tendencies I held until almost finishing high school.
I'm not especially into shonen anime, but I was attracted to this one; I don't know why, even more than One Piece and Naruto. And it was an interest that never left. It was the first shonen anime finished and, at the moment, still the longest I have ever seen, so in many ways, it is a special shonen for me. It turned even into the first manga I purchased. But we won't talk about the manga a lot, and it’s finale here (Because that would end up in an endless rant as the two latest arcs ended, trashing over my love for Bleach as a Fan) So without further ado, let’s begin with this review!
Bleach's premise is simple: a seemingly normal boy, Kurosaki Ichigo, can communicate with spirits. One night, a young woman dressed in black introduces herself as a "shinigami" (god of death) and is immediately attacked by a supernatural being called Hollow. After falling defeated against the creature, she convinces the protagonist to become a substitute shinigami and face the Hollow. After defeating it, a strange collaborative relationship begins between the two.
Bleach's early story arcs are more than decent, even though we are occasionally introduced to too large a number of characters. However, each fulfills its role in the first half of the series, enriching each narrative arc. The turning point is the vizards arc, from which both anime and manga suffered a palpable slump and began to rile even die-hard fans.
DEVELOPMENT
I must confess that I liked the series a lot during the first part of it, with well-crafted arcs, exciting battles, and characters that, although sometimes they sinned into having black and white personalities, came to surprise the audiences and be credible enough.
Since the fall of Aizen (although the series had already begun to falter in terms of content and quality a little bit earlier), the quality standard of Tite Kubo dropped drastically. The Fullbringer saga is BAD, with capital letters, and the final saga, The Thousand-Year Bloody War, was the last straw to a work that had to end with the fall of Aizen.
Characters everywhere (who were not engaging in narrative terms), open plots abound, poorly answered questions, and villains who hid for a thousand years in a place that I prefer not to remember. Each of these things continued to subtract points from a work that suffered from a disease sadly known among successful shonen: wanting to stretch the series infinitely.
It is well known that Tite Kubo planned to end the series after the Aizen arc, where Ichigo returns to being a normal boy and says goodbye to Rukia, and even the name of this chapter is a direct reference to the first of the manga. But his publisher and the contract with Shonen Jump were something that did not turn out as they thought in the long run.
It was already a constant plot weakness that Ichigo had a new story added to his background that gave him a new power for every new arc. They ended up twisting his roots once more to provide it with a unique ability, to no one's surprise in the last turn. The quality of the series varies. I can indicate without a doubt that I recommend the series until episode 342 of the anime.
ANIMATION
In the beginning (as usual), there was not much production put in the animation of Bleach. The scenes were not well animated, and the characters needed something to be more striking. However, as time passed, the animation became much better. The battles became an epic thing to watch, and the settings were always pretty well animated. Besides, as time passed, the animation began to complement very well the fantastic soundtrack used.
Is Bleach a good series? His first-half, yes, of course. Until the fall of Aizen, it was a typical shonen, quite exciting and with attractive characters. The following sagas can be avoided as they don't add much to the story. The problem with Bleach is that sense of wasted potential. To see a good concept, lose its way and its ability to generate surprise. In the end, no matter twists were introduced, Kubo Tite was unable to surprise me, to thrill me, to generate tension. In the case of the manga, I ended up skimming through the newly released chapters because it got boring. And that for any fan of the series hurts a lot.
It is a real shame that Bleach and Naruto, two of the most critical series of a generation of manga lovers, did not end in a dignified way, and they dragged on until they significantly devalued their quality as a work.
Am I waiting for the adaptation of the last final Bleach arc? Yes, absolutely; I hope that this is different from what is drawn on paper for some reason. Despite anything, it is still a series very close to me as Otaku and any new project will have my interest. Burn the Witch (a side project released recently settled in the Bleach universe) is a series of OVAS I highly recommend watching. And it shows that the author can still find a place to redeem Bleach and show the world its improvement.
