Bleach is a show that is complicated to talk about for me. Back when I first watched the series, I was watching it around the time where they were airing the Soul Society arc on TV and that was like starting the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and you start with the Two Towers and as a result, the previously established world building and context was lost on me and I was kind of just "eh" if not borderline apathetic towards the show among other reasons. I would catch Bleach again on TV later on, and the funny thing about it is that I watched the series at least 3 depressing points in my life. After me saying all this, it sounds like Bleach should be an anime I very much enjoy and that I should be singing nothing but praises for it but I can't. I recently watched it again because of all the hype surronding the 1000 Year Blood War arc adaptation and it made me curious if me dropping the series around the Arancar arc 10 years ago was a wise decision or if I was just impatient, turns out me disliking Bleach post Soul Society arc was very much me not being impatient. Bleach is a show with a good framwork but the execution is strongly lacking.
Before I start criticizing Bleach, I will be positive about it for a few paragraphs. When it comes to the openings, style, and especially the music of the series, the show is great, the OST is fantastic stuff, it's up there with anime like Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex, Death Note, .hack//sign, and Full Metal Alchemist 2003 in how the music is both atmospheric, immersing you into the scenes, and being great songs in their own right, some Bleach songs I still listen to this day. The Tensa Zangetsu Bankai theme or "soft strums" is one of my favorite anime songs of all time and "nothing can be explained" is pretty much my brooding music.
Bleach's characters can be very well written and charismatic, not all of them since it has far too many for the show to handle, but I do very much enjoy the members of the the Soul Society with characters like Byakuya Kuchiki, Kenpachi Zaraki, Mayuri Kurotsuchi, among many others. These 3 characters I mentioned can often be borderline like villains than heroes. Kenpachi is a bloodthirsty battle driven psycho, Mayuri in some ways is basically if the X-Men villain, Mr. Sinister was on the side of good, and even Byakuya can be a little too much on the smug side even Genryu Yamamato's powers seemingly fits the powers of a villain more so than a hero. Rukia and Renji's backstories are pretty interesting and the Gungrave fan in me really did enjoy drawing the parallels between with them and Brandon Heat and Harry MacDowell. However, Bleach does have characters who aren't very good good at all and at times get more focus than the characters I mentioned like Orihime Inonue and Yatsura Sado. Uryu Ishida can be a decent character but that's the problem with Bleach, most of it's interesting and good characters are almost never given anything interesting to do or fight villains who are one note, and barely has any personal connections with.
Ichigo on paper is a pretty interesting character, sure it can sound a little corny with how he how much he loves to emphasize that he protects friends and family but I do find him interesting in how he kind of thinks like a mobster where if you mess with anyone in social circle, you directly mess with him. He talks like he is selfless when you can argue it's more out selfishness. There is a lot you can take a character like this but Bleach doesn't really do this more on that later.
The first 60 something or so episodes of Bleach, I'd say are solid stuff, Ichigo's backstory on how he blames himself for his mother's death I find to be compelling since it gives a good enough reason for his hero complex to be a thing and why he has such an obessesion with protecting those he loves. It also explains why he is so serious all the time. Sure it may sound a little too similar to Yu Yu Hakusho but I'd argue Bleach does a good job at being different like how Ichigo chose to be a Soul Reaper out of reluctance where Yusuke had to find out after dying that people cared for him. The Soul Society arc is basically Saint Seiya meets the Green Lantern mythos.
Speaking of the Soul Society arc, it's generally good stuff, Rukia is pretty compelling in how she is conflicted on whether or not she deserves to live or die and her backstory of being a street urchin who blames herself for the death of the only person who cared for outside of Renji is compelling stuff. The part where the aforementioned "soft strums" song when Ichigo saved her from the execution admittedly got me teary eyed. Byakuya is built up very well as an antagonist, where it might be Bleach's best and only good use of the Worf Effect, where the power gaps between him and Ichigo is slowly closing but it at the same time, kind of far, and the latter needing to learn Bankai fast really adds urgency to the story.
This will also be the only time I praise Sosuke Aizen as a villain here since in the Soul Society arc, he is kind of compelling in that Momo geniunely wants to believe he is a good person and the story in turns does a good job making you buy that Aizen could be that but ultimately, he was nothing more than a two faced liar, it's all foreshadowed very well since Toshiro is the guy doubting Aizen's "true" intentions. His plans get a little silly but compared to what happens later, this is just least of the how dumb it gets.
There are some issues with the arc, like how it begins with Ichigo's and his friends, the latter pretty much disppears for a lot of the arc but I'm willing to overlook this.
The later two filler arcs of Bleach like Zanpakuto Rebellion and Gotei 13 Invasion are solid and are far better than the later canon arcs post Soul Society like the Arancar and Fullbring. The characters introduced in the Soul Society are given more interesting villains to fight with the former being their own swords and the latter being clones of themselves. And the Gotei 13 Invasion arc in general was the one time where I was like, "you know Bleach can be cool" back when I watched it on TV. These two arcs prevent me from giving Bleach a 4 and instead raises my score to a 5. I won't go too much into detail here since these are filler arcs and I doubt many will even watch them since they have no bearing on the overall canon, but if you are like me, and you want to see some of the better characters in Bleach given interesting stuff to do then it is worth watching, if you like Byakuya Kuchki like I do then I say Zanpakuto Rebellion is a must watch since he has a very epic fight with Koga and it adds a lot of depth to his character, only problem is, this isn't apart of Bleach's canon so it's up to you.
This already tells you a lot, if Bleach's most well written stories post Soul Society are later filler arcs and not the canon then that tells you everything, the supposed me being "positive" for a few paragraphs might've went on longer than it did but I still stanby that everything related to Bleach's canon post Soul Society is a huge mess.
The Arancar arc might be something I will use as proof that characters can't carry a dull and boring plot. It starts off okay with me even respecting Ikkau for beating his enemy without a random powerup but once the Heuco Mundo portions of the show begin, everything and I mean everything starts falling apart. Orhime was already nothing more than a quirky airhead and now there is an entire arc focused on rescuing her, at least Rukia was interesting. What's worse is that Orihime's "kidnapping" doesn't amount to anything, she never comes close to destroying Hogyoko, Aizen never needed her to invade Karakura Town and she gets kidnapped again for no reason after Ichigo spent multiple episodes fight Aizen's minions and Grimmjow, and Kenpachi also fighting one of Aizen's henchmen that he has no personal connection with.
It doesn't end there either, this arc barely has much of a plot, character development, or learning anything new about the characters, it's esstentially just one and I mean LONG fight scene. Sure this is shonen this what you watch these stories for but to describe the Arancar arc of Bleach is this:
What if the Dragon Ball Z's Namek Saga had Vegeta fight characters like Cui, Zarban, Dadoria, and the Ginyus for 20-30 episodes and every fight was as long as the final battle with Freiza? You get this.
I stopped watching Bleach in 2015 because nothing happened for multiple episodes on end, and it turned out me and seemingly many other people were smart in dropping it around this arc.
The only good villains in the Arancar arc I had any attechment towards with were Grimmjow and Yammy since they actually did some villainous stuff like antagonizing Ichigo's friends and showing how powerful they are, seeing Grimmjow finally get beaten was nice especially considering this is the only rivalry in the Arancar arc that got buildup and payoff. None of the other Espadas are even on this level since they show up, have a long fight and then have a lengthy flashback revealing their backstories right before they are about to die.
However all the good I can say comes back with more negatives, remember how I said, I liked Byakuya, Kenpachi and Mayuri? They pretty much become benchwarmers in Heuco Mundo when the real fighting starts happening in Fake Karakura Town and that is after them fighting boring and one note villains they have no personal connection with.
Ichigo as a character I stopped taking seriously too since his win against Uliquorra was completely unearned and he pretty much got a powerup out of nowhere to beat him. It was already questionable that Ichigo was able to use his Hollow Powers without completing his Vizard training but I can argue that was just him learning as he is going but this is just nonsense since it's pretty obvious that Ichigo needs to win but he hasn't learned anything besides Hollowfying and Getsuga Tensho and on a side note, you know how in shonen where the protagonist trains and learns new moves? Ichigo just has his Bankai, Getsuga Tensho and Hollowfying(this eventually gets taken away too), so have fun watching the same repetitive fights with him.
Then there is Aizen, I don't even know where to get started with Aizen post Soul Society, he's like the kind of guy who claims he is really good at video games but can't play without cheat codes or assist options. There is his motivation that he wants to kill the Soul King but the thing is multiple episodes will go by and not much is revealed about the Soul King or even getting much insight into Aizen's motivations...until the very end of the arc where Kisuke does his whole sealing thing on him but by that point Aizen is almost beaten you had hundreds of episodes to explain this, too little too late.
There is extremely overpowered abilties in which if you see his shikai, you are under his hyponsis, you can't break out of it, and there is no way to fight back, this makes every fight with him boring as all hell since it's hard to tell if the heroes even know they are under his hyponosis and every fight with Aizen up until his final battle with Ichigo is him effortlessly winning. Frieza and Cell at the very least had their moment of vunerability while also being dominant where Aizen doesn't show his vunerablity until the end which by that point, I stopped caring.
Another issue is what even was the point of the Espadas? Aizen during the Fake Karakura Town fight effortlessly beats the Vizards and Soul Society with only Yamamato being the only one who could lay a dent on him. All Aizen had to do was make Wonder Weiss and that was it. He was apparently afraid of Kenpachi, Mayuri and Byakuya but why? Were they immune to his hyponosis, but you need to touch his shikai in order to hurt him so could Kenpachi hurt him? Never made clear.
Of course then there is the whole him planning Ichigo's entire life and the entire series up until he fought Aizen again, many have criticized this reveal but what I find silly about all this all is nothing more than Kubo giving Ichigo a personal stake to defeat Aizen since the former is given no real stake in having the latter get beaten. Aizen was basically a Soul Society matter and outside of Ichigo and him having that one fight in the Soul Society arc, Aizen has done nothing to Ichigo. This retcon just feels like a laughable attempt at giving them a personal connection considering how silly and ridiculous for Sosuke to somehow have every win and loss Ichigo had go according to plan, this is what I mean when he feels like someone who says he's good at video games but needs to cheat to win.
After all of this, the Arancar arc is already a poorly written mess I've written multiple paragraphs about it but the Fullbring arc? It's also bad and poorly written, XCUTION is even more dull and one note than the Espadas since once the Soul Society shows up towards the end, they get beaten extremely easily despite them apparently being important characters to the story. At least the Espadas put up an actual fight.
Ginjo is a poor man's Sensui even if that has been said many times. There is so little shown about Ginjo's past as a former Substitute Soul Reaper and there is yet another retcon regarding Ukitake giving them combat passes for survalliance but why or for what reason? Who knows. The arc ends before Ichigo can question Ukitake and he shockingly forgives him very easily too. On top of giving Ginjo a proper burial after all the stuff he put Ichigo through.
Then there is other awful things about the arc like how Ichigo's Fullbring training was ultimately pointless since his actual Soul Reaper powers come back not too long after the former was taken and why did Rukia and the Soul Society keep it a secret from him? To throw off Ginjo and XCUTION? What's even the point in that? They pretty much stood no chance to begin with.
Other issues include how Orihime, Chad and Uryu might become important again to the story after not providing much of anything to the story as a whole but that is ultimately a red herring since the first two get hypotonized and Uryu outside of revealing Ginjo being a villain doesn't provide much.
One good thing about the arc was how Ichigo's friends and family were used against him since it's nice to see the thing Ichigo fights for being put on it's head.
However no one of geniune importance even dies.
This leads to my final issue with Bleach, is there any long term progression for anything? Sure the characters are slightly older by the Fullbring arc but that's about it. No one major even dies, there's barely any long term character development and the show by the end of the Fullbring arc is barely that different to when it started. Is there any more information revealed on the Soul King? No. Does Ichigo or anyone's character fundamentally changes? No. You can criticize Dragon Ball for not having death be permanent but at least there is SOME plot progression. Kami and Piccolo fuse, Gohan grows older and gets married, Vegeta and Bulma hook up, Dende becomes the new guardian of earth and Vegeta learns humlity and Mr. Satan even starts to become a geniune ally.
Naruto even had the Shinobi world end in some form of peace by the end of Shippuden.
Yu Yu Hakusho even attempted to give Yusuke a character of arc of slowly becoming more like a demon which could've been great if the 3 Kings arc was better.
Bleach has none of this and this makes me question why I got to end of the anime's original run at all. I might watch the 1000 Year Blood War arc when it ends next year but I'm find it hard to care now, Tite Kubo just isn't a good writer. Bleach had a solid framework but the execution is just severly lacking on all fronts to even reccomend to anyone at all if they don't have a previously established nostalgic connection to it like I did.
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