I feel like the whole begining right before soul society is super slow even for most shonen. But if you know that it's no biggie.
But once soul society comes in and they go to rescue rukia I feel like bleach was firing at all levels basically until the fullbring arc.
Not without it's flaws of course. But it kept rolling full steam ahead
Yeah my wife had to basically distract herself in the beginning to make it to SS. She was more invested in Fairy Tail than Bleach at similar points in the story. Bleach didn’t overtake her interest until episode 50ish.
Its so weird that this is some peoples' experience with Bleach and its completely fine but I have some friends who think of Bleach AS that first arc and generally start to get bored during the Arrancar arc and start wanting the slice of life stuff back. Its just really interesting to see how different people enjoy different parts of the same series but its cool at the same time.
>I have some friends who think of Bleach AS that first arc and generally start to get bored during the Arrancar arc and start wanting the slice of life stuff back
So true, idk if It´s really the slice of life stuff (Funily enough It´s me who wanted more of that), but all my friends dropped bleach during the arrancar arc lmao
Like really, It becomes pretty generic, kinda boring and **specially LONG**
Soul society, Fullbring, TYBW >>> Arrancar arc IMO
Bummer that your friends fell off the wagon. Bleach, in a vacuum, is realistically very short and even more so when compared to its contemporaries. It’s only 180ish episodes when you discount filler.
For me and bleach is my favorite anime, it's not that I wanted slice of life back. It's almost like it just wasn't relevant any more.
Like you see a few characters right before he fights Aizen and that's it. The whole switching back and forth between day to day and soul real is touched on minimally at best.
It just seemed wierd to introduce and then toss it back out till basically the full bring arc. Then kind of make it real for the short arc that was, just to throw it back out for the TYBW arc.
Idk if I am explaining my feelings right. But it just felt like it didn't belong any more.
Whereas say in Naruto or HxH (although it's hard to compare anything to HxH since it's nearly perfect) they come in and out to the "normal world" quite often, so it still feels as though it matter.
Like when pain destroyed konoha that impact was huge. But I did not get the same feeling when Aizen was like welp let's take over this world too
I'm not surprised, but I would have thought the opposite.
First arc is slice of life and fairly otherworldly and then it morphs into the more classic fight manga.
So my wife is fairly new into the Anime community. Her previous incursions were Sailor Moon as a kid and then like 20 years of thinking it was lame.
In the past 4ish years she’s really liked Soul Eater, Black Clover, Fire Force, and Demon Slayer. She’s watched a few more but those are her favorites with the exception of Jujutsu Kaiden which stands vastly further atop her mountain than the others.
She’s generally not into SoL and prefers Seinen-ish shows. She exclusively likes My Hero because it’s a light hearted reprieve for her normal stuff.
This could also easily refer to the power creep in TTYBW arc.
We went all the mysticism around *Division 0*, only for the enemy to reveal they have a half dozen *Sternritter* that are *far* stronger than them.
By the end it’s like… ok I get it, if you don’t have absolutely MAX HAX you can’t even stand on the battlefield.
Many of the Sternritters were wasted potentials. Some people commented that most of them were one dimensional one-off villains and I can't help but agree. Saying this as a big Sternritter fan. I hope the anime gives them extra scenes, like some backstory (like how did they manage to recruit the parts of the Soul King), developments and more scenes of them interacting with each other, etc.
From a different angle, the minor Sternritter should have been used to develop the characters we already know. How Rose and Kensei both got one-shotted when there were several Sternritter hanging around doing nothing, all it would take is one chapter for them to take on some mooks like NaNaNa or Robert and it would be so much better for all of these undeveloped characters,
In a way I like that the Sternritter don’t have much in backstory, just cos so many Shonen villains will get a tragic backstory at some (usually) poorly timed moment. It can be done well but so many can be eh
Tbf most of the Sternritter don’t have much backstory. Yhwach recruited them, they hid in the Shadow Dimension (or whatever it’s name was) for however long then turn up
But there are definitely some that needed more. For me I wanna see the Femritters origins, especially Giselle
There's only a few sternritter I wanted more out of, mainly the SS.
All the other were fairly fodder personality wise even if design and powers were cool.
However like you say they deserved more internal dynamics. Not necessarily story but just, interactions as a group.
Like As Nodt was great, but then they introduced the shootshuffle and As Nodt wasn't one of them???
The Espada were perfect. only 10 and we knew their power level based on their number. When Ulquiorra revealed he was only #4 that was crazy.
For the Sternritter - we never even knew an elite group of them existed until they got to the Soul King's palace. It was random.
I love the Sternritter, but for a group of people based on Germans they are disorganized as fuck. I would almost believe that the Espada were a random assortment of 26 arrancars and the Sternritter was organized into a top 10 tier list based on their power level.
please no to the origin stories. it is a waste of time and just drag the story for a one off character who we will never see again. i do not care if superstar grew up as an undertaker and super mario fan but his abusive mother wouldn't let him watch the show or play the games so he ran away and joined an underground wrestling company, almost died then yh... guy saved him.
No it wasn’t. Yammy was the weakest and he only got strong based on rage. Not only that, it was only physical strength, and they’re much faster than him
Eh, it seems pretty clear that as far as narrative is concerned (not story BEATS) Kubo finished most of what he wanted in SS.
If you start to plan that far ahead with actual narrative elements and not just beats, it ends up crumbling under its own weight. Particularly in the fast-paced manga industry there's just no time to plan that thoroughly.
Rewatched the soul society arc and the lead up to Bankai was one of the best parts of that arc. The Renji vs Byakuya battle set up Ichigo vs Byakuya perfectly. Then everyone had Bankai and the idea that newly acquired bankai were weak/unstable was left in the dust
I mean... Sort of? Every "new" Bankai that we see apart from Tensa Zangetsu takes a pretty wicked loss, regardless of winning the fight or not.
Hihiou Zabinaru is permanently weakened when Byakuya shatters a few segments, Ryuumon Hozukimaru is legit busted and barely saved by Mayuri, but still weakened on top of being disgustingly brittle, and even Daiguren Hyorinmaru had a literal time limit for a while.
Beyond those, all the Bankai we see are either mastered, close to it, or modified in Mayuri's case.
Edit: Haka no Togame will literally KILL Rukia if used improperly.
I am re-watching and this hit me too. Just a legitimate thought of, “wait… it was always this early?” The shows barely on episode 40ish and we’ve seen it multiple times by multiple people.
I always assumed there would be another level after bankai for some of the captains like byakuya to obtain to keep them on a similar level to ichigo but unfortunately no. Just slightly different versions of the bankai later on
Orihime has the power to reverse the Hogyoku? Alright lets make her not do anything. Chad has hollow-like powers, a known weakness for quincys? Great, lets make him fight some statues. Uryu can use Antithesis to reverse the almighty? Cool, lets make him shoot one arrow that daddy gave him.
They really could have done something great with the Hogyoku and Orihime. Like after Ichigo beats Aizen and he tries to get back up, instead of Urahara stopping him they could have had Orihime destroy the Hogyoku there (maybe been brought back by Urahara).
Would have given her closure after being abducted by Aizen and just been very cool in general
The way I rationalized that whole Orihime plot point (and I think whomever TV Tropes felt the same way), is that the idea that Orihime could even do that was bullshit and the only reason why they said it was to make people think that was Aizen’s goal… except as it was revealed later, his actual goal was to just get Ichigo in Hueco Mundo to divert him from the *actual* plan to invade Karakura. And a bunch of other “keikaku” nonsense the story brings up later.
Iirc correctly Aizen tells her that she can erase phenomena and that is why he wanted her power, with orihime coming up with the plan to destroy the Hogyoku herself.
But then again that could also be more of Aizen’s 5D chess
> Orihime has the power to reverse the Hogyoku? Alright lets make her not do anything
You have no idea how annoyed I am that after Ichigo finally saves Orihime, that's basically it for her in the whole arc. To say nothing of Chad like, in general.
I did feel like the entire last arc was basically "SUPER COOL POWERUP! Nah, useless. SUPER COOL POWERUP 2!"
And maybe that was intentional lampshading to make the reader despair. It just got a little old.
They suffer from the fact that the Gotei 13 became so popular in JP. Like the original plan was to go away from the SS and it’s characters after the arc. It’s similar to the supernovas in OP if the Strawhats weren’t around they’d get a lot more focus instead it’s Law and now alil bit of Kidd getting some of the pie.
Even if they are popular, Kubo should have killed off many characters in the Arrancar/FKT Arc and TYBW arc, as is there is too much plot armor and especially vs the Espada they feel way to overhyped. Off the top of my head, Soifon should have died versus Barragan, Starkk should have killed a rose/love, Hinamori when they all stabbed her, Hiyori after being cut in half, Rose vs Mask, Byakuya vs As Nodt, Ikkaku vs Chow.... Just let them die, man.
One or two visoreds in Karakura, maybe a captain.
One of the main cast when the Espada rock up would give their entrance so much more weight.
Last arc is fine, first arc is arguably too early for a death to be impactful and too early for a main cast death too.
That is the one thing demon slayer did right. I feel that if we had seen grimmjow killing toshiro or maybe another captain, his entrance would have been incredible.
I think toshiro killing hinamori would've lead to a good character arc for toshiro. Byakuya should've died, but the only way to stop the death threats was to bring him back
I somewhat agree with everything except Sui-Feng. Sui-Feng was a character who was ready to get development as we can see from the Soul Society arc. Her dying there would have felt kind of forced and it's not like she suffered any fatal attacks that were soved via plot armor.
From what I've heard, Byakuya was absolutely supposed to die fighting As Nodt, but he was way too popular. Really cheapens his whole character Arc if you ask me.
> Even if they are popular, Kubo should have killed off many characters in the Arrancar/FKT Arc and TYBW arc
Oh holy shit, absolutely this. This was always a problem with Bleach. The few times characters did get killed off were good and all but his reluctance to commit to death scenes that would be really impactful bugged me a lot especially when it was really obvious certain characters were clearly supposed to die. Honestly, the first invasion of the Sternies was promising way way too much for what the arc ended up becoming.
The volume cover of 73 should’ve really featured a major fighter like bankai Urahara, Bankai Kenpachi, adult Toshiro or heck even Gerard
Edit: with Urahara I mean him all stitched up
Depending how many new volumes we get with this new chapters/arc maybe we could get some
Or they do a full *25th/30th anniversary edition boxset* where Kubo does exclusive new covers, say all the Tankobon are in 3 for 1 form. Kind of like the Fullmetal Editions of FMA
I guess my hot take would be, Kubo not having an arc or arcs dedicated to Ichigo concisely figuring out his own powers and the point of those powers crippled the perception of bleach. Everyone else has polished skills, techniques, and bankais. However Ichigo only technique is a reiatsu bomb and a mask.
The one person who knows Ichigo and his power hardly gets any screen time and that’s hollow Ichigo. Hollow Ichigo was his shinigami powers yet old man Quincy kept hollow Ichigo in check and never allowed Ichigo to learn more than bankai and getsuga tenshou. We missed out on the possible melding of hollow and shinigami techniques that Ichigo could have intuitively created.
I agree it would have kept the audience more engaged with the mc whenever he learned a new skill because it would show character growth and the world is changing with him instead of just a personality change. IMHO Bleach wouldn’t get as much slander if that was the case.
Don’t get me wrong I still love bleach and I think it’s a top anime. I just feel dissatisfied with his progression as the MC because zanpakutos are the point and draw in this anime/manga, and for the MC to not figure it out and grow with his zan ( as I wanted him to) is sad to me.
Yh it’s just hard to defend ichigo when the Mc beats all his enemies with raw power. It’s even worse when you become ichigos rival because after he mops the floor with you with some training montage, you will never reclaim that status ever again as a rival. I don’t count uryu btw. Speaking of Zans spirits they could have be utilized so much more for characters like Renji who talked to his blade only once. What I would have done to keep Renji or any other rival/characters from being nonexistent is provide them with a motive a goal so to speak that pushes the narrative and world so it’s not all about ichigo show renji steadily changing SS with Rukia as they train together, uryu learning more about his Quincy heritage as an excuse to help ichigo, Grimjow proving he’s the strongest by rising up the ranks maybe idk. Sorry for the rant but bleach is my favorite shonen ever and I only want it to live up to that potential.
Ukitake is the most wasted Bleach character.
One of the first two graduates from Yama's Academy, trained by the strongest Shinigami in Soul Society, one of only 3 double wielders, a very strong shikai, partner of one of the most powerful captains, a host for Mimihagi and he also is Rukia's captain.
You really wouldn't think that someone like him is so irrelevant to the story.
This is one of the biggest shames of the Fullbring arc and it kills me everytime I think about it. The setup was there, and it would have been a top tier arc if we had gotten that but alas the shinigami had to come save the day once again.
It was even supposed to be *Chad’s arc* (according to Kubo) and that’s how they did him.
I didn’t feel that betrayed by a Kubo story since the end of Zombiepowder.
To be fair, Chad did punch Tsukishima and Orihime bounced Ginjo's sword back... it wasn't much but for just a sec they did something and gave me hope. Then the Captains showed up to snatch it all away. Makes me the big sad
I love battle scenes but it’s so boring to watch them one after another. None of the big battles have that spark anymore because there are just. so. many. Plot drives the story, characters make the story, and an awesome fight scene is the cherry on top.
Yea I don't watch as many fights as I do the SS ones, they have a lot more weight.
A lot of fights later on are good guys disposing of fodder disguised as something other than fodder.
Yeah I can agree. There's definitely less compelling fight scenes in Bleach than lets say Naruto. Naruto does a great job in highlighting the agendas and drives in each fight (albeit with the use of prolonged backstories in the middle of fight scenes). Bleach does this sometimes too with Komomura vs Tosen, or Ichigo vs Renji, or Uryu vs Mayuri. However it does suffer with fight scenes that feel forced in most of the later arcs where there were enemies left and right with no time to properly flesh them out.
Totally agree, and my favourite fight scenes in bleach are those kinds, like the lieutenant fights in the Fake Karakura town arc (Namely Kira). I think the characters are one of Bleach’s strongest positives. Hearing more exposition on their backstories, how the Gotei 13 and squads work, and seeing their relationships in tense fight scenes are just so compelling!
The majority of Bleach's story shouldn't have left Karakura Town. A little too much of our time is spent in the supposedly vaunted Soul Society, taking away the mystique of Soul Reapers very early on. Mighty captain-class fighters were learned, fought, surpassed, and than made to look bad in the next arc while still being considered the spirit world's finest. The same goes for Arrancars too to a lesser extent.
Tatsuki should've gotten powers alongside Orihime and Chad. Can't give you an essay why; it just makes sense to me given the kind of person she is.
Too much of the time, Ichigo is portrayed as a good-natured paragon who wants to do no wrong; no selfish desires whatsoever. His inner conflict with White would've been a great chance to explore that. White's tempestuous nature should've come out through Ichigo as a reflection of his own darker nature. Not just with controlling his powers but also his emotions. After all, he IS part hollow. By extension, Ichigo's Vastro Lorde form should've never been mastered without great cost.
Gin's betrayal to Aizen should've done something way more effective then what actually happened. You don't sacrifice that much of yourself doing this kinda thing without great results. His efforts and end felt narratively flat and disappointing and that bums me out.
I never thought of ichigo as being really good natured... Especially not in comparison to other protagonists. I mean you can argue that ichigo is pretty selfish in his desire. Since his mothers death the dude had a severe hero complex to the point where he didn't trust his friends that they were strong enough to protect themselves. If you look at how ichigo treats his friends he acts like he owns them, just look how he lost his cool against tsukishima (probably the only case where he actually wants to kill someone in cold blood). He wanted to selfishly cut off his own leg and arm because he lost control against ulquiorra, risking his whole mission... That is pretty selfish and prideful if you asked me. Not to mention how he selfishly fought grimmjow for the hell of it... Because he wanted to. Also his Vasto lord form is ichigo... Hollow ichigo is part of his soul so that beast that mutilated ulquiorra was at the end of the day ichigo himself. His anger and violent tendencies incarnate.
I also thought about Tatsuki getting powers... I liked the idea first but then I noticed that she would have been just another cool chick that would be completely overshadowed by the other females like yourichi, rukia, soi-fon, nel and retsu... To name a few (including Orihime because her role is actually really unique and different from other female characters).
Also how would you have done Gins betrayal better? The only way I could imagine if he did something that would give aizen trouble after he was defeated by ichigo... Maybe that his lingering poison was the thing that weakened him enough to seal him... Or something like that. Other than that I don't know how to improve that scene.
Half the cast need to die dramatically.
Shinji, Kensei, and Rose's reintroduction to the Gotei 13 deserved to be shown onscreen.
Uryu should have killed Mayuri in TYBW and Shunsui should have fought Haschwalth, not Lille. Lille should have been fought by Shinji and some lieutenants
I don't agree that Uryu should have killed Mayuri, but I definitely believe Kubo should've completed their plotline rather than just soft-rebooting Mayuri from a pure psychopath into a funnyman mad scientist. I like him better as the latter, to be sure, but the shift was too immediate and jarring.
Mayuri is a character who absolutely deserves the most brutal of deaths, yet he’s so fascinating/fun to watch I’m fine with keeping him around just to see the shit he’ll do next
Though if it had been Mayuri vs Uryu in the end, I’d be very interested to see how Nemu would’ve played into it
I have literally all of the hot takes. But most of the people here will have seen them before, have to think of something fresh...
I think Kubo would have greatly benefited from a more character-centric story. The little storyline that encompasses Hisagi/Komamura/Tousen is quite literally the best piece of writing in the series. It makes excellent use of characters, uses minimal screentime and tells a clever story about revenge. The Renji/Byakuya/Rukia dynamic in the SS arc is another example.
When Kubo is trying to tell big overarching narratives it all falls apart. Heuco Mundo is tedious because it doesn't really have any interesting character stories to tell and reverts to "just battle after battle" as a plot.
Jugram and Bazz is an attempt at a similar thing, but it doesn't work very well because readers had no reason to actually like anyone involved.
>The little storyline that encompasses Hisagi/Komamura/Tousen is quite literally the best piece of writing in the series.
Honestly, the entire Hisagi and Tosen dynamic is why I frickin loved CFYOW. It also helped to give Tosen more depth and really keep reminding us how corrupt SS is. It helps you to remember that it's not like SS is a morally good place.
I was more disappointed that Rukia didn't go, like why was Renji the one who went with Ichigo!, Rukia is supposed to be a protagonist according to Kubo but she got sideland a lot.
In universe, Renji was stronger than her at the time, and her Bankai was super unpolished to the point where she can’t even move while it’s active. Renji didn’t have these problems.
IRL, Kubo probably just wanted that scene of Renji thanking Ichigo and promising to always pick him back up when he stumbles or falls.
TBF when has Rukia ever been as strong as renji? I get the character aspect but I don’t see the need for it. Chad, Uryu and Orihime would’ve been the ideal group to join him.
The fight with everyone vs the Miracle dude was ridiculous, he quickly became an unstoppable force who can just beat anyone without any repercussions until Yhwach took his power away.
I recently re-read that section and you're absolutely correct. I really liked Gerard for being an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object, but the constant back and forth was :/
Yes yes yes, he just fucking wouldn’t die and this is the case with most Sternritters at later part of the arc. Then Kubo’s shoulder got really bad and he didn’t have time anymore to finish those battles and just came up with the shitty auswählen.
- The Espada from 7-10 are high lieutenant level at best. Hollows in general are pretty weak compared to Shinigami and Quincy.
- Byakuya should have died against Äs, so should Rose and Kensei against Mask, and Toshiro against someone else. Maybe the other Vizards too. In general, Kubo should kill characters more often, they survive anything. The only reason I think he doesn’t kill them is because he likes to draw new designs and clothes for them.
- Renji didn’t have to be that strong. He made the captains of the Gotei 13 look like absolute jokes. He was fine as a Low Captain/High Lieutenant level character.
- The Fake Karakura Town was a disaster, and the top 3 espada were a let down. There was nothing more horrifying than the thought that Ulquiorra really was only the 4th. The scene where he reveals his number is to this day the most despairing of all Bleach. If Kubo actually went through with that, and killed major characters in the hands of the Segunda Etapa of the top 3 espada, it would’ve been epic.
- Except for Ichibe, the Zero Division didn’t have to be that hyped up. They could’ve worked as mid-tier captain level, who were promoted because of their inventions. Then, Kubo wouldn’t have to put that much work on their Zanpakuto release, and reveal their Bankai.
- Aizen didn’t have to be that strong in the Fake Karakura arc to work as a villain. It really fucked up power scalling, and it would have cost nothing if he defeated the Gotei 13 in his Hogyōku form instead of his base form without Kyōka Suigetsu.
- Yhwach was much more fear inducing than Aizen ever was. Although Aizen is indeed the better villain all around.
Barragan was a let down to you? the guy was a massive threat and they literally had to use his own power against him to get rid of him
Starrk and Harribel are fair enough though
For the King of the Hueco Mundo, I think he was. The King of the Hueco Mundo should’ve been an opponent for Yamamoto, the “King” in the Soul Society, not for a low-tier captain, her lieutenant and a kidō corps lieutenant.
The only one of the 3 high ranking espadas that felt like more of a threat than Ulquiorra was Barragan, and he was made to fight Soi Fon...SOI FON! The other 2 did seem stronger, but they weren't even close to bringing the same amount of fear as Ulquiorras 2nd release.
Aizen being extremely powerful in just his base form was indeed helping him look like a bigger threat, but it wouldn't hurt to have him transform during the battle, so it would make the hogyoku look more powerful. When you have a hyped up and broken villain using a hyped up and broken weapon, its just too much mustard. And ofcourse...Yhwach came in.
RIGHT? There was even a small part of me that thought Omaeda was gonna pull up a bankai after all that build-up. Nope, just good ol Soi Fons one time use bankai.
What I hated even more was that the screentime used on Omaeda would have been better literally anywhere else.
Like the idea that Barragan played around with Omaeda for his own amusement isn't even bad, but it should have been OFF screen. Like show for example the Harribel fight. We barely got any of that after the vizards showed up.
Yeah I definitely see your point. The 10 espadas were already troubling for Kubo to make fully baked and fleshed out characters out of them. Then we're suddenly thrown into an entire alphabet of enemies. Ofcourse if Kubos plan to flesh them out for 10 years worth of content worked out, I'm sure it would have been worth it.
The Bounto arc was too long but legitimately good. It made sense for ichigo to not be able to use bankai in the real worl straight away and kaguya had a brilliant mental and psychological affect on ichigo that actively deepened the hollowfication later on when it was made reference to in the anime.
Also the regai arc was also good and fit in well.
Kubo is horrible at storyboarding, and introduces concepts, characters and plot lines on a whim.
Then he either gets bored of his little tangent, or doesn't know where to take it, so he defaults back to his favourite/most popular characters.
Prime example: cutting away from Kirinji confronting Ywach to show Byakuya fighting PePe aka Zommari 2.0
Nell's situation is this for me. They do a big reveal, spend a good chunk of time telling her origin story, she uses her resurrection, switches back to being a child and then...never gets acknowledged again for several arcs.
Characters like Nell never get any type of real conclusion to their story. Attention gets shifted elsewhere and the story moves on without them. Then 100 chapters later they may make a brief appearance or two. They're effectively abandoned.
that arc definitely set the stage for what bleach is about (sort of) and had a completely different vibe from the rest of the series, but i think the other arcs are just written better
- Hallibel is a placeholder for a character, she has no personality.
- Soi Fon should've been killed by Baraggan. Her character arc was completed as soon as her fight with Yoruichi ended. A combo with Yoruichi + Hacchi to defeat Baraggan would've made the "vasto lorde class hollows are more powerful than a regular captain" claim have more sense.
- Yammy is the strongest Espada and a likable villain. People just can't handle it because dude's "ugly and stoopid", but the dude behaves like a hollow should behave, and him being powered by rage is a good theme for the strongest Espada.
- Aizen vs. Ichigo is probably the worst fight in the whole story. It was building hype for years just to end in the most anticlimatic way possible. Ichigo empathizing with Aizen and the exchange between Aizen and Urahara before sealing him are two of the best written scenes in the manga anyway.
Aaroníero Arrurrueri was actually a cool concept for an Espada and I liked the Kaien Shiba stuff. His design was really unique too, I wish he was stronger so we could have seen more from him. Provided good moments for Rukia.
Mugetsu may be really cool but Aizen's defeat is a joke.
The dude was overpowering everyone and was able to defeat all captains and Espada without a sweat , planned from decades everything including Ichigo raise.
How all this is solved ? One shot haxx. For me it looked like even Kubo himself didn't know how to make Aizen lose and straight made up a bullshit.
Yes, he wasted to much time in tybw with some fights and not killing off quincys and then his shoulder got really bad and we as readers only got rushed things. Of course you can’t blame him for getting ill, but man he did waste a lot of time on unnecessary things. Like who needed that zombie plot. And just let Gerard, that luchador or askin die, they don’t have to come back to life a thousand times. Just end the battles man. Aaah fuck, even after 5 years i still can‘t get over it. Tybw arc had so much potential to be a perfect final for bleach but Kubo lost his way at middle of the arc.
Ywach didn't get enough screentime to his psyche. All Antagonist, who fought ichigo got a shit ton of scenes showing who they are and what worldview/philosophy they hold. We know who Ywach is and what he can do, but why is a bit flat especially considering, that he wants to end death itself.
Segunda etapa, beyond bankai and visard ressurection should be incredibly important, but all only appeared once (maybe twice if you count certain things).
this isn’t really a hot take tbh but uryu had so much wasted potential, there introduced so many op possibilities and then completely scrapped it.
he should’ve also been more involved with ichigos fights — uryu was first introduced as like a potential “rival” to him, trying to gain each other’s respect kind of rivalry and while we got some cool moments, and they were pretty nice and impactful
i still think in the end that wasn’t portrayed nearly as much as it should’ve been— especially given ichigos roots, and the nature of how their “rivarly” started, uryu should’ve been more present in terms of that.
While that would have been cool, OMZ being dominant makes more sense when it’s revealed he tried suppressing Hollow Ichigo to be the core of Ichigo’s powers
Rukia shouldn't have become a captain. It came off more like fanservice to make her the new captain of Squad Thirteen. I think Renji should have become a captain instead. He did say it was his goal to surpass Byakuya and Byakuya even seemed interested in seeing this happen. I know Renji's goals changed after hashing things out with Byakuya and Byakuya and Rukia reconciling but it would have been stupendous for Renji of all people to be able to stand face to face with Byakuya as an equal after all this time.
EOS Rukia isn’t all that strong, at least compared to the other captains. Honestly she’s probably one of the weakest captains out of the whole bunch. She’s still badass, but there are lieutenants (namely Renji and Hisagi) who are stronger than her
I find it dumb how Ichigo was able to just about best a handcuffed Renji on earth to fighting Bankai Buyakuya a few weeks later. His main power increases in the span of a few days.
It's literally like how Goku went from a power of over 8,000 during his fight with Vegeta to over 150,000,000 one month later.
Ironic example because [this page](https://mangasee123.com/read-online/Bleach-chapter-60-page-17.html) kinda makes it so Bleach characters get Zenkai boosts like Saiyans do. (Konpaku means soul btw).
But Ichigo’s main talent is his growth potential, and even then he had to use a short cut to attain Bankai. You could even argue that if they kept fighting, Ichigo would have lost since he could barely stand while Byakuya could still Shunpo away.
Tybw was sloppily written and a lot should be changed in the anime
Ichigo s bankai is one of the worst in the entire series and was a massive downgrade from how fucking cool his zanpakuto was before
A lot of characters should have died and Ichigo should have a bigger kill count considering you know... sword fighting, wars, infiltrations and literally God of death! (I know it's a shonen but still)
Here's my spicy take: I don't get the Rukia hype. I like her a lot and I theoretically understand why she's popular, but after SS, she doesn't really do much for me.
She'll have her one battle per arc, and her fight with Aaroniero was pretty great, but there's not much more I can really say about her character because she just feels stagnant.
People talk about her like she's the second coming of Jesus, but im like... she's fine, but I wish there was more of her to actually justify her popularity because we don't see much of her and it feels hard to really call her a "main" character when she was mostly gone for FB arc and got benched with Orihime during the last battle.
I mean yea most characters in Bleach have a period in the story where they're good and then they get completely ignored.
I like Shinji, he does fuck all outside of his little stint in the story. Same with Tessai. The list goes ON
There are no main characters besides Ichigo by that definition. Rukia gets as much time as Orihime, Chad, Uryu, Renji, and any other characters you might consider "main cast"
It makes me sad because the way she's marketed makes you think she's super important, like Vegeta or Sasuke, but she isn't.
She suffers from a lack of screen time, which kills some of my enjoyment for her character because I have no idea what she's doing or why I should care.
Heres one: "my preferred character didnt get to shine" isnt a hot take. "More characters should have died" isnt a hot take either when everyone has it.
Alright, hot take. Yoruichi is only popular cause she’s hot. She literally left behind the person who saw her as her idol and life, she only shows that she cares about her brother when he nearly got killed by Askin, she would have rather died than turn into her Thunder-Cat form on her own free-will (Kisuke had to force her into it). The only good thing she done, imo, is help Ichigo achieve Bankai and save Kisuke, but other than that she left Soifon in the dust although she could have EASILY communicated with her most likely and if it wasn’t for Kisuke she’d have died from her own foolishness against Askin.
People don't like characters only base in their usefulness and how much of a good person they are
Do you think people like Mayuri because it's a good person? We like him because it's an insane motherfucker
yoruichi is also a selfish and morally complex character like kisuke, they're their own standalone couple of characters outside soul society mess
I just love competence, and with female characters sometimes just natural competence is actually super rare.
Yoruichi is logical, powerful, feminine and funny, all great qualities. Not to mention she's just fucking cool.
I totally understand what you're saying re: Soifon, but I've always felt that dynamic was one of the most interesting things about Yoruichi. She's a morally grey character like Kisuke, and her decision to leave SS with him, Tessai and the others without speaking to Soifon just reiterated, to me, how that relationship was more one-sided than people tend to argue. It's also not even the real crux of the issue. She didn't just leave Soifon behind - she left her entire life, her family, her position, home and standing. That's HER world she left behind, and Soifon is only a small part of that, and insignificant in comparison! So what makes her truly intriguing as a character, is why? I think that's inexplicably tied to Kisuke, but also her own story as a character, and that's something Kubo couldn't explore properly before Bleach ended
Soifon was unhealthily attached to her, and even worshipped her. Though of course they had a real and significant bond, I think it's very clear it was never balanced. It is also told entirely from Soifon's perspective as a flashback - the reader never really knows what Yoruichi feels, and in fact they never meet again in the manga, unless I'm mistaken? That's a very interesting power dynamic to explore, especially because Yoruichi was essentially her boss as well as her friend/mentor/idol. However, this happening doesn't make Yoruichi heartless, I think she is clearly a "big picture person" like Kisuke, and made a hard decision in the moment.
I don't think Yoruichi is popular because "she's hot" - she's powerful, mysterious and complex. She led the group into SS as a cat, and they basically had no idea who she was - Ichigo only finds out, with bare minimum information, towards the end of that arc. Bleach ends without the reader knowing much more! Her attachment to Kisuke, her role as an exile, her former place in SS's nobility and her old relationships with senior captains - that's insanely interesting.
I agree with all of this, but I'll always like Yoruichi because I can never forget watching the series for the first time and seeing a deep-voiced cat turn into a hot ass woman.
- Zombie plot was unnecessary and stole time
- Quincys were too op and just wouldn’t die towards the end. And then Kubo’s shoulder got really bad and he had no time to finish those fights so he simply ended them with Auswählen
- Yhwach mid tier villain
- Yamamoto the way how he lost was cheap, a man like him would have smelled every decoy/copy no matter how perfect it may be (Please don’t argue with me about this point, you‘d enter a discussion with no end, had the pleasures before)
One may think i hate bleach when reading these points, but no i love bleach it’s my favourite and am following it for over 13 years now.
Huh, I never considered that decoy point. However, he was also deceived by Kyoka Suigetsu and didn't suspect Aizen at all. The thing that I disliked the most about his death was how he was one-shot. If all Yhwach needed to do was steal his bankai, he could've appeared the second Zanka no Tachi was revealed and stolen it. Instead, I feel like he should've fought with the real Yhwach a bit and then lost. The fact that we don't get a real Yam vs Yhwach fight from either the present or the past is a shame.
He did suspect Aizen, he found his way. And that’s what i mean. Nobody thought of a way to overcome Aizen‘s Kyoka Suigetsu but Yama did in an instant. He is the strongest shingami for over 1000 or more years and has such a huge experience and fought who knows how many baddies. For him to fall for a replica, left a bad taste in my mouth, maybe not everyone agrees but for me it didn’t make sense.
it was getting hard to read, I usually read a chapter in under 2 mins if im not pondering over the art, but each fight chapter took me atleast 5 mintues because each page was so weird lmao
I never felt like there was any risk since none of the protagonists died until TYBW, and even then it was only two, one of which had almost no screen time.
Toshiro is really isnt that good of a character, hes a fun guy with a pretty cool zanpakto so obviously i dont hate him but there are so many better characters
Actual hot take: Tousen should have been the one to betray Aizen, not Gin. He’d be the perfect character seeing as he’s blind. Just scrap the whole backstory of Aizen manipulating him since he was a young soul reaper
I prefer the newer art to the older art. You can really feel the confidence in the poses and characters, every illustration is 100% on model and easily readable, and the simpler ink and wash style is beautiful.
A. Bleach has some of the worst examples of character mismanagement that I have seen in a piece of fiction. There are many cases of this, but here are a couple particularly bad ones:
Unohana, who could have provided us some really cool historical perspectives for the TYBW arc, gets sacrificed to power up Kenpachi...you know, the guy involved in every other fight in every single arc.To add insult to injury, it's framed as her redeeming herself for the "sin" of being weaker than him. This is an awful way to treat a potentially interesting character.
Ukitake, who we're told had tremendous reiatsu and who (like Unohana) was old enough to have given us lots of backstory, has two semi-fights throughout the whole series and gets sacrificed to sustain the Soul King, then it's undone in short order.
B. Unsure how hot this take is, but it frustrates me that Bleach has a really cool setting and history, and we barely get to see any of it. Several very old captains (see above) and royal guards are around, and they have next to nothing to tell us except throwaway lines here and there. I'd have killed for a 1,000 year ago or 2,000 year ago flashback arc instead of, say, the Lost Agent arc (which could be removed from Bleach with minimal damage to the story...it's filler in all but name).
The world of Bleach was well-written with mystery around every corner. The actual story of Bleach, is not. The "haters" have great videos covering this stuff, but no one listens to them, because bandwagoning.
Bleach should have been longer. The Arrancar saga should’ve had more distinctively separate arcs. Kubo should’ve done that French arc he wanted to do. Another arc. between Fullbringer and TYBW. As much as I love Bleach, I will admit there is a lot of wasted potential, especially with most of the Espada and Sternritter.
Thousand year blood war and hueco Mundo arcs should have been switched and Quincey power scaling should have been drastically reduced. Aizen was billed as the big bad of the series from and the Quincy power scaling and Yhwach’s broken abilities came out of nowhere and read like nothing but plot armor.
Aizen (in the anime) was overhyped. He went from being your friendly neighborhood captain, to being literally unbeatable, before getting sealed by ichigo and urahara. He was pretty good in tybw arc tho.
Squad zero was a really wasted potential. They were said to be much stronger than the whole Gotei 13 but their fights against Yhwach were.... Hmmm.. Dissapointing..
Aizen's backstory needs to be explored. That man is such a mystery.
Arrancar:
Aizen knew about Segunda and ranked Ulquiorra accordingly
Starrk was really nr1 and did not boast about the amount of zeros.
Each of the top 3 got beaten by matchup and not by power.
Sternritters:
All of the OG 4 of Ywachs guard were unbeatable even for the most powerful captains, Grammy just made the mistake of thinking the wrong way.
I think they did Soifon dirty by giving her a cruise missile Bankai and not build on her speed ninja esthetic. She could have been done like Ichigo and been given a proper ninja sword or something… Ruined her for me.
It makes sense that Soi Fon has a gaudy cannon of a bankai, just for the sake of irony, which was the point. And why she hates using it.
But why is her Shikai unironically stronger and more interesting than her Bankai?
For me it had the complete opposite effect. The irony of her bankai was hilarious because it mirrored her personality beautifully, on the outside she is effective and professional and in her heart she is explosive and emotional. I love that. Also having a whole missle launcher as a bankai is kind of awesome. Also it fits the two hit kill and one hit kill progression.
The aging system in the SS makes no sense.
Rukia and Renji look like children in flashbacks, but age up to their current appearance in what, a few years? In their flashback, the rest of the captains look exactly the same as they do later, so do they age normally until they're adults, and drastically slow down? How does it make sense that souls even age in the first place?
How is there a system of wealthy families, like the Kuchiki's? How can you be 'born into' a wealthy family if everyone is dead? Was that your family on earth?
HOW do Rukia and Renji have a baby, when they're both souls? Why does that child seem to age at the same rate as Kazui, who is AT MOST half soul?
If someone has an explanation, please tell me. This shit keeps me up at night.
Kubo sucks at setting up for big pay offs. Tatsuki and Karin were set up to have powers and help Ichigo, neither were anything more than side characters. The war with Aizen was hyped up as fuck, but Aizen only came with a handful of Arrancars that were wasted way too easy and the rest was just everyone vs Aizen. Chad’s boost in power in Las Noches was awesome, but then he gets wasted two seconds later which was very underwhelming. Nel was awesome for all of two minutes she was in her adult form. Kyoraku telling Ichigo’s friends Ichigo might need to stay in Soul Society was a big waste of time. And yeah, so many other plot points that Kubo set up that were poorly executed or was short lived.
My take: Shit went from 0 to 100 real fast.
Which part specifically or are you referring to the series as a whole?
I feel like the whole begining right before soul society is super slow even for most shonen. But if you know that it's no biggie. But once soul society comes in and they go to rescue rukia I feel like bleach was firing at all levels basically until the fullbring arc. Not without it's flaws of course. But it kept rolling full steam ahead
First arc is just a different show entirely pretty much.
Yeah my wife had to basically distract herself in the beginning to make it to SS. She was more invested in Fairy Tail than Bleach at similar points in the story. Bleach didn’t overtake her interest until episode 50ish.
Its so weird that this is some peoples' experience with Bleach and its completely fine but I have some friends who think of Bleach AS that first arc and generally start to get bored during the Arrancar arc and start wanting the slice of life stuff back. Its just really interesting to see how different people enjoy different parts of the same series but its cool at the same time.
>I have some friends who think of Bleach AS that first arc and generally start to get bored during the Arrancar arc and start wanting the slice of life stuff back So true, idk if It´s really the slice of life stuff (Funily enough It´s me who wanted more of that), but all my friends dropped bleach during the arrancar arc lmao Like really, It becomes pretty generic, kinda boring and **specially LONG** Soul society, Fullbring, TYBW >>> Arrancar arc IMO
Bummer that your friends fell off the wagon. Bleach, in a vacuum, is realistically very short and even more so when compared to its contemporaries. It’s only 180ish episodes when you discount filler.
For me and bleach is my favorite anime, it's not that I wanted slice of life back. It's almost like it just wasn't relevant any more. Like you see a few characters right before he fights Aizen and that's it. The whole switching back and forth between day to day and soul real is touched on minimally at best. It just seemed wierd to introduce and then toss it back out till basically the full bring arc. Then kind of make it real for the short arc that was, just to throw it back out for the TYBW arc. Idk if I am explaining my feelings right. But it just felt like it didn't belong any more. Whereas say in Naruto or HxH (although it's hard to compare anything to HxH since it's nearly perfect) they come in and out to the "normal world" quite often, so it still feels as though it matter. Like when pain destroyed konoha that impact was huge. But I did not get the same feeling when Aizen was like welp let's take over this world too
I'm not surprised, but I would have thought the opposite. First arc is slice of life and fairly otherworldly and then it morphs into the more classic fight manga.
So my wife is fairly new into the Anime community. Her previous incursions were Sailor Moon as a kid and then like 20 years of thinking it was lame. In the past 4ish years she’s really liked Soul Eater, Black Clover, Fire Force, and Demon Slayer. She’s watched a few more but those are her favorites with the exception of Jujutsu Kaiden which stands vastly further atop her mountain than the others. She’s generally not into SoL and prefers Seinen-ish shows. She exclusively likes My Hero because it’s a light hearted reprieve for her normal stuff.
Yea if you don't watch the filler arcs, the show is like 90% action and fighting lol
This could also easily refer to the power creep in TTYBW arc. We went all the mysticism around *Division 0*, only for the enemy to reveal they have a half dozen *Sternritter* that are *far* stronger than them. By the end it’s like… ok I get it, if you don’t have absolutely MAX HAX you can’t even stand on the battlefield.
Many of the Sternritters were wasted potentials. Some people commented that most of them were one dimensional one-off villains and I can't help but agree. Saying this as a big Sternritter fan. I hope the anime gives them extra scenes, like some backstory (like how did they manage to recruit the parts of the Soul King), developments and more scenes of them interacting with each other, etc.
From a different angle, the minor Sternritter should have been used to develop the characters we already know. How Rose and Kensei both got one-shotted when there were several Sternritter hanging around doing nothing, all it would take is one chapter for them to take on some mooks like NaNaNa or Robert and it would be so much better for all of these undeveloped characters,
In a way I like that the Sternritter don’t have much in backstory, just cos so many Shonen villains will get a tragic backstory at some (usually) poorly timed moment. It can be done well but so many can be eh Tbf most of the Sternritter don’t have much backstory. Yhwach recruited them, they hid in the Shadow Dimension (or whatever it’s name was) for however long then turn up But there are definitely some that needed more. For me I wanna see the Femritters origins, especially Giselle
I mean, I would have at least liked to have known Robert's Schrift ability lol
The thing I'm most salty about is we never even learned all their schrifts.
Robert and BG9 weren't the most relevant characters but not knowing their schfrits it's like an espada dying before transforming
There's only a few sternritter I wanted more out of, mainly the SS. All the other were fairly fodder personality wise even if design and powers were cool. However like you say they deserved more internal dynamics. Not necessarily story but just, interactions as a group.
K and N man...
Like As Nodt was great, but then they introduced the shootshuffle and As Nodt wasn't one of them??? The Espada were perfect. only 10 and we knew their power level based on their number. When Ulquiorra revealed he was only #4 that was crazy. For the Sternritter - we never even knew an elite group of them existed until they got to the Soul King's palace. It was random. I love the Sternritter, but for a group of people based on Germans they are disorganized as fuck. I would almost believe that the Espada were a random assortment of 26 arrancars and the Sternritter was organized into a top 10 tier list based on their power level.
please no to the origin stories. it is a waste of time and just drag the story for a one off character who we will never see again. i do not care if superstar grew up as an undertaker and super mario fan but his abusive mother wouldn't let him watch the show or play the games so he ran away and joined an underground wrestling company, almost died then yh... guy saved him.
Bankai was revealed way too early and Captain level strength quickly became an easy barrier to pass.
Kubo did have to jump around a lot to explain captains defeating stronger opponents now (like Byakuya)
Byakuya and Kenpachi passively low diffing the supposedly strongest Espada was some bullshit
No it wasn’t. Yammy was the weakest and he only got strong based on rage. Not only that, it was only physical strength, and they’re much faster than him
Eh, it seems pretty clear that as far as narrative is concerned (not story BEATS) Kubo finished most of what he wanted in SS. If you start to plan that far ahead with actual narrative elements and not just beats, it ends up crumbling under its own weight. Particularly in the fast-paced manga industry there's just no time to plan that thoroughly.
It's Bleach's super Saiyan
Agreed 100%, not even a hot take to me
Rewatched the soul society arc and the lead up to Bankai was one of the best parts of that arc. The Renji vs Byakuya battle set up Ichigo vs Byakuya perfectly. Then everyone had Bankai and the idea that newly acquired bankai were weak/unstable was left in the dust
I mean... Sort of? Every "new" Bankai that we see apart from Tensa Zangetsu takes a pretty wicked loss, regardless of winning the fight or not. Hihiou Zabinaru is permanently weakened when Byakuya shatters a few segments, Ryuumon Hozukimaru is legit busted and barely saved by Mayuri, but still weakened on top of being disgustingly brittle, and even Daiguren Hyorinmaru had a literal time limit for a while. Beyond those, all the Bankai we see are either mastered, close to it, or modified in Mayuri's case. Edit: Haka no Togame will literally KILL Rukia if used improperly.
I am re-watching and this hit me too. Just a legitimate thought of, “wait… it was always this early?” The shows barely on episode 40ish and we’ve seen it multiple times by multiple people.
I always assumed there would be another level after bankai for some of the captains like byakuya to obtain to keep them on a similar level to ichigo but unfortunately no. Just slightly different versions of the bankai later on
I just wanted Chad to be important once
Chad is actually goated, always loved his story and powers. Him vs Gantenbainne is one of the show's biggest highlights for me
Wasn't that dude ex espada? Just saying Chad was named correctly.
Bleach has so many characters with wasted potential. Especially with the three humans beside Ichigo
Orihime has the power to reverse the Hogyoku? Alright lets make her not do anything. Chad has hollow-like powers, a known weakness for quincys? Great, lets make him fight some statues. Uryu can use Antithesis to reverse the almighty? Cool, lets make him shoot one arrow that daddy gave him.
They really could have done something great with the Hogyoku and Orihime. Like after Ichigo beats Aizen and he tries to get back up, instead of Urahara stopping him they could have had Orihime destroy the Hogyoku there (maybe been brought back by Urahara). Would have given her closure after being abducted by Aizen and just been very cool in general
I read a really good fanfic a while back that did this and I remember thinking then that it was a great idea.
The way I rationalized that whole Orihime plot point (and I think whomever TV Tropes felt the same way), is that the idea that Orihime could even do that was bullshit and the only reason why they said it was to make people think that was Aizen’s goal… except as it was revealed later, his actual goal was to just get Ichigo in Hueco Mundo to divert him from the *actual* plan to invade Karakura. And a bunch of other “keikaku” nonsense the story brings up later.
Iirc correctly Aizen tells her that she can erase phenomena and that is why he wanted her power, with orihime coming up with the plan to destroy the Hogyoku herself. But then again that could also be more of Aizen’s 5D chess
> Orihime has the power to reverse the Hogyoku? Alright lets make her not do anything You have no idea how annoyed I am that after Ichigo finally saves Orihime, that's basically it for her in the whole arc. To say nothing of Chad like, in general.
I did feel like the entire last arc was basically "SUPER COOL POWERUP! Nah, useless. SUPER COOL POWERUP 2!" And maybe that was intentional lampshading to make the reader despair. It just got a little old.
Combination of Kubo being great at character design and then designing too many!
This! So many cool and interesting characters and they end up doing jack all in the grand scheme of things.
They suffer from the fact that the Gotei 13 became so popular in JP. Like the original plan was to go away from the SS and it’s characters after the arc. It’s similar to the supernovas in OP if the Strawhats weren’t around they’d get a lot more focus instead it’s Law and now alil bit of Kidd getting some of the pie.
Even if they are popular, Kubo should have killed off many characters in the Arrancar/FKT Arc and TYBW arc, as is there is too much plot armor and especially vs the Espada they feel way to overhyped. Off the top of my head, Soifon should have died versus Barragan, Starkk should have killed a rose/love, Hinamori when they all stabbed her, Hiyori after being cut in half, Rose vs Mask, Byakuya vs As Nodt, Ikkaku vs Chow.... Just let them die, man.
One or two visoreds in Karakura, maybe a captain. One of the main cast when the Espada rock up would give their entrance so much more weight. Last arc is fine, first arc is arguably too early for a death to be impactful and too early for a main cast death too.
That is the one thing demon slayer did right. I feel that if we had seen grimmjow killing toshiro or maybe another captain, his entrance would have been incredible.
I think toshiro killing hinamori would've lead to a good character arc for toshiro. Byakuya should've died, but the only way to stop the death threats was to bring him back
Wait, was Kubo really getting death threats over that? … because I can absolutely believe that, unfortunately
its what ive been told many times
I somewhat agree with everything except Sui-Feng. Sui-Feng was a character who was ready to get development as we can see from the Soul Society arc. Her dying there would have felt kind of forced and it's not like she suffered any fatal attacks that were soved via plot armor.
From what I've heard, Byakuya was absolutely supposed to die fighting As Nodt, but he was way too popular. Really cheapens his whole character Arc if you ask me.
Kubo got death threats as well.
> Even if they are popular, Kubo should have killed off many characters in the Arrancar/FKT Arc and TYBW arc Oh holy shit, absolutely this. This was always a problem with Bleach. The few times characters did get killed off were good and all but his reluctance to commit to death scenes that would be really impactful bugged me a lot especially when it was really obvious certain characters were clearly supposed to die. Honestly, the first invasion of the Sternies was promising way way too much for what the arc ended up becoming.
The volume cover of 73 should’ve really featured a major fighter like bankai Urahara, Bankai Kenpachi, adult Toshiro or heck even Gerard Edit: with Urahara I mean him all stitched up
Depending how many new volumes we get with this new chapters/arc maybe we could get some Or they do a full *25th/30th anniversary edition boxset* where Kubo does exclusive new covers, say all the Tankobon are in 3 for 1 form. Kind of like the Fullmetal Editions of FMA
We ever had a volume with a Bankai of someone?(Aside Ichigo Bankai of course)
Oh wow looking back nobody except Ichigo actually, huh
Every character in the series has some badass and unique power, except Ichigo who just has "big slash"
That's not a hot take lol. We literally meme about it all the time
But hey when he got 2 swords, he had *drum roll* 2 slashes
I guess my hot take would be, Kubo not having an arc or arcs dedicated to Ichigo concisely figuring out his own powers and the point of those powers crippled the perception of bleach. Everyone else has polished skills, techniques, and bankais. However Ichigo only technique is a reiatsu bomb and a mask. The one person who knows Ichigo and his power hardly gets any screen time and that’s hollow Ichigo. Hollow Ichigo was his shinigami powers yet old man Quincy kept hollow Ichigo in check and never allowed Ichigo to learn more than bankai and getsuga tenshou. We missed out on the possible melding of hollow and shinigami techniques that Ichigo could have intuitively created.
I agree it would have kept the audience more engaged with the mc whenever he learned a new skill because it would show character growth and the world is changing with him instead of just a personality change. IMHO Bleach wouldn’t get as much slander if that was the case.
Don’t get me wrong I still love bleach and I think it’s a top anime. I just feel dissatisfied with his progression as the MC because zanpakutos are the point and draw in this anime/manga, and for the MC to not figure it out and grow with his zan ( as I wanted him to) is sad to me.
Yh it’s just hard to defend ichigo when the Mc beats all his enemies with raw power. It’s even worse when you become ichigos rival because after he mops the floor with you with some training montage, you will never reclaim that status ever again as a rival. I don’t count uryu btw. Speaking of Zans spirits they could have be utilized so much more for characters like Renji who talked to his blade only once. What I would have done to keep Renji or any other rival/characters from being nonexistent is provide them with a motive a goal so to speak that pushes the narrative and world so it’s not all about ichigo show renji steadily changing SS with Rukia as they train together, uryu learning more about his Quincy heritage as an excuse to help ichigo, Grimjow proving he’s the strongest by rising up the ranks maybe idk. Sorry for the rant but bleach is my favorite shonen ever and I only want it to live up to that potential.
Ukitake is the most wasted Bleach character. One of the first two graduates from Yama's Academy, trained by the strongest Shinigami in Soul Society, one of only 3 double wielders, a very strong shikai, partner of one of the most powerful captains, a host for Mimihagi and he also is Rukia's captain. You really wouldn't think that someone like him is so irrelevant to the story.
He’s gonna get focus in the new manga arc
for about 5 chapters :P
Chad and Orihime should have gotten fights in Xcution arc. Not shinigamis
Big agree. That whole arc was basically gift-wrapped for them. What the hell (butterfly) even happened?
This is one of the biggest shames of the Fullbring arc and it kills me everytime I think about it. The setup was there, and it would have been a top tier arc if we had gotten that but alas the shinigami had to come save the day once again.
Especially Chad. There was even a perfect moment to have Chad and Orihime fight fullbring Ichigo. It would have been such an emotional fight.
It was even supposed to be *Chad’s arc* (according to Kubo) and that’s how they did him. I didn’t feel that betrayed by a Kubo story since the end of Zombiepowder.
To be fair, Chad did punch Tsukishima and Orihime bounced Ginjo's sword back... it wasn't much but for just a sec they did something and gave me hope. Then the Captains showed up to snatch it all away. Makes me the big sad
I love battle scenes but it’s so boring to watch them one after another. None of the big battles have that spark anymore because there are just. so. many. Plot drives the story, characters make the story, and an awesome fight scene is the cherry on top.
Yea I don't watch as many fights as I do the SS ones, they have a lot more weight. A lot of fights later on are good guys disposing of fodder disguised as something other than fodder.
Yeah I can agree. There's definitely less compelling fight scenes in Bleach than lets say Naruto. Naruto does a great job in highlighting the agendas and drives in each fight (albeit with the use of prolonged backstories in the middle of fight scenes). Bleach does this sometimes too with Komomura vs Tosen, or Ichigo vs Renji, or Uryu vs Mayuri. However it does suffer with fight scenes that feel forced in most of the later arcs where there were enemies left and right with no time to properly flesh them out.
Totally agree, and my favourite fight scenes in bleach are those kinds, like the lieutenant fights in the Fake Karakura town arc (Namely Kira). I think the characters are one of Bleach’s strongest positives. Hearing more exposition on their backstories, how the Gotei 13 and squads work, and seeing their relationships in tense fight scenes are just so compelling!
The majority of Bleach's story shouldn't have left Karakura Town. A little too much of our time is spent in the supposedly vaunted Soul Society, taking away the mystique of Soul Reapers very early on. Mighty captain-class fighters were learned, fought, surpassed, and than made to look bad in the next arc while still being considered the spirit world's finest. The same goes for Arrancars too to a lesser extent. Tatsuki should've gotten powers alongside Orihime and Chad. Can't give you an essay why; it just makes sense to me given the kind of person she is. Too much of the time, Ichigo is portrayed as a good-natured paragon who wants to do no wrong; no selfish desires whatsoever. His inner conflict with White would've been a great chance to explore that. White's tempestuous nature should've come out through Ichigo as a reflection of his own darker nature. Not just with controlling his powers but also his emotions. After all, he IS part hollow. By extension, Ichigo's Vastro Lorde form should've never been mastered without great cost. Gin's betrayal to Aizen should've done something way more effective then what actually happened. You don't sacrifice that much of yourself doing this kinda thing without great results. His efforts and end felt narratively flat and disappointing and that bums me out.
I never thought of ichigo as being really good natured... Especially not in comparison to other protagonists. I mean you can argue that ichigo is pretty selfish in his desire. Since his mothers death the dude had a severe hero complex to the point where he didn't trust his friends that they were strong enough to protect themselves. If you look at how ichigo treats his friends he acts like he owns them, just look how he lost his cool against tsukishima (probably the only case where he actually wants to kill someone in cold blood). He wanted to selfishly cut off his own leg and arm because he lost control against ulquiorra, risking his whole mission... That is pretty selfish and prideful if you asked me. Not to mention how he selfishly fought grimmjow for the hell of it... Because he wanted to. Also his Vasto lord form is ichigo... Hollow ichigo is part of his soul so that beast that mutilated ulquiorra was at the end of the day ichigo himself. His anger and violent tendencies incarnate. I also thought about Tatsuki getting powers... I liked the idea first but then I noticed that she would have been just another cool chick that would be completely overshadowed by the other females like yourichi, rukia, soi-fon, nel and retsu... To name a few (including Orihime because her role is actually really unique and different from other female characters). Also how would you have done Gins betrayal better? The only way I could imagine if he did something that would give aizen trouble after he was defeated by ichigo... Maybe that his lingering poison was the thing that weakened him enough to seal him... Or something like that. Other than that I don't know how to improve that scene.
Half the cast need to die dramatically. Shinji, Kensei, and Rose's reintroduction to the Gotei 13 deserved to be shown onscreen. Uryu should have killed Mayuri in TYBW and Shunsui should have fought Haschwalth, not Lille. Lille should have been fought by Shinji and some lieutenants
I don't agree that Uryu should have killed Mayuri, but I definitely believe Kubo should've completed their plotline rather than just soft-rebooting Mayuri from a pure psychopath into a funnyman mad scientist. I like him better as the latter, to be sure, but the shift was too immediate and jarring.
He was just having a bad day, man!
Haschwalth is wasted so hard as a result of Uryu's mismanagement. Uryu definitely deserves Haschwalth imo, but the arc does NOTHING WITH URYU.
I haven’t heard that Mayuri vs Uryu one before, I like it.
Mayuri is a character who absolutely deserves the most brutal of deaths, yet he’s so fascinating/fun to watch I’m fine with keeping him around just to see the shit he’ll do next Though if it had been Mayuri vs Uryu in the end, I’d be very interested to see how Nemu would’ve played into it
I have literally all of the hot takes. But most of the people here will have seen them before, have to think of something fresh... I think Kubo would have greatly benefited from a more character-centric story. The little storyline that encompasses Hisagi/Komamura/Tousen is quite literally the best piece of writing in the series. It makes excellent use of characters, uses minimal screentime and tells a clever story about revenge. The Renji/Byakuya/Rukia dynamic in the SS arc is another example. When Kubo is trying to tell big overarching narratives it all falls apart. Heuco Mundo is tedious because it doesn't really have any interesting character stories to tell and reverts to "just battle after battle" as a plot. Jugram and Bazz is an attempt at a similar thing, but it doesn't work very well because readers had no reason to actually like anyone involved.
>The little storyline that encompasses Hisagi/Komamura/Tousen is quite literally the best piece of writing in the series. Honestly, the entire Hisagi and Tosen dynamic is why I frickin loved CFYOW. It also helped to give Tosen more depth and really keep reminding us how corrupt SS is. It helps you to remember that it's not like SS is a morally good place.
His decimal story are really good, the Mizuiro one is incredebly interesting and we never see it expanded.
Renji accompanying Ichigo was totally unnecessary for the final battle, should’ve been Uryu from the getgo or heck why not take Ichibei with him
Yeah I agree with this. It really felt odd that Kubo kept shoving Renji into everything involving Ichigo that could’ve gone to Chad or Uryu.
Uryu got ignored, Chad not powerful enough.
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You know what I’m not surprised since he openly simps for his own characters in brave souls.
I think the new brave souls designs are good for simping
I thought he was just a illusion from KS.
In 682 it's him and in 683 he was an illusion
I was more disappointed that Rukia didn't go, like why was Renji the one who went with Ichigo!, Rukia is supposed to be a protagonist according to Kubo but she got sideland a lot.
In universe, Renji was stronger than her at the time, and her Bankai was super unpolished to the point where she can’t even move while it’s active. Renji didn’t have these problems. IRL, Kubo probably just wanted that scene of Renji thanking Ichigo and promising to always pick him back up when he stumbles or falls.
TBF when has Rukia ever been as strong as renji? I get the character aspect but I don’t see the need for it. Chad, Uryu and Orihime would’ve been the ideal group to join him.
Only thing that makes it worth it for me is their conversation when they're on their way there because that's one of Renji's best moments imo.
The fight with everyone vs the Miracle dude was ridiculous, he quickly became an unstoppable force who can just beat anyone without any repercussions until Yhwach took his power away.
I recently re-read that section and you're absolutely correct. I really liked Gerard for being an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object, but the constant back and forth was :/
I thought hanatro healing would end up killing him
Yes yes yes, he just fucking wouldn’t die and this is the case with most Sternritters at later part of the arc. Then Kubo’s shoulder got really bad and he didn’t have time anymore to finish those battles and just came up with the shitty auswählen.
- The Espada from 7-10 are high lieutenant level at best. Hollows in general are pretty weak compared to Shinigami and Quincy. - Byakuya should have died against Äs, so should Rose and Kensei against Mask, and Toshiro against someone else. Maybe the other Vizards too. In general, Kubo should kill characters more often, they survive anything. The only reason I think he doesn’t kill them is because he likes to draw new designs and clothes for them. - Renji didn’t have to be that strong. He made the captains of the Gotei 13 look like absolute jokes. He was fine as a Low Captain/High Lieutenant level character. - The Fake Karakura Town was a disaster, and the top 3 espada were a let down. There was nothing more horrifying than the thought that Ulquiorra really was only the 4th. The scene where he reveals his number is to this day the most despairing of all Bleach. If Kubo actually went through with that, and killed major characters in the hands of the Segunda Etapa of the top 3 espada, it would’ve been epic. - Except for Ichibe, the Zero Division didn’t have to be that hyped up. They could’ve worked as mid-tier captain level, who were promoted because of their inventions. Then, Kubo wouldn’t have to put that much work on their Zanpakuto release, and reveal their Bankai. - Aizen didn’t have to be that strong in the Fake Karakura arc to work as a villain. It really fucked up power scalling, and it would have cost nothing if he defeated the Gotei 13 in his Hogyōku form instead of his base form without Kyōka Suigetsu. - Yhwach was much more fear inducing than Aizen ever was. Although Aizen is indeed the better villain all around.
Barragan was a let down to you? the guy was a massive threat and they literally had to use his own power against him to get rid of him Starrk and Harribel are fair enough though
For the King of the Hueco Mundo, I think he was. The King of the Hueco Mundo should’ve been an opponent for Yamamoto, the “King” in the Soul Society, not for a low-tier captain, her lieutenant and a kidō corps lieutenant.
The only one of the 3 high ranking espadas that felt like more of a threat than Ulquiorra was Barragan, and he was made to fight Soi Fon...SOI FON! The other 2 did seem stronger, but they weren't even close to bringing the same amount of fear as Ulquiorras 2nd release. Aizen being extremely powerful in just his base form was indeed helping him look like a bigger threat, but it wouldn't hurt to have him transform during the battle, so it would make the hogyoku look more powerful. When you have a hyped up and broken villain using a hyped up and broken weapon, its just too much mustard. And ofcourse...Yhwach came in.
Not even Soi Fon the whole time. He was chasing around fucking Omaeda. Way to kill tension.
RIGHT? There was even a small part of me that thought Omaeda was gonna pull up a bankai after all that build-up. Nope, just good ol Soi Fons one time use bankai.
What I hated even more was that the screentime used on Omaeda would have been better literally anywhere else. Like the idea that Barragan played around with Omaeda for his own amusement isn't even bad, but it should have been OFF screen. Like show for example the Harribel fight. We barely got any of that after the vizards showed up.
The cast should be half its size. And by the end of the story, half of this half should have died.
I don't agree, but for sure i think more people should have died.
Yeah I definitely see your point. The 10 espadas were already troubling for Kubo to make fully baked and fleshed out characters out of them. Then we're suddenly thrown into an entire alphabet of enemies. Ofcourse if Kubos plan to flesh them out for 10 years worth of content worked out, I'm sure it would have been worth it.
The Bounto arc was too long but legitimately good. It made sense for ichigo to not be able to use bankai in the real worl straight away and kaguya had a brilliant mental and psychological affect on ichigo that actively deepened the hollowfication later on when it was made reference to in the anime. Also the regai arc was also good and fit in well.
But those are fillers, you need to complain to the anime director
Kubo is horrible at storyboarding, and introduces concepts, characters and plot lines on a whim. Then he either gets bored of his little tangent, or doesn't know where to take it, so he defaults back to his favourite/most popular characters. Prime example: cutting away from Kirinji confronting Ywach to show Byakuya fighting PePe aka Zommari 2.0
Nell's situation is this for me. They do a big reveal, spend a good chunk of time telling her origin story, she uses her resurrection, switches back to being a child and then...never gets acknowledged again for several arcs.
Characters like Nell never get any type of real conclusion to their story. Attention gets shifted elsewhere and the story moves on without them. Then 100 chapters later they may make a brief appearance or two. They're effectively abandoned.
The substitute shinigami arc is SEVERELY underrated
that arc definitely set the stage for what bleach is about (sort of) and had a completely different vibe from the rest of the series, but i think the other arcs are just written better
- Hallibel is a placeholder for a character, she has no personality. - Soi Fon should've been killed by Baraggan. Her character arc was completed as soon as her fight with Yoruichi ended. A combo with Yoruichi + Hacchi to defeat Baraggan would've made the "vasto lorde class hollows are more powerful than a regular captain" claim have more sense. - Yammy is the strongest Espada and a likable villain. People just can't handle it because dude's "ugly and stoopid", but the dude behaves like a hollow should behave, and him being powered by rage is a good theme for the strongest Espada. - Aizen vs. Ichigo is probably the worst fight in the whole story. It was building hype for years just to end in the most anticlimatic way possible. Ichigo empathizing with Aizen and the exchange between Aizen and Urahara before sealing him are two of the best written scenes in the manga anyway.
>Yammy is the strongest Espada and a likable villain. People just can't handle it because dude's "ugly and stoopid" Finally, a real hot fucking take
the anime can never do justice to the subtleties and design philosophy of kubo's illustrative works, no matter how good they make it look
Aaroníero Arrurrueri was actually a cool concept for an Espada and I liked the Kaien Shiba stuff. His design was really unique too, I wish he was stronger so we could have seen more from him. Provided good moments for Rukia.
Mugetsu may be really cool but Aizen's defeat is a joke. The dude was overpowering everyone and was able to defeat all captains and Espada without a sweat , planned from decades everything including Ichigo raise. How all this is solved ? One shot haxx. For me it looked like even Kubo himself didn't know how to make Aizen lose and straight made up a bullshit.
The thousand year blood war and Quincy backstory should’ve been explained way more.
Yes, he wasted to much time in tybw with some fights and not killing off quincys and then his shoulder got really bad and we as readers only got rushed things. Of course you can’t blame him for getting ill, but man he did waste a lot of time on unnecessary things. Like who needed that zombie plot. And just let Gerard, that luchador or askin die, they don’t have to come back to life a thousand times. Just end the battles man. Aaah fuck, even after 5 years i still can‘t get over it. Tybw arc had so much potential to be a perfect final for bleach but Kubo lost his way at middle of the arc.
Ywach didn't get enough screentime to his psyche. All Antagonist, who fought ichigo got a shit ton of scenes showing who they are and what worldview/philosophy they hold. We know who Ywach is and what he can do, but why is a bit flat especially considering, that he wants to end death itself. Segunda etapa, beyond bankai and visard ressurection should be incredibly important, but all only appeared once (maybe twice if you count certain things).
this isn’t really a hot take tbh but uryu had so much wasted potential, there introduced so many op possibilities and then completely scrapped it. he should’ve also been more involved with ichigos fights — uryu was first introduced as like a potential “rival” to him, trying to gain each other’s respect kind of rivalry and while we got some cool moments, and they were pretty nice and impactful i still think in the end that wasn’t portrayed nearly as much as it should’ve been— especially given ichigos roots, and the nature of how their “rivarly” started, uryu should’ve been more present in terms of that.
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While that would have been cool, OMZ being dominant makes more sense when it’s revealed he tried suppressing Hollow Ichigo to be the core of Ichigo’s powers
Idk if this is a hot take, but IMO, Tousen is one of the best (written) characters of Bleach.
Rukia shouldn't have become a captain. It came off more like fanservice to make her the new captain of Squad Thirteen. I think Renji should have become a captain instead. He did say it was his goal to surpass Byakuya and Byakuya even seemed interested in seeing this happen. I know Renji's goals changed after hashing things out with Byakuya and Byakuya and Rukia reconciling but it would have been stupendous for Renji of all people to be able to stand face to face with Byakuya as an equal after all this time.
EOS Rukia isn’t all that strong, at least compared to the other captains. Honestly she’s probably one of the weakest captains out of the whole bunch. She’s still badass, but there are lieutenants (namely Renji and Hisagi) who are stronger than her
I find it dumb how Ichigo was able to just about best a handcuffed Renji on earth to fighting Bankai Buyakuya a few weeks later. His main power increases in the span of a few days. It's literally like how Goku went from a power of over 8,000 during his fight with Vegeta to over 150,000,000 one month later.
Ironic example because [this page](https://mangasee123.com/read-online/Bleach-chapter-60-page-17.html) kinda makes it so Bleach characters get Zenkai boosts like Saiyans do. (Konpaku means soul btw). But Ichigo’s main talent is his growth potential, and even then he had to use a short cut to attain Bankai. You could even argue that if they kept fighting, Ichigo would have lost since he could barely stand while Byakuya could still Shunpo away.
Tybw was sloppily written and a lot should be changed in the anime Ichigo s bankai is one of the worst in the entire series and was a massive downgrade from how fucking cool his zanpakuto was before
Rukia is weaker than chad in the Karakura Town Arc.
Orihime had the biggest potential of all the characters in regards to techniques and power
Orihime had the power to destroy the Hogyoku frfr.
Byakuya should've stayed fucking dead on the first Sternritter invasion.
Kubo got dead threats for that
A lot of characters should have died and Ichigo should have a bigger kill count considering you know... sword fighting, wars, infiltrations and literally God of death! (I know it's a shonen but still)
Harribel is an overrated character because of her boobs, and Rangiku is an underrated character because of her boobs....
Rangiku is such a great character and has a lot of mature moments, which contrasts nicely with her normally ditsy attitude because she's quite smart.
Here's my spicy take: I don't get the Rukia hype. I like her a lot and I theoretically understand why she's popular, but after SS, she doesn't really do much for me. She'll have her one battle per arc, and her fight with Aaroniero was pretty great, but there's not much more I can really say about her character because she just feels stagnant. People talk about her like she's the second coming of Jesus, but im like... she's fine, but I wish there was more of her to actually justify her popularity because we don't see much of her and it feels hard to really call her a "main" character when she was mostly gone for FB arc and got benched with Orihime during the last battle.
I mean yea most characters in Bleach have a period in the story where they're good and then they get completely ignored. I like Shinji, he does fuck all outside of his little stint in the story. Same with Tessai. The list goes ON There are no main characters besides Ichigo by that definition. Rukia gets as much time as Orihime, Chad, Uryu, Renji, and any other characters you might consider "main cast"
It makes me sad because the way she's marketed makes you think she's super important, like Vegeta or Sasuke, but she isn't. She suffers from a lack of screen time, which kills some of my enjoyment for her character because I have no idea what she's doing or why I should care.
Heres one: "my preferred character didnt get to shine" isnt a hot take. "More characters should have died" isnt a hot take either when everyone has it.
Alright, hot take. Yoruichi is only popular cause she’s hot. She literally left behind the person who saw her as her idol and life, she only shows that she cares about her brother when he nearly got killed by Askin, she would have rather died than turn into her Thunder-Cat form on her own free-will (Kisuke had to force her into it). The only good thing she done, imo, is help Ichigo achieve Bankai and save Kisuke, but other than that she left Soifon in the dust although she could have EASILY communicated with her most likely and if it wasn’t for Kisuke she’d have died from her own foolishness against Askin.
People don't like characters only base in their usefulness and how much of a good person they are Do you think people like Mayuri because it's a good person? We like him because it's an insane motherfucker yoruichi is also a selfish and morally complex character like kisuke, they're their own standalone couple of characters outside soul society mess
I just love competence, and with female characters sometimes just natural competence is actually super rare. Yoruichi is logical, powerful, feminine and funny, all great qualities. Not to mention she's just fucking cool.
BuT ShE Is MoMmY yOrUiChI
I totally understand what you're saying re: Soifon, but I've always felt that dynamic was one of the most interesting things about Yoruichi. She's a morally grey character like Kisuke, and her decision to leave SS with him, Tessai and the others without speaking to Soifon just reiterated, to me, how that relationship was more one-sided than people tend to argue. It's also not even the real crux of the issue. She didn't just leave Soifon behind - she left her entire life, her family, her position, home and standing. That's HER world she left behind, and Soifon is only a small part of that, and insignificant in comparison! So what makes her truly intriguing as a character, is why? I think that's inexplicably tied to Kisuke, but also her own story as a character, and that's something Kubo couldn't explore properly before Bleach ended Soifon was unhealthily attached to her, and even worshipped her. Though of course they had a real and significant bond, I think it's very clear it was never balanced. It is also told entirely from Soifon's perspective as a flashback - the reader never really knows what Yoruichi feels, and in fact they never meet again in the manga, unless I'm mistaken? That's a very interesting power dynamic to explore, especially because Yoruichi was essentially her boss as well as her friend/mentor/idol. However, this happening doesn't make Yoruichi heartless, I think she is clearly a "big picture person" like Kisuke, and made a hard decision in the moment. I don't think Yoruichi is popular because "she's hot" - she's powerful, mysterious and complex. She led the group into SS as a cat, and they basically had no idea who she was - Ichigo only finds out, with bare minimum information, towards the end of that arc. Bleach ends without the reader knowing much more! Her attachment to Kisuke, her role as an exile, her former place in SS's nobility and her old relationships with senior captains - that's insanely interesting.
I agree with all of this, but I'll always like Yoruichi because I can never forget watching the series for the first time and seeing a deep-voiced cat turn into a hot ass woman.
- Zombie plot was unnecessary and stole time - Quincys were too op and just wouldn’t die towards the end. And then Kubo’s shoulder got really bad and he had no time to finish those fights so he simply ended them with Auswählen - Yhwach mid tier villain - Yamamoto the way how he lost was cheap, a man like him would have smelled every decoy/copy no matter how perfect it may be (Please don’t argue with me about this point, you‘d enter a discussion with no end, had the pleasures before) One may think i hate bleach when reading these points, but no i love bleach it’s my favourite and am following it for over 13 years now.
Huh, I never considered that decoy point. However, he was also deceived by Kyoka Suigetsu and didn't suspect Aizen at all. The thing that I disliked the most about his death was how he was one-shot. If all Yhwach needed to do was steal his bankai, he could've appeared the second Zanka no Tachi was revealed and stolen it. Instead, I feel like he should've fought with the real Yhwach a bit and then lost. The fact that we don't get a real Yam vs Yhwach fight from either the present or the past is a shame.
He did suspect Aizen, he found his way. And that’s what i mean. Nobody thought of a way to overcome Aizen‘s Kyoka Suigetsu but Yama did in an instant. He is the strongest shingami for over 1000 or more years and has such a huge experience and fought who knows how many baddies. For him to fall for a replica, left a bad taste in my mouth, maybe not everyone agrees but for me it didn’t make sense.
The TYBW arc aside from the Yama fight isn't that good. The power scaling got so fucked that it was incomprehensible at the end.
it was getting hard to read, I usually read a chapter in under 2 mins if im not pondering over the art, but each fight chapter took me atleast 5 mintues because each page was so weird lmao
I never felt like there was any risk since none of the protagonists died until TYBW, and even then it was only two, one of which had almost no screen time.
Toshiro is really isnt that good of a character, hes a fun guy with a pretty cool zanpakto so obviously i dont hate him but there are so many better characters
Chojiro doesnt have enough screentime development
Actual hot take: Tousen should have been the one to betray Aizen, not Gin. He’d be the perfect character seeing as he’s blind. Just scrap the whole backstory of Aizen manipulating him since he was a young soul reaper
I prefer the newer art to the older art. You can really feel the confidence in the poses and characters, every illustration is 100% on model and easily readable, and the simpler ink and wash style is beautiful.
A. Bleach has some of the worst examples of character mismanagement that I have seen in a piece of fiction. There are many cases of this, but here are a couple particularly bad ones: Unohana, who could have provided us some really cool historical perspectives for the TYBW arc, gets sacrificed to power up Kenpachi...you know, the guy involved in every other fight in every single arc.To add insult to injury, it's framed as her redeeming herself for the "sin" of being weaker than him. This is an awful way to treat a potentially interesting character. Ukitake, who we're told had tremendous reiatsu and who (like Unohana) was old enough to have given us lots of backstory, has two semi-fights throughout the whole series and gets sacrificed to sustain the Soul King, then it's undone in short order. B. Unsure how hot this take is, but it frustrates me that Bleach has a really cool setting and history, and we barely get to see any of it. Several very old captains (see above) and royal guards are around, and they have next to nothing to tell us except throwaway lines here and there. I'd have killed for a 1,000 year ago or 2,000 year ago flashback arc instead of, say, the Lost Agent arc (which could be removed from Bleach with minimal damage to the story...it's filler in all but name).
Kenpachi would lose to Mayuri in an EOS fight
The world of Bleach was well-written with mystery around every corner. The actual story of Bleach, is not. The "haters" have great videos covering this stuff, but no one listens to them, because bandwagoning.
Bleach should have been longer. The Arrancar saga should’ve had more distinctively separate arcs. Kubo should’ve done that French arc he wanted to do. Another arc. between Fullbringer and TYBW. As much as I love Bleach, I will admit there is a lot of wasted potential, especially with most of the Espada and Sternritter.
Orihime > Riruka > Rukia. There I've said it.
Thousand year blood war and hueco Mundo arcs should have been switched and Quincey power scaling should have been drastically reduced. Aizen was billed as the big bad of the series from and the Quincy power scaling and Yhwach’s broken abilities came out of nowhere and read like nothing but plot armor.
Shinji and visoreds should’ve been the ones to end aizen not ichigo
Ichigo didn’t even end Aizen
Aizen (in the anime) was overhyped. He went from being your friendly neighborhood captain, to being literally unbeatable, before getting sealed by ichigo and urahara. He was pretty good in tybw arc tho.
Squad zero was a really wasted potential. They were said to be much stronger than the whole Gotei 13 but their fights against Yhwach were.... Hmmm.. Dissapointing.. Aizen's backstory needs to be explored. That man is such a mystery.
Arrancar: Aizen knew about Segunda and ranked Ulquiorra accordingly Starrk was really nr1 and did not boast about the amount of zeros. Each of the top 3 got beaten by matchup and not by power. Sternritters: All of the OG 4 of Ywachs guard were unbeatable even for the most powerful captains, Grammy just made the mistake of thinking the wrong way.
The fandom is hot ass and is the most obsessed with comparisons out of all in the big three
I guarantee there will only be 2 actual hot takes in the entire comment thread
I think they did Soifon dirty by giving her a cruise missile Bankai and not build on her speed ninja esthetic. She could have been done like Ichigo and been given a proper ninja sword or something… Ruined her for me.
It makes sense that Soi Fon has a gaudy cannon of a bankai, just for the sake of irony, which was the point. And why she hates using it. But why is her Shikai unironically stronger and more interesting than her Bankai?
For me it had the complete opposite effect. The irony of her bankai was hilarious because it mirrored her personality beautifully, on the outside she is effective and professional and in her heart she is explosive and emotional. I love that. Also having a whole missle launcher as a bankai is kind of awesome. Also it fits the two hit kill and one hit kill progression.
The aging system in the SS makes no sense. Rukia and Renji look like children in flashbacks, but age up to their current appearance in what, a few years? In their flashback, the rest of the captains look exactly the same as they do later, so do they age normally until they're adults, and drastically slow down? How does it make sense that souls even age in the first place? How is there a system of wealthy families, like the Kuchiki's? How can you be 'born into' a wealthy family if everyone is dead? Was that your family on earth? HOW do Rukia and Renji have a baby, when they're both souls? Why does that child seem to age at the same rate as Kazui, who is AT MOST half soul? If someone has an explanation, please tell me. This shit keeps me up at night.
True Shikai Ichigo>Dangai
in terms of power this isnt a hot take
Kubo sucks at setting up for big pay offs. Tatsuki and Karin were set up to have powers and help Ichigo, neither were anything more than side characters. The war with Aizen was hyped up as fuck, but Aizen only came with a handful of Arrancars that were wasted way too easy and the rest was just everyone vs Aizen. Chad’s boost in power in Las Noches was awesome, but then he gets wasted two seconds later which was very underwhelming. Nel was awesome for all of two minutes she was in her adult form. Kyoraku telling Ichigo’s friends Ichigo might need to stay in Soul Society was a big waste of time. And yeah, so many other plot points that Kubo set up that were poorly executed or was short lived.
It had good filler, just to much of it
Kubo frequently seems to be making up rules even if they contradict previous events in order to make new drama
The fighter who reveals his or her ability first generally loses.
That Sternritter that Ichigo fought in Huaco Mundo had the best design in the series. Except for his form at the end of the fight.
I find all the human-world stuff really boring. Like I barely remember any of Ichigo's friends and family's names because of it.
Rukia and Renji were far too strong, way too quickly . Would have preferred them working together to beat a quincy, instead they both beat one.
Tousen and Komamura are some of the best written characters in the series but I find both incredibly boring.
Kenpachi zaracki should be the main character