Teenagers (May contain bloody violence, bad language, nudity)
Vintage:
October 5, 2004
Status:
Still Airing
Summary:
Kurosaki Ichigo is a 15 year old boy that has an ability to see ghosts/spirits. Because of his ability, he is able to meet a female death god (a.k.a Shinigami) named Kuchiki Rukia. To save his family and friends from unwanted soul-eating spirits (Hollows), Rukia transfers her Shinigami powers to Ichigo. As Rukia takes on a human shell, together they solve mysteries involving spirits and hollows until from the spirit world comes 2 other shinigamis explaining that it is illegal to transfer Shinigami powers to humans and Rukia exceeded the time limit to stay in the human world. After they sentence her death for breaking the laws, Ichigo snaps and swears to everyone he will retrieve Rukia by breaking into the spirit world.
Well the story of bleach was one of the best thought out and complicated storylines in a shonen anime you could imagine. In the soul society arc it had everything and could go in any direction, it was completely unpredictable and full of crazy surprises.
I have seldom seen such a cliche concept as ghosts and spirit stuff, into something that is very unique and new.
The concept and its Ideas are indeed its greatest strenght.
But sadly all of this went downhill right after the start of the hueco mundo arc. Main plot remains unexplained and the fights are predictable mostly. Character development is very slow. The only characters that had decent character development are some captains and orihime.
The storyline became nothing more than a dragonball z copy with endless fights. At the end of the hueco mundo arc it actually gets a little better with aizens story and the anser to many questions. But for what price ? And here the trolling of tite kubo begins. Aizens trashtalk was indeed trolling. This villain defeated opponents that were stronger than him, wich manipulation. His powers were totally overpowered and made even the strongest captain in history, yamamoto, look like a fricken tool in his plan. I just couldnt help myself but laugh at all the crap kubo has written in this arc...
The fullbring arc wasnt that much better. In fact it was boring untill the shinigami came back.
I must admit Kubo is doing a great Job right now in the manga. The new arc does have everything that made bleach into what it was and does still have amazing storytelling with plottwists you couldnt even imagine.
Note: I know I rated naruto shippuden as very poor, which wasnt really fair. Naruto shippuden deserves a rating as high as bleach, so my appologies for this mistake.
So is it worth watching ? Yes. Bleach is something you should watch. But you will have to skip the filler episodes because the anime is filled with them. I hope I can help you with this because I made a list of filler episodes. The amazing animation and tallented voice actors+ the good fighting scenes and amazing ideas make this anime indeed a fun watch. Nothing out of the ordinary but definately nothing but either.
______________________________
So here how you have to skip filler episodes:
Also It must be said, that the anime ended right now. Its on a break but the director and many voive actors are confident that bleach will get a second season anime after the manga is a little further ahead. Bleach is very popular world wide so I wouldnt bother about it. A continuation might indeed be produced in a few years.
