Story Arc

Bleach Is Ending

Bleach is the name of a manga / anime which I began watching (for I started with the anime) at around the age of 14 or 15. It was introduced to me through a friend, and was my first ever anime… though to this day, I’ve not branched out into many others. But as immediately taken aback as I was by the exaggerated emotions and actions that are often found in anime, I’d soon found myself hooked onto this ridiculous idea of this character leading a double life, attempting to maintain a typical teenage lifestyle at school whilst running off every 5 minutes to slay monsters (Hollows) with his oversized sword (Zanpakutou).

If this sounds like it might appeal to you, then you live in the wonderful age where the entire series is viewable for free on Crunchyroll. Bear in mind that some story arcs detract from the manga in order to give the manga a chance to get further ahead in the plot, before the anime caught up with it. If you’d like to only watch canon material, your guide to avoiding filler episodes is here. What an enlightened age you live in.

So, back to my personal Bleach experience. Whenever I watch the first few seasons of Bleach (often referred to as the Soul Society arc), I’m catapulted back in time to when I was going through my GCSE’s, and the sense of wonder, entertainment, and non-reproducible exploration into the culturally varied tropes of anime plot never fails to make me smile. The idea of swords having their own souls and magical abilities greatly appealed to me, and is something that has stuck with me to this day when considering any fantasy character’s possible magical range of abilities. While this theme, alongside the overall narrative of people with swords fighting demonic monsters, is not exactly the most original basis for a story, it was my first encounter with such material and I therefore escaped any disillusionment because of this. In other words, I managed to enjoy the material instead of going “typical Shonen plot lol”.

Many will tell you that after the Soul Society arc, Bleach began its decline, and honestly, as much as I love the series, I wouldn’t argue with that. What I would argue with is the idea that it’s no longer worth watching. I believe that the subsequent ‘Arrancar arc’ is still enjoyable and engaging, although the climax of this arc certainly does feel like it would be an apt place to finish the entire series. It is after this point that almost the entire Bleach community is in agreement that the manga began its sheer decline. With the ‘Thousand Year Blood War’ arc, the manga (the anime now cancelled) began to descend into an over-saturated mess of characters, ill-explained abilities, one-note enemies, retcons out the wazoo, awful pacing and just a general lack of a cohesive or believable narrative. The fights spiralled into a playground world of “my ability is more suited to kill you than yours,” and the deus-ex-machina grew so out of control that the word ‘asspull’ now gets your comment automatically removed from r/Bleach, more from an exasperated “WE KNOW” than as an overly offensive or unfair remark.

But even the Thousand Year Blood War arc managed to give us some awesome moments and character revelations. Whilst the arc as a whole hasn’t made sense (and still won’t, unless the final 20 pages have the depth and cohesion of a hundred issues), individual fights and moments have still ignited my now mostly forgotten feeling of hype and anticipation for the next week’s issue. It’s something I’ll sorely miss.

I’m not just here to slam the final story arc, though. Bleach as a whole actually contains some expertly crafted leitmotifs and character relationships, as well as a plethora of unique and enticing abilities and fights. The anime in particular has some very well animated fight scenes, and had I the option of experiencing it all for the first time again, I wouldn’t shy from it at all – even the final story arc. It’s been an absolute pleasure to follow the story of this cast of characters over the years, and whilst it’s sad that the manga is ending (presumably) with a whimper rather than a bang, it’ll always hold a place in heart.