My favorite Shonen manga turns 20 this year,couldn't find a better time to write my first ever review.It's my first so kinda rough and all over the place,Pardon my mistakes.
Will try to avoid spoilers as much as possible.
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Bleach is a Shonen manga serialized Weekly Shōnen Jump from 7 August 2001 to 22 August 2016, with its 686 chapters collected into 74 volumes written and illustrated by Tite Kubo.
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# STORY - 9.5/10
Bleach is not an underdog story, it revolves around Ichigo Kurosaki heavily or at least presented to revolve around him and one of the strongest point of his character is his origin, how he came to being.Him realising who he is is the point of his journey.
In a battle shounen development of a character mainly revolves around the fights Bleach I think does a great job in doing that,although it is not entirely perfect,it still is praiseworthy. For instance our main character Ichigo goes through an amazing development throughout the series while fighting against enemies for protecting what he loves or is important to him. He fights his one of the most important fights in Soul Society arc which is the final fight of the arc to save his friend because he was saved by him/her once and changed his fate.In this fight Ichigo strengthens his goal of protecting whats important to him which is
his reason to fight for the span of next 3 major arcs being Arrancars Saga, Lost Agent and Thousand Year Blood War. All the themes and aspects surrounding his character amazingly rounds up in the final arc.
The Arrancars saga is the longest arc where the main antagonist puts his plans to motion with a group of army consisting of 10 major characters known as the Arrancars. The Lost Agent Arc is heavily misunderstood arc.This arc shows a more human side to Ichigo's character which then works as a resurgence to his goal of protecting whats important to him,he realizes what his powers meant to him like legit there was a part where chad tells him that he needs to remember when he was proud of having the soul reaper powers and then he tells himself that he couldn't can't remember a time he wasn't proud of having them.If I had to describe it in a sentence it would be "When psychology meets Shounen".The final arc is what the story was building up to until now and also touches the 1000 year old history of Soul society.Sadly it was cut down to almost half due to health issues of Tite Kubo.
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It also has amazing foreshadowings which were turned into amazing plot twist and reveals very later on in the series.
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Later various novels expand the story,highly recommend those and I consider them canon since they tie in and pick up from the end of TYBW
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CAST - 9.5/10
Bleach has an amazing cast and it is one of the strongest points of the series.Primarily the main cast consisting of our Main Character Kurosaki Ichigo,Deuteragonist Rukia,Orihime Inoue,Sado Yasutora,Renji Abarai and Uryu Ishida
Ichigo is a very unique and well written protagonist.Many find him boring,well I kinda get where they are coming from but I don't think boring is really that much of a criticism,if you dive deep into his character writing,he is an amazing protagonist and non-generic too.Also his dynamic with his inner hollow is my favourite in all of manga.
The Gotei 13 consists of mainly 13 captains and vice captains assigned to each division for protecting Soul Society.
They play a huge role in the story and captures some of the dopest moments in the series.My favourite captain would be Kyoraku,Zaraki or Byakuya.
The group of antagonists namely Arrancars,Fullbringers and Sternritters
are one of the captivating parts of the series,especially the Espada.Some of them were really well written and received amazing character conclusion.Ulquiorra,Szayelaporro,Ginjo,Stark,Jugram,Bazz B etc. are great characters with depth.Ulquiorra is my favourite and he is one of the deepest and most well written antagonists of all time,he carries the theme of Nihilism and Human Heart beautifully.He has a short origin story called Unmasked,I highly recommend that.
If you wanna get a deeper look on the sternritters and espadas and their character writing,i recommend some youtubers like DBZimran or MrTommo2304.
Yes there are a huge amount of characters in Bleach and its not possible to focus on all of them but the side characters I think many do get their fair share of development.Byakuya,Gin,Ulquiorra,Zaraki,Mayuri,Tosen,Aizen etc. were all amazing and lovable characters with great developments.Many deep themes were addressed through different characters which I think was a huge reason for the cast being so enjoyable yet having a depth to their character at the same time.
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Women in Bleach are top tier tho.
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There is a huge misconception and misunderstanding about Orihime being useless but No,she's far from it.
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#ART 10/10
Bleach has great panelling firstly which is why the fights play out nicely. It has some of my favourite art in all of manga and also character designs which helps highlight the hype moments in the series because Tite Kubo is an absolute genius when designing his characters.A common criticism about his art is the white backgrounds but he is sometimes heavy on the black tones that make his characters stand out more and generate more hype.Overall amazing art and art style.
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ENJOYMENT - 10/10
Bleach is a wild ride from start to finish.Amazing fights and characters make the story enjoyable and fun to read while addressing deeper themes that many tend to overlook. Also it has some of my favorite peaks in all of Shounen.
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ANIME
Is the anime worth watching?
Both yes and no.
While the adaptation wasn't amazing,it still is a good adaptation and some fights were amazingly done.The Soundtrack is 10/10 and my favourite in anime.I highly recommend skipping fillers for the first go and watch the Zanpakuto Rebellion and Reigai Filler arcs later on.It is up to you.
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All I did was discuss good aspects of the series, some flaws that caught my eyes would be- Firstly,he makes his writing way too vague for many people to understand and so he often gets shit for that although that's not a flaw lol, but coming to the flaws some characters don't get justice because the cast is Huge, e.g. Yasutora Sado, Coyote Stark :'( .Kubo has so many amazing ideas,he throws them all at once which becomes a bit tough to maintain sometimes and might seem messy to some people (me too a few times ngl). Also you might not care about some character but doesn't mean that the character is bad, Bleach isn't a super emotionally or dramatically presented.Many stuff he built up,were wasted due to the rush because of his declining health during the final arc.So even though the ending was very satisfying and wholesome,the events leading up to the ending was rushed because of health issues,so many things remained unexplained which were later explained in the novels like I mentioned above,mainly a 3 volume novel "Can't Fear Your own World" and a few others and the novels were also made canon by kubo himself and written by Ryohgo Narita,search up who he is.
Bleach has a great reread value,you'll find a lot of small details and foreshadowings that are impossible to notice at hindsight.
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Lastly,the power system was handled in an amazing way,just perfect.Props to him for this because it didn't become a mess and go out of hand.
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It is a 2 Hour long video but it was amazingly done.It can change your perspective on the series.
