Anime: Bleach

4 January 2008

Before you guys say that I didn't watch Bleach, wait, because I sat down and watched the first 5 seasons almost back to back. And yes, its not a bad show, there are a lot worse animes out there. I tried REALLY hard to LOVE Bleach like everyone else does, but it seems that almost every chance Bleach has to make itself a great show, it fails.

Negatives.

First of all, the first season of Bleach is stupidly boring.

Second, there are WAY to many filler episodes in the series.

Third, the second season introduces a totally stupid amount of secondary characters, and then spends way too much time detailing their history, their special attacks and individual personalities, and all kinds of crap that drags the show down.

Fourth, serious and emotional/drama filled moments in this show are constantly shattered by "comic relief" when they shouldn't be. They are also dragged out to the point of ruin by excessive dialog.

Fifth, the characters need to SHUT UP AND FIGHT, and stop taunting each other and giving huge monologues about their abilities and their swords and what not. If I want to hear about every detail about a character's powers I'll go read the wikipedia article about them; it doesn't help the already crawling pace of the action to constantly interrupt it with boring talk.

Sixth, the action in Bleach is way behind the times for animation and for the most part is not that fun to watch. For the most part, I could describe the action in Bleach as Dragon Ball Z, with swords, in slow motion. ITS BORING. In almost every major fight in the series, as soon as the action starts up, it cuts away to another scene with boring dialog somewhere else in the world. Its damn annoying. There are certain Nickelodeon shows *cough*Avatar*cough* which have action that is 10 times more entertaining than Bleach.

Positives

1. I will admit, I have a big soft spot for emotionally damaged female characters, and Bleach has a couple of really good ones. It also has pretty solid character development overall, thanks to the excessive talking and explaining that goes on.

In conclusion, I've watched Bleach because I wanted to see some bad ass sword fighting; while there are a few good fights in the series, none are very memorable, and all of them are marred by the aforementioned mouth diarrhea that almost every character possesses. I will continue to watch Bleach in hopes that it gets better though.

Wow, bleach ended.

Well, now that a couple of months have passed and the dust has relatively settled, let's see what it was worth in the end.
TLDR Captain Obvious version: Bleach is a great example of how to make a great start and then fail in the long run. The not so obvious (and more interesting) parts are expanded below.

Video

There are two things that make or break a perpetually ongoing visuals.
First they have to be instantly gripping, that is have a sort of unique style and flair that would make any viewer that sees them for the first time go "hey, that's something i didn't see before, looks cool". Bleach has that in spades, in fact more so than 90% of the anime out there.

There is something in the way the show uses the basic black and white structure of a picture that gives the whole thing a sort of "modern classic" feel. And then there is something in the way the show injects colors in that black and white picture that make the color almost burst out of the limitations of the canvas, enriching the whole experience with great visual conflict. Early episodes of the show were powerfully engaging in the visual sense both inside and, more importantly, outside of combat scenes. Not to mention the drop dead stylish OP / ED sequences.

The second thing about perpetually ongoing visuals is that they have to develop in an interesting way.
The thing about pictures is that no matter how awesome they are, they do get old much faster than any other component of the show. So it is important for something that runs for years to constantly improve upon it's own visual style. Sadly, that's where Bleach shot it's own visual presentation in the foot.

The visual development of Bleach went the way of "detail over substance". After the creators nailed the initial styling, they then tried to milk it for all it's worth by making more and more complex costumes and hairstyles. It worked good as long as the underlying black-and-white structure could take it. But at some point midway into the series, it just became all too much. As a result, the strict and ordered feeling of the picture was lost, instead replaced by pointless pattern and color intoxication.

It was an amazing attempt at a unique visual experience, until it was no longer. The attempt was good enough to deserve a 6/10, though. Which is my way of saying "it was worth 9 half of the time, and 3 the other half".

Sound

Bleach's sound job was exellent. In the early days, easily 8/10 worthy, with downright amazing urban soundtrack, faithful and inspired voice acting, proper use of sound effects and all the myriad of little things that really made you feel you were right there. The only way it could get better is if it had a bit more variety and emotional impact in it's BGMs ("If you wanna see some action" as the most memorable song is not exactly cutting it :P).

As the series progressed, some of the voice acting slipped and became less charged with emotions, which is a bit of a flaw, but not a huge enough one to deduct a point. Overall, Bleach's sound job held up a lot better than Bleach's visuals and is certainly worthy of the 8/10 mark.

Story

Bleach's story, much like it's visuals, is about conflict between structure and insanity.
The story's basic framework is the classic Yin Yang, where on one side you have the deranged monsters, who would be personifications of chaos, but are still somewhat held together both physically and personality-wise by that speck of light in the darkness (in case of Hollows, their white masks). And on the other hand you have a prim and proper white-clad official guardians, who still all have their share of dark turmoil beneath the strict facade.

Every character of Bleach ultimately represents some way of balancing the energy inherent to chaotic emotions against structure that guides that energy towards a given goal. Wild characters embrace their inner demons, noble characters fall back on their training and discipline. This is the kind of story where the antagonists play both sides against each other, secure in their faith that their one chosen path offers the best fusion of the two sides, while the protagonists oscillate between the two paths, somehow proving to be wilder than the wild and nobler than the noble, and ending up proving the antagonists wrong.

In this kind of story, every story conflict is about which way of balancing instinct against wildness is better. In Bleach it was that way, for a time. But, much like the visuals, the show's creators went with a way of development that sapped the entire thing of it's substance by switching the focus from juxtaposition of good (with evil inside) and evil (with good inside) to higher and higher levels of fusion of the two concepts.

More specifically, the thought process seemed to go either like this:
"hey, the fans loved how the hero is angsting over embracing his darkness only to be pushed to do it, let's do it over and over again!"
or like this:
"hey, this villain is a fan favourite because he is so damn good at reading everyone's good and bad sides that he always has a master plan, let's make him omniscient!"
And then suddenly, we find that there is no conflict anymore. Either the antagonist has everything pre-solved, or the hero is way too strong for the antagonist to be even remotely a threat. No conflict = no story.

If Bleach's visuals shot themselves in the foot, then Bleach's story pretty much comitted seppuku. And since the story itself was not very original to begin with, i'll have to give it a 4/10, to represent it's slow deterioration from initial state of 8/10 (somewhat cliched, but extremely well executed) to ultimate 0/10 (nonexistent) in the end.

Characters
Characters are the reason we watch shounen. Seeing those vibrant folks overcome adversity after adversity and get better of that is the key aesthetic of genre.

Bleach's definite strength character-wise is their variety and presentation. That's where all the excess costume and hairstyle work really paid off.
However, quantity is not the same as quality, as a lot of characters appear to be either clones of each other personality-wise, or just quirky comic relief. The great amount of filler in the series did it to pretty much all the characters, even with major antagonists appearing to be mostly carbon copies of each other with only minimal alterations.

Furthermore, and worst of all, character development in Bleach was hamstrung as the story switched focus from conflicts of individual characters against personal issues to overarching master plans and increasing levels of form-switching fusions.
Finally, to add insult to injury, all character development of major characters is pretty much reset to 0 two-thirds into the series, when one of the greater antagonists kicks the bucket. Then we get to go through a new set of master plans and form-switching fusions all over again, only this time at slightly accelerated pace and significantly less impact character-wise.

That's not to say the show's character work is irredeemably bad. There are some awesome side characters and definitely at least one amazing antagonist. But this is seriously not enough to lift the character rating anywhere up from 3/10.

Value
3/10 in value for:
- being an interesting example of an attempt at a classic "light within darkness, darkness within light" paradigm in a shounen setting
- being an interesting example of an attempt at "urban" art style in shounen setting
- some interesting attempts on various character archetypes

Since there are lot of attempts and not many successes, 3/10 is where it's at.

Enjoyment
4/10 Exellent in the first few arks, and then good enough to watch a few episodes on fast-forward with subtitles every so often :p

INFAMY IS STILL FAME

Bleach is one of those series which took the world by storm, kept building up while oozing with style, before eventually realizing it had no idea what to do next. It began walking in circles as slow as possible so it can drag on for 5 years, and eventually ended incomplete because the manga got an abrupt ending. As a whole it is undermining the quality of shounens, it’s full of plot holes and inconsistencies, yet it also managed to become one of the most popular anime in existence. Why?

PRETTY COLORS & NICE SOUNDS

The shallowest yet obvious reason is its style. It looked great at first, had a funky soundtrack, artistic overtones, occult atmosphere, and exciting battles. Along with that it had snail slow pacing, and it played out like two 12 year olds measuring their dicks while insulting each other. And need I point out how conveniently everybody was conveniently pitted against dark counterparts of himself who had the exact same style of personality and way of fighting?

Coloring and artwork improved in later seasons, but at the same time the aesthetics which made the initial episodes so great, almost disappeared. Along with the animation; after a point on they just stand still and use a few frames that repeat a hundred times, like this is the second coming of Dragon Ball. What should be blood-boiling battles were more like macho-talking that always ended with cop-out power ups. It’s ironic how the main battle song has lyrics such as “If you want to get some action, you need be the center of attraction.” The action moved like a snail and relied solely on blinded fanboyism for giving off the illusion of excitement.

OTHER PROS

The bar was low as a lot of people were pleased with peanuts, resulting to endless cosplays and fanfics about this show, just because the characters look cool and sexy. And there are so many of them, each one with his own custom sword, various stages of power and different abilities. There is no way you won’t find at least one you will like in this huge crowd.

It had a cool premise that was making it seem deep and mature. Dealing with death, the afterlife, psychological fears, scars of the past, and a mysterious plan set in motion by nefarious masterminds. Who wouldn’t be interested in following such a story and revealing its secrets, while constantly getting introspection to its characters?

It was also the counterforce to the Naruto fandom. Not everyone liked that super popular show about emo kids wearing bandanas and crying in a corner about not getting recognition. Many viewers wanted more thug-like characters, full of cocky one-liners and arrogant smirks. Bleach was what they needed, a rivaling shitty shonen to balance the fame of another shitty shonen.

NO PLANNING

Despite all the positives, it fell apart after 60 episodes because Kubo had no idea of how to continue the story. So, he did the usual trick that works since the days of Dragon Ball. Introducing more characters, rehashing the exact same plot, constantly throwing around power ups that mean nothing after a few episodes, gradually making less sense, having less consistency, shallower characters, and fillers which are thrown in without giving a damn about continuity yet somehow manage to be better written than the canon story. I can overlook a few minor hiccups here and there but not to the point I need to have my brain imploding as if it was hit by Kenshiro. You just can’t turn a blind eye to the thousands of continuity errors and dull scenes without gorging your own eye sockets.

RULE OF COOL NOT

There are those who defend the show as nothing more than a guilty pleasure, thus there is no reason to complain about plot holes or bad writing. And yet not even they can deny how much more thought and planning was put into the early episodes. The ghosts were presented as people who died with a grudge, the characters had to face the shadows of their past, and there was some cute school romance in the air. Such elements degraded to faceless monsters defined by their superpower, males that are just bravado and transforming swords, females that are trophies for males to rescue, and excuses for fan service. Oh, and not to forget to mention how everyone with a tragic past eventually becomes a comic relief.

- Ichigo the angsty teenager, degraded from a sympathetic youth who was simply trying to protect his friends and family, to an imba warrior that only cares about saving chicks, and keeps getting his ass kicked, yet wins all the time with ass-pulling power-ups.
- Butchy fighter Rukia, degraded from a dynamic woman with a tragic past, to a frail damsel in distress that needs to be saved every ten days.
- Love rival Orihime, degraded from a sad and innocent girl, to a bimbo with huge boobs who repeats KUROSAKI-KUN every ten seconds.
- Everybody is less interesting that a berserker with bells glued on his hair, and sole purpose to cut thing just for the heck of it.
- Aizen was hyped up as an unbeatable villain with an ingenious masterplan that is kept secret for hundreds of episodes. Kubo was stalling the final showdown by constantly introducing more characters, just so they can waste time in meaningless battles. And then had Aizen getting defeated very fast with a shitty power up that was meant to take away the protagonist’s powers forever, only to have them returning with an asspull, and never explaining what the hell was Aizen’s plan. Well excuse me, this is not guilty pleasure. It’s a test to see how much insult a person’s intelligence can tolerate before dropping your stupid show.

JUST STOP

It is not simply the constant plot holes and asspulls that made Bleach so bad, it’s also Kubo not finishing it, because he was making money out of this shit. He just introduced more characters, contradicted everything he said before, repeated the exact same plot, and got paid for it. Anything he kept secret from the viewer for making him speculate what could it possibly mean always ended up being complete bullshit, since he never planned ahead.

- Why is everybody flying out of nowhere?
- How are Bankais rare, if everybody has one?
- How can you outrun a ray of light by seeing it hitting you once?
- Why is the blind black dude betraying everybody?
- Why didn’t the story end after Aizen got defeated and Ichigo lost his powers?
- What was Aizen’s plan?
- Why are the Quincy still alive when they are supposed to be dead?

IN CONCLUSION

Bleach was the youngest of the so called Big Three, and also the first to fall apart in just a little bit over a year. For a title that was hailed as the anti-Naruto, it got discontinued and replaced by a zero budget Naruto spin-off. Oh the burn! It’s almost as ironic as when Sega began making Sonic the Hedgehog games for Nintendo. But who ever notices such things, if you get a shallow asshole with a big sword, smirking and saying how big his cock is? It’s a fine series to waste your synaptic functions upon, while trying to spot the constant Kubo trolling. It definitely ended nowhere near as good as it began, and doesn’t stand a ghost of a chance before other shonen like Hunter X Hunter or Full Metal Alchemist.

And yes, it’s getting a continuation I hear, but it’s too late to do anything about it.

Bleach is very good anime i have wacthed it in my friends house (i dont know how he got this becouse i didnt find this from any shop and my friend didnt want to tell me where to get this) and it was good, it's like naruto but with strong samurai ghosts. my favorite character is bakawang(im not good with name spelling) or renji becouse they are so strong and cool bakawangs bankai blast pink razor shurikens in air thats why i like him. bleach haves good graphics even better than naruto. story is interesting and it haves good romance stuff like oriume X Inchigon and Chad X Rukiwa. but the best thing on bleach is propably the coolness of characters! it's almost good as NARUTO!

What can i say, since episode 1 this series has been my Holy Grail, amazing to think I've got to episode 93 and can only recall 2 or 3 so-so episodes.

The animation is stylish and dynamic, the swordfights brutal and the lighter moments can be genuinely laugh out loud funny. It's to the whole production teams credit that it can turn from dark to light at the flick of a switch and maintain the integrity of the story and characters.

The sound is a big plus for this series the usual recurring musics but of a very high emotive standard, the cast also do a stellar job, no poor voice acting here folks.

As far as story goes the main arc is about a boy that becomes a temporary Shinigami (a sort of samurai spirit warrior) and the repercusions of entering that spirit world he doesn't belong in, it has some intruige and a few twists but in the main it's about setting up the set peice battles, no bad thing when they make you laugh along the way. It's also notable that Bleach is very filler-lite and keeps up a head of steam most of the time, a big plus.

Characters are very good and you see most of them expand and grow as the series continues, they contain a diverse range of personalities that helps dialogue bounce around neatly.

As for value and enjoyment? Hell, how would you rate something that has you laughing out loud one moment and cheering the next, awesome, simply awesome.

I advise anyone to give this a try, may not be you're cup of tea but if it's a genre you are at all interested in I can't see how this wont be one of your landmark animes.

At the Time of making this review i have seen 91 Episodes. This is my first review.

I can think of only 3 maybe 4 other anime that i would possibly vote perfect 10 all round, this is one.

Animation: Although slightly different in style to nearly all other anime i had seen at the time of first watching this series, once you get past the "new" (this sometimes to people tends to make them feel the animation is "bad") feeling of the style you start to realise that it "fits". The animation is smooth and clean, colors and movement are excellent and distictive to the series alone.

Sound: The first 3 OP's so far have all been excellent and ultimately fit the section of episodes that they are used in like they were written for it, not picked from a list of possibles. Voice casting is exquisate in every way, from Ichigo, Rukia all the way to characters such as Uuru (think thats the spelling for the little but insanely strong shop girl)
Music within the eposide further adds to the feel of this anime builds atmosphere perfectly whether its high action or insane comedy.

Story/Character: Perfect. Starting to basic need to protect from episode one, excellent addition of back story and progression throughout all elements of the series. Without giving too much away, speed and depth story and character prgression all come together to create something that is to me simply the greatest "shonen" anime i have ever seen. (and thats quite a lot)
Additionally no matter what height of power a main character reaches they are never let to seem unbeatable, and sometimes the weakest characters can turn around a situation or become important beyond measure. Filler which seems to plague just about every anime over 13 episodes seems to mix perfectly into the comedy and story development of this series, from the konoha arcs, special episodes with "out of character" characters etc everything makes you glad you have watched. There is not a single chracter that i have not feel in love with, or grown to hate (the ones you are meant to of course lol) No character in the series no matter how small or big is forgettable, even those that have appeared only briefly leave and imprint and you instantly recall them if they appear again 40 episodes down the line <--- how they do this i don't fully understand, it is simply part of the greatness that is bleach!

Value: This series could be released at double the price of any other anime and i would still buy it using money reserved for i dunno, medicine and food! Priceless.

Enjoyment: each time a new episode comes out you get chills, waiting for a new episode is equisite torture, you can rewatch the same episode with a privotal moment so many times and still get the same tingle and rush when certain things happen. Never before have i rewatched over and over an anime to this extent.

Out of everything this anime has to offer i would point out only two tiny flaws (if you could even call them that)

1. It was released a year to early, if this series had been released a year later in HD/WS i would imagine possitively drooling myself to dehydration every episode. (fingers crossed for a HD-DVD release in a few years :) )

2. Sometimes a comedy episode is placed in the "wrong" place. I personally don't mind where they put them beacause the style of these episodes are part of bleach and awesome in their own right. Some people disagree when they are placed within battle sequences.