Thoughts on Bleach

(One pretty bad-ass picture I'd say.)

     Who hasn't heard of Bleach? Its one of the currently top 3 longest running japanese manga/anime. Well, that's based on my knowledge anyway, with One Piece at first place and Naruto on second. Of all 3 of these series, the only one I was up-to-date and was most interested in was Naruto. First I thought that Bleach wasn't interesting and its just a manga with girls with big breasts. Things happened and I decided to give this anime/manga a try.

     I couldn't find any copies of the first episodes and I thought it would take a long time to catch up to the anime, so I decided to read the manga instead. Its your typical boy-has-hidden/super-powers-and-goes-around-beating-bad-guys type of manga. You're introduced to Kurosaki Ichigo, a pretty normal kid with blonde hair, good with grades, athletic and has lotsa friends. But what makes him different is that he can see spirits and goes around helping them. His normal, everyday life, changes when he meets Rukia. A Shinigami (death god in Japanese) who goes around exorcising hollows (soul-thingys that attack humans). Ichigo's family gets attacked by hollows then Ichigo discovers his hidden powers.

     Pretty lame synopsis but that's the gist of the introduction to the story. As I read through the whole 400+ chapters in manga in a matter of days, I lost interest in watching the anime.

     The story is so-so compared to the rest of the mangas I've read. After reading the recent chapters, the story is just satisfactory. Plot twists, and how the rest of the story unfolds are predictable. Even that fight with the first boss, Aizen. And that was the only plot twist I've deemed as interesting. It seemed like the manga was interesting because of the fight scenes. Characters were just thrown in, given a vague background, then sent to battle. The only character that I was really interested in was Kenpachi. And that is just because I thought he was a cool or bad-ass character. As for the rest of the crew, they are easy to forget. In the recent story arc, Ichigo's father, Rukia, and the rest of the people he met are nowhere to be found.

     The theme to the story is not really emphasized. What seemed like "fight for friendship" kind of story is slowly fading away. Like I've said, characters was just thrown in to provide more battles or more fight scenes. The shinigami-hollows, the Soul Society members, even his friends. So much questions are left unanswered as the story continues. Characters were interesting by themselves but only at the time they were introduced. After narrating their background they are immediately labeled as side-characters. They are like Non-Playable Characters in online games. Characters that hold less importance to the story. It seemed like there was no character development. After a crisis, another crisis comes up and characters are again thrown into battle. Even in the midst of the battle, there is no change in the main characters themselves.

     The only character that progressed in my point of view was Chad. He first started out as a side character and slowly improved to Ichigo's right hand man.  For Ichigo, he was the same since the start of the story. The only thing the improved in Ichigo was his powers. He only got stronger but character-wise, it was the same. Inuoe is much worse than Ichigo. Started out at someone who is always protected, and still is someone who needs to be protected. And all the while she keeps on the mentality of wanting to protect her friends. She doesn't do anything about her uselessness.

     In my honest opinion, the manga that once started out with so much promise gradually became a manga that focuses only on fighting. Battle the bad guys and save the day kind of thing. The story was too shallow and characters are uninteresting. Even the source of Ichigo's unmatched powers is still unanswered. All in all, I'd still recommend on this series. For all its worth, it still provides lots of action for action fans.