Anime & Manga Titty Kubo Has Defeated Lee (Remembering the Fallen)
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@Owl Ki @Topi Jerami @Jaguark101 @Fujishiro @TheAncientCenturion @ZenZu @TheKnightOfTheSea @Indigo @Warchief Sanji D Goat
Alright guys. I really don’t know what to make of this series. I can tell that (as this is an “older” series) that there are a lot of good ideas here that other manga later took heavy inspiration from, so I can respect that Kubo was a source of inspiration for later Shonen that I do enjoy like Black Clover. There is also a lot of mediocrity and predictability, and a lot of cringe bullshit. So I’ll start with what I like:
-Aizen’s death was pretty surprising, I like the conspiracy stuff happening but unfortunately I know from years of seeing people talk about Bleach that Aizen is a major villain of some sort, but I can see how his eventual reveal as a villain would be shocking since I’m supposed to believe the guy is dead right now.
-The captains are pretty cool. In particular Captain of Squad 8 immediately had my favorite design among these captains so I was glad to see that not only did he get some focus in the Chad fight, but he also didn’t lose to some pointless tweenage powerup or whatever.
-Kubo is a talented artist. A lot of his characters and choreography are nice looking.
…And that’s it. That’s really all I can say I’m enjoying about this series. So now the bad:
-Bleach has a plot structure problem that I really need to come up with a term for. In particular when it comes to how Ichigo resolves conflict. It’s the same problem that ruined Black Clover’s Spade Kingdom arc for me but it’s much worse here. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is a great example.
So in Ichigo vs Kenpachi, the fight starts off where Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi and is forced to just run away from him. Then Ichigo has a revelation that his friends might lose. Then Ichigo can suddenly cut Kenpachi.
And that’s been Ichigo Kurosaki in a fucking nutshell right there. Ichigo can’t do something, Ichigo has a revelation, and Ichigo can now do the thing he couldn’t do before. This is the most predictable and lame way to solve conflicts in manga, and this is literally every fucking Ichigo conflict in a nutshell aside from Byakuya. Ichigo is the most messiah like main character I have ever seen in Shonen, his only competitors being Luffy and Naruto but at least Luffy and Naruto have come up against walls they couldn’t overcome with sheer brute force before. With Ichigo, he got completely negged by Byakuya like a week ago and then literally just by learning the fucking basics of how soul Reapers powers work, is now cutting Kenpachi who’s whole thing is that he’s supposed to be like, impossible to cut. Literally all Ichigo needed was one single week of training and then a swell of resolve to now cut the uncuttable man. He went from straight up fodder to now in competition with Soul Reaper captains who are tiers and tiers beyond their subordinates, by literally just learning the fucking basics of his power.
This, is complete dogshit. Isn’t RUkia like hundreds of years old or something? Like she just looks like a teenage girl but is much older than that? I can’t imagine how old someone like Kenpachi who apparently has killed more opponents than any other Soul Reaper and is known as a battle maniac is, and now Ichigo has already overcome his gimmick in a completely unexplained manner with one week of training and a Soul Reaper trainee understanding of how his powers work.
And there’s no explanation. Ichigo is just suddenly emitting more spirit juice than Kenpachi simply because he became more confident. Ichigo is simply born a messiah like entity emitting fucking gargantuan amounts of spirit energy with no explanation, enough to slice a durability focused Captain literally with less than a week’s worth of spirit combat experience.
A similar fight happens in Kingdom, Ouhon vs Earl Shi. Earl Shi and Ouhon are both spearmen, but Earl Shi outclasses Ouhon in every regard: power, speed, and experience. Their fight begins with Shi completely bodybagging Ouhon, but Ouhon insists that if their fight continues, he will be able to defeat Shi Ei. And this ultimately happens, Ouhon slays Shi Ei and kills him. The reason for this is explained and built up to in the fight: Shi Ei learned the spear by being thrown into suicide mission after suicide mission and simply being expected to win or die. He learned the spear by having to defend himself in life or death encounters, but he actually had no/minimal formal spear training. Ouhon is the opposite. He was born the heir to the Ou family and as such, received ultra high level theoretical spear training from childhood. The reason Ouhon defeats Shi Ei, is because Ouhon is able to apply the extremely high but extremely theoretical understanding of the spear that he was taught from childhood, to gain the advantage that he lacked in raw speed, power, and experience to win. This fight also involves a mid fight revelation: Ouhon realizes that Shi Ei is bloodlusted and is not actually defending himself but is solely a blind raging attacker with no interest in self preservation (explained by a superb backstory!), which again, Ouhon learns by observing Shi Ei as they fight using his high level of martial knowledge.
The fight starts with Ouhon being completely inferior to Shi Ei, then Ouhon has a mid fight revelation that gains him a unique advantage based on his particular skill set, and Ouhon uses this particular skill set to win.
This shit is so much better than Ichigo vs Kenpachi so far. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is just, Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi, and then he can cut Kenpachi. If Kenpachi gets effectively mid diffed by a teenager…I don’t know my guys. There may be no saving this arc for me.
-The Soul Society is the lamest, most bland and forgettable setting I’ve ever seen for a major manga arc. All of the little nitpicks I’ve had up until now are slowly starting to compound in on this arc. My ability to suspend my disbelief and accept that corporeal soul forms are subject to the exact same physical limitations of a normal human body (blood, sweat, stamina exhaustion, breathing, etc), my willingness to just shut my brain off and accept that the concept of soul swords manifesting as Japanese style katanas with various abilities for no reason, my willingness to overlook every little oddity surrounding how this series depicts things like souls and spirit energy and such…all went down the toilet as soon as I realized the Soul Society was just medieval Japan with some slightly fantastical elements.
There are fucking nobility in the Soul Society. There are currencies. There are peasants and villages. There is population control. Why the fuck, do these things exist in the fucking afterlife. Titty really looked at the unlimited and abstract possibilities in depicting the world of souls and the afterlife, and said “fuck it, medieval Japan.” I cannot express my disappointment as I learn more and more that the Soul Society is just Samuraiville where Samurai possess slightly magical powers. This is just about the most boring possible setting for an arc of this nature, and as I said my willingness to accept some of the more unimaginative aspects of spiritualism that Titty drew is now nonexistent.
There’s enough good in Bleach to keep me pressing on for now, but Titty is just about one less than passable fight away from losing me.
Alright guys. I really don’t know what to make of this series. I can tell that (as this is an “older” series) that there are a lot of good ideas here that other manga later took heavy inspiration from, so I can respect that Kubo was a source of inspiration for later Shonen that I do enjoy like Black Clover. There is also a lot of mediocrity and predictability, and a lot of cringe bullshit. So I’ll start with what I like:
-Aizen’s death was pretty surprising, I like the conspiracy stuff happening but unfortunately I know from years of seeing people talk about Bleach that Aizen is a major villain of some sort, but I can see how his eventual reveal as a villain would be shocking since I’m supposed to believe the guy is dead right now.
-The captains are pretty cool. In particular Captain of Squad 8 immediately had my favorite design among these captains so I was glad to see that not only did he get some focus in the Chad fight, but he also didn’t lose to some pointless tweenage powerup or whatever.
-Kubo is a talented artist. A lot of his characters and choreography are nice looking.
…And that’s it. That’s really all I can say I’m enjoying about this series. So now the bad:
-Bleach has a plot structure problem that I really need to come up with a term for. In particular when it comes to how Ichigo resolves conflict. It’s the same problem that ruined Black Clover’s Spade Kingdom arc for me but it’s much worse here. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is a great example.
So in Ichigo vs Kenpachi, the fight starts off where Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi and is forced to just run away from him. Then Ichigo has a revelation that his friends might lose. Then Ichigo can suddenly cut Kenpachi.
And that’s been Ichigo Kurosaki in a fucking nutshell right there. Ichigo can’t do something, Ichigo has a revelation, and Ichigo can now do the thing he couldn’t do before. This is the most predictable and lame way to solve conflicts in manga, and this is literally every fucking Ichigo conflict in a nutshell aside from Byakuya. Ichigo is the most messiah like main character I have ever seen in Shonen, his only competitors being Luffy and Naruto but at least Luffy and Naruto have come up against walls they couldn’t overcome with sheer brute force before. With Ichigo, he got completely negged by Byakuya like a week ago and then literally just by learning the fucking basics of how soul Reapers powers work, is now cutting Kenpachi who’s whole thing is that he’s supposed to be like, impossible to cut. Literally all Ichigo needed was one single week of training and then a swell of resolve to now cut the uncuttable man. He went from straight up fodder to now in competition with Soul Reaper captains who are tiers and tiers beyond their subordinates, by literally just learning the fucking basics of his power.
This, is complete dogshit. Isn’t RUkia like hundreds of years old or something? Like she just looks like a teenage girl but is much older than that? I can’t imagine how old someone like Kenpachi who apparently has killed more opponents than any other Soul Reaper and is known as a battle maniac is, and now Ichigo has already overcome his gimmick in a completely unexplained manner with one week of training and a Soul Reaper trainee understanding of how his powers work.
And there’s no explanation. Ichigo is just suddenly emitting more spirit juice than Kenpachi simply because he became more confident. Ichigo is simply born a messiah like entity emitting fucking gargantuan amounts of spirit energy with no explanation, enough to slice a durability focused Captain literally with less than a week’s worth of spirit combat experience.
A similar fight happens in Kingdom, Ouhon vs Earl Shi. Earl Shi and Ouhon are both spearmen, but Earl Shi outclasses Ouhon in every regard: power, speed, and experience. Their fight begins with Shi completely bodybagging Ouhon, but Ouhon insists that if their fight continues, he will be able to defeat Shi Ei. And this ultimately happens, Ouhon slays Shi Ei and kills him. The reason for this is explained and built up to in the fight: Shi Ei learned the spear by being thrown into suicide mission after suicide mission and simply being expected to win or die. He learned the spear by having to defend himself in life or death encounters, but he actually had no/minimal formal spear training. Ouhon is the opposite. He was born the heir to the Ou family and as such, received ultra high level theoretical spear training from childhood. The reason Ouhon defeats Shi Ei, is because Ouhon is able to apply the extremely high but extremely theoretical understanding of the spear that he was taught from childhood, to gain the advantage that he lacked in raw speed, power, and experience to win. This fight also involves a mid fight revelation: Ouhon realizes that Shi Ei is bloodlusted and is not actually defending himself but is solely a blind raging attacker with no interest in self preservation (explained by a superb backstory!), which again, Ouhon learns by observing Shi Ei as they fight using his high level of martial knowledge.
The fight starts with Ouhon being completely inferior to Shi Ei, then Ouhon has a mid fight revelation that gains him a unique advantage based on his particular skill set, and Ouhon uses this particular skill set to win.
This shit is so much better than Ichigo vs Kenpachi so far. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is just, Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi, and then he can cut Kenpachi. If Kenpachi gets effectively mid diffed by a teenager…I don’t know my guys. There may be no saving this arc for me.
-The Soul Society is the lamest, most bland and forgettable setting I’ve ever seen for a major manga arc. All of the little nitpicks I’ve had up until now are slowly starting to compound in on this arc. My ability to suspend my disbelief and accept that corporeal soul forms are subject to the exact same physical limitations of a normal human body (blood, sweat, stamina exhaustion, breathing, etc), my willingness to just shut my brain off and accept that the concept of soul swords manifesting as Japanese style katanas with various abilities for no reason, my willingness to overlook every little oddity surrounding how this series depicts things like souls and spirit energy and such…all went down the toilet as soon as I realized the Soul Society was just medieval Japan with some slightly fantastical elements.
There are fucking nobility in the Soul Society. There are currencies. There are peasants and villages. There is population control. Why the fuck, do these things exist in the fucking afterlife. Titty really looked at the unlimited and abstract possibilities in depicting the world of souls and the afterlife, and said “fuck it, medieval Japan.” I cannot express my disappointment as I learn more and more that the Soul Society is just Samuraiville where Samurai possess slightly magical powers. This is just about the most boring possible setting for an arc of this nature, and as I said my willingness to accept some of the more unimaginative aspects of spiritualism that Titty drew is now nonexistent.
There’s enough good in Bleach to keep me pressing on for now, but Titty is just about one less than passable fight away from losing me.
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@Owl Ki @Topi Jerami @Jaguark101 @Fujishiro @TheAncientCenturion @ZenZu @TheKnightOfTheSea @Indigo @Warchief Sanji D Goat
Alright guys. I really don’t know what to make of this series. I can tell that (as this is an “older” series) that there are a lot of good ideas here that other manga later took heavy inspiration from, so I can respect that Kubo was a source of inspiration for later Shonen that I do enjoy like Black Clover. There is also a lot of mediocrity and predictability, and a lot of cringe bullshit. So I’ll start with what I like:
-Aizen’s death was pretty surprising, I like the conspiracy stuff happening but unfortunately I know from years of seeing people talk about Bleach that Aizen is a major villain of some sort, but I can see how his eventual reveal as a villain would be shocking since I’m supposed to believe the guy is dead right now.
-The captains are pretty cool. In particular Captain of Squad 8 immediately had my favorite design among these captains so I was glad to see that not only did he get some focus in the Chad fight, but he also didn’t lose to some pointless tweenage powerup or whatever.
-Kubo is a talented artist. A lot of his characters and choreography are nice looking.
…And that’s it. That’s really all I can say I’m enjoying about this series. So now the bad:
-Bleach has a plot structure problem that I really need to come up with a term for. In particular when it comes to how Ichigo resolves conflict. It’s the same problem that ruined Black Clover’s Spade Kingdom arc for me but it’s much worse here. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is a great example.
So in Ichigo vs Kenpachi, the fight starts off where Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi and is forced to just run away from him. Then Ichigo has a revelation that if his friends lose. Then Ichigo can suddenly cut Kenpachi.
And that’s been Ichigo Kurosaki in a fucking nutshell right there. Ichigo can’t do something, Ichigo has a revelation, and Ichigo can now do the thing he couldn’t do before. This is the most predictable and lame way to solve conflicts in manga, and this is literally every fucking Ichigo conflict in a nutshell aside from Byakuya. Ichigo is the most messiah like main character I have ever seen in Shonen, his only competitors being Luffy and Naruto but at least Luffy and Naruto have come up against walls they couldn’t overcome with sheer brute force before. With Ichigo, he got completely negged by Byakuya like a week ago and then literally just by learning the fucking basics of how soul Reapers powers work, is now cutting Kenpachi who’s whole thing is that he’s supposed to be like, impossible to cut. Literally all Ichigo needed was one single week of training and then a swell of resolve to now cut the uncuttable man. He went from straight up fodder to now in competition with Soul Reaper captains who are tiers and tiers beyond their subordinates, by literally just learning the fucking basics of his power.
This, is complete dogshit. Isn’t RUkia like hundreds of years old or something? Like she just looks like a teenage girl but is much older than that? I can’t imagine how old someone like Kenpachi who apparently has killed more opponents than any other Soul Reaper and is known as a battle maniac is, and now Ichigo has already overcome his gimmick in a completely unexplained manner with one week of training and a Soul Reaper trainee understanding of how his powers work.
And there’s no explanation. Ichigo is just suddenly emitting more spirit juice than Kenpachi simply because he became more confident. Ichigo is simply born a messiah like entity emitting fucking gargantuan amounts of spirit energy with no explanation, enough to slice a durability focused Captain literally with less than a week’s worth of spirit combat experience.
A similar fight happens in Kingdom, Ouhon vs Earl Shi. Earl Shi and Ouhon are both spearmen, but Earl Shi outclasses Ouhon in every regard: power, speed, and experience. Their fight begins with Shi completely bodybagging Ouhon, but Ouhon insists that if their fight continues, he will be able to defeat Shi Ei. And this ultimately happens, Ouhon slays Shi Ei and kills him. The reason for this is explained and built up to in the fight: Shi Ei learned the spear by being thrown into suicide mission after suicide mission and simply being expected to win or die. He learned the spear by having to defend himself in life or death encounters, but he actually had no/minimal formal spear training. Ouhon is the opposite. He was born the heir to the Ou family and as such, received ultra high level theoretical spear training from childhood. The reason Ouhon defeats Shi Ei, is because Ouhon is able to apply the extremely high but extremely theoretical understanding of the spear that he was taught from childhood, to gain the advantage that he lacked in raw speed, power, and experience to win. This fight also involves a mid fight revelation: Ouhon realizes that Shi Ei is bloodlusted and is not actually defending himself but is solely a blind raging attacker with no interest in self preservation, which again, Ouhon learns by observing Shi Ei as they fight using his high level of martial knowledge.
The fight starts with Ouhon being completely inferior to Shi Ei, then Ouhon has a mid fight revelation that gains him a unique advantage based on his particular skill set, and Ouhon uses this particular skill set to win.
This shit is so much better than Ichigo vs Kenpachi so far. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is just, Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi, and then he can cut Kenpachi. If Kenpachi gets effectively mid diffed by a teenager…I don’t know my guys. There may be no saving this arc for me.
-The Soul Society is the lamest, most bland and forgettable setting I’ve ever seen for a major manga arc. All of the little nitpicks I’ve had up until now are slowly starting to compound in on this arc. My ability to suspend my disbelief and accept that corporeal soul forms are subject to the exact same physical limitations of a normal human body (blood, sweat, stamina exhaustion, breathing, etc), my willingness to just shut my brain off and accept that the concept of soul swords manifesting as Japanese style katanas with various abilities for no reason, my willingness to overlook every little oddity surrounding how this series depicts things like souls and spirit energy and such…all went down the toilet as soon as I realized the Soul Society was just medieval Japan was some slightly fantastical elements.
There are fucking nobility in the Soul Society. There are currencies. There are peasants and villages. There is population control. Why the fuck, do these things exist in the fucking afterlife. Titty really looked at the unlimited and abstract possibilities in depicting the world of souls and the afterlife, and said “fuck it, medieval Japan.” I cannot express my disappointment as I learn more and more that the Soul Society is just Samuraiville where Samurai possess slightly magical powers. This is just about the most boring possible setting for an arc of this nature, and as I said my willingness to accept some of the more unimaginative aspects of spiritualism that Titty drew is now nonexistent.
There’s enough food in Bleach to keep me pressing on for now, but Titty is just about one less than passable fight away from losing me.
Alright guys. I really don’t know what to make of this series. I can tell that (as this is an “older” series) that there are a lot of good ideas here that other manga later took heavy inspiration from, so I can respect that Kubo was a source of inspiration for later Shonen that I do enjoy like Black Clover. There is also a lot of mediocrity and predictability, and a lot of cringe bullshit. So I’ll start with what I like:
-Aizen’s death was pretty surprising, I like the conspiracy stuff happening but unfortunately I know from years of seeing people talk about Bleach that Aizen is a major villain of some sort, but I can see how his eventual reveal as a villain would be shocking since I’m supposed to believe the guy is dead right now.
-The captains are pretty cool. In particular Captain of Squad 8 immediately had my favorite design among these captains so I was glad to see that not only did he get some focus in the Chad fight, but he also didn’t lose to some pointless tweenage powerup or whatever.
-Kubo is a talented artist. A lot of his characters and choreography are nice looking.
…And that’s it. That’s really all I can say I’m enjoying about this series. So now the bad:
-Bleach has a plot structure problem that I really need to come up with a term for. In particular when it comes to how Ichigo resolves conflict. It’s the same problem that ruined Black Clover’s Spade Kingdom arc for me but it’s much worse here. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is a great example.
So in Ichigo vs Kenpachi, the fight starts off where Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi and is forced to just run away from him. Then Ichigo has a revelation that if his friends lose. Then Ichigo can suddenly cut Kenpachi.
And that’s been Ichigo Kurosaki in a fucking nutshell right there. Ichigo can’t do something, Ichigo has a revelation, and Ichigo can now do the thing he couldn’t do before. This is the most predictable and lame way to solve conflicts in manga, and this is literally every fucking Ichigo conflict in a nutshell aside from Byakuya. Ichigo is the most messiah like main character I have ever seen in Shonen, his only competitors being Luffy and Naruto but at least Luffy and Naruto have come up against walls they couldn’t overcome with sheer brute force before. With Ichigo, he got completely negged by Byakuya like a week ago and then literally just by learning the fucking basics of how soul Reapers powers work, is now cutting Kenpachi who’s whole thing is that he’s supposed to be like, impossible to cut. Literally all Ichigo needed was one single week of training and then a swell of resolve to now cut the uncuttable man. He went from straight up fodder to now in competition with Soul Reaper captains who are tiers and tiers beyond their subordinates, by literally just learning the fucking basics of his power.
This, is complete dogshit. Isn’t RUkia like hundreds of years old or something? Like she just looks like a teenage girl but is much older than that? I can’t imagine how old someone like Kenpachi who apparently has killed more opponents than any other Soul Reaper and is known as a battle maniac is, and now Ichigo has already overcome his gimmick in a completely unexplained manner with one week of training and a Soul Reaper trainee understanding of how his powers work.
And there’s no explanation. Ichigo is just suddenly emitting more spirit juice than Kenpachi simply because he became more confident. Ichigo is simply born a messiah like entity emitting fucking gargantuan amounts of spirit energy with no explanation, enough to slice a durability focused Captain literally with less than a week’s worth of spirit combat experience.
A similar fight happens in Kingdom, Ouhon vs Earl Shi. Earl Shi and Ouhon are both spearmen, but Earl Shi outclasses Ouhon in every regard: power, speed, and experience. Their fight begins with Shi completely bodybagging Ouhon, but Ouhon insists that if their fight continues, he will be able to defeat Shi Ei. And this ultimately happens, Ouhon slays Shi Ei and kills him. The reason for this is explained and built up to in the fight: Shi Ei learned the spear by being thrown into suicide mission after suicide mission and simply being expected to win or die. He learned the spear by having to defend himself in life or death encounters, but he actually had no/minimal formal spear training. Ouhon is the opposite. He was born the heir to the Ou family and as such, received ultra high level theoretical spear training from childhood. The reason Ouhon defeats Shi Ei, is because Ouhon is able to apply the extremely high but extremely theoretical understanding of the spear that he was taught from childhood, to gain the advantage that he lacked in raw speed, power, and experience to win. This fight also involves a mid fight revelation: Ouhon realizes that Shi Ei is bloodlusted and is not actually defending himself but is solely a blind raging attacker with no interest in self preservation, which again, Ouhon learns by observing Shi Ei as they fight using his high level of martial knowledge.
The fight starts with Ouhon being completely inferior to Shi Ei, then Ouhon has a mid fight revelation that gains him a unique advantage based on his particular skill set, and Ouhon uses this particular skill set to win.
This shit is so much better than Ichigo vs Kenpachi so far. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is just, Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi, and then he can cut Kenpachi. If Kenpachi gets effectively mid diffed by a teenager…I don’t know my guys. There may be no saving this arc for me.
-The Soul Society is the lamest, most bland and forgettable setting I’ve ever seen for a major manga arc. All of the little nitpicks I’ve had up until now are slowly starting to compound in on this arc. My ability to suspend my disbelief and accept that corporeal soul forms are subject to the exact same physical limitations of a normal human body (blood, sweat, stamina exhaustion, breathing, etc), my willingness to just shut my brain off and accept that the concept of soul swords manifesting as Japanese style katanas with various abilities for no reason, my willingness to overlook every little oddity surrounding how this series depicts things like souls and spirit energy and such…all went down the toilet as soon as I realized the Soul Society was just medieval Japan was some slightly fantastical elements.
There are fucking nobility in the Soul Society. There are currencies. There are peasants and villages. There is population control. Why the fuck, do these things exist in the fucking afterlife. Titty really looked at the unlimited and abstract possibilities in depicting the world of souls and the afterlife, and said “fuck it, medieval Japan.” I cannot express my disappointment as I learn more and more that the Soul Society is just Samuraiville where Samurai possess slightly magical powers. This is just about the most boring possible setting for an arc of this nature, and as I said my willingness to accept some of the more unimaginative aspects of spiritualism that Titty drew is now nonexistent.
There’s enough food in Bleach to keep me pressing on for now, but Titty is just about one less than passable fight away from losing me.
@Owl Ki @Topi Jerami @Jaguark101 @Fujishiro @TheAncientCenturion @ZenZu @TheKnightOfTheSea @Indigo @Warchief Sanji D Goat
Alright guys. I really don’t know what to make of this series. I can tell that (as this is an “older” series) that there are a lot of good ideas here that other manga later took heavy inspiration from, so I can respect that Kubo was a source of inspiration for later Shonen that I do enjoy like Black Clover. There is also a lot of mediocrity and predictability, and a lot of cringe bullshit. So I’ll start with what I like:
-Aizen’s death was pretty surprising, I like the conspiracy stuff happening but unfortunately I know from years of seeing people talk about Bleach that Aizen is a major villain of some sort, but I can see how his eventual reveal as a villain would be shocking since I’m supposed to believe the guy is dead right now.
-The captains are pretty cool. In particular Captain of Squad 8 immediately had my favorite design among these captains so I was glad to see that not only did he get some focus in the Chad fight, but he also didn’t lose to some pointless tweenage powerup or whatever.
-Kubo is a talented artist. A lot of his characters and choreography are nice looking.
…And that’s it. That’s really all I can say I’m enjoying about this series. So now the bad:
-Bleach has a plot structure problem that I really need to come up with a term for. In particular when it comes to how Ichigo resolves conflict. It’s the same problem that ruined Black Clover’s Spade Kingdom arc for me but it’s much worse here. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is a great example.
So in Ichigo vs Kenpachi, the fight starts off where Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi and is forced to just run away from him. Then Ichigo has a revelation that if his friends lose. Then Ichigo can suddenly cut Kenpachi.
And that’s been Ichigo Kurosaki in a fucking nutshell right there. Ichigo can’t do something, Ichigo has a revelation, and Ichigo can now do the thing he couldn’t do before. This is the most predictable and lame way to solve conflicts in manga, and this is literally every fucking Ichigo conflict in a nutshell aside from Byakuya. Ichigo is the most messiah like main character I have ever seen in Shonen, his only competitors being Luffy and Naruto but at least Luffy and Naruto have come up against walls they couldn’t overcome with sheer brute force before. With Ichigo, he got completely negged by Byakuya like a week ago and then literally just by learning the fucking basics of how soul Reapers powers work, is now cutting Kenpachi who’s whole thing is that he’s supposed to be like, impossible to cut. Literally all Ichigo needed was one single week of training and then a swell of resolve to now cut the uncuttable man. He went from straight up fodder to now in competition with Soul Reaper captains who are tiers and tiers beyond their subordinates, by literally just learning the fucking basics of his power.
This, is complete dogshit. Isn’t RUkia like hundreds of years old or something? Like she just looks like a teenage girl but is much older than that? I can’t imagine how old someone like Kenpachi who apparently has killed more opponents than any other Soul Reaper and is known as a battle maniac is, and now Ichigo has already overcome his gimmick in a completely unexplained manner with one week of training and a Soul Reaper trainee understanding of how his powers work.
And there’s no explanation. Ichigo is just suddenly emitting more spirit juice than Kenpachi simply because he became more confident. Ichigo is simply born a messiah like entity emitting fucking gargantuan amounts of spirit energy with no explanation, enough to slice a durability focused Captain literally with less than a week’s worth of spirit combat experience.
A similar fight happens in Kingdom, Ouhon vs Earl Shi. Earl Shi and Ouhon are both spearmen, but Earl Shi outclasses Ouhon in every regard: power, speed, and experience. Their fight begins with Shi completely bodybagging Ouhon, but Ouhon insists that if their fight continues, he will be able to defeat Shi Ei. And this ultimately happens, Ouhon slays Shi Ei and kills him. The reason for this is explained and built up to in the fight: Shi Ei learned the spear by being thrown into suicide mission after suicide mission and simply being expected to win or die. He learned the spear by having to defend himself in life or death encounters, but he actually had no/minimal formal spear training. Ouhon is the opposite. He was born the heir to the Ou family and as such, received ultra high level theoretical spear training from childhood. The reason Ouhon defeats Shi Ei, is because Ouhon is able to apply the extremely high but extremely theoretical understanding of the spear that he was taught from childhood, to gain the advantage that he lacked in raw speed, power, and experience to win. This fight also involves a mid fight revelation: Ouhon realizes that Shi Ei is bloodlusted and is not actually defending himself but is solely a blind raging attacker with no interest in self preservation, which again, Ouhon learns by observing Shi Ei as they fight using his high level of martial knowledge.
The fight starts with Ouhon being completely inferior to Shi Ei, then Ouhon has a mid fight revelation that gains him a unique advantage based on his particular skill set, and Ouhon uses this particular skill set to win.
This shit is so much better than Ichigo vs Kenpachi so far. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is just, Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi, and then he can cut Kenpachi. If Kenpachi gets effectively mid diffed by a teenager…I don’t know my guys. There may be no saving this arc for me.
-The Soul Society is the lamest, most bland and forgettable setting I’ve ever seen for a major manga arc. All of the little nitpicks I’ve had up until now are slowly starting to compound in on this arc. My ability to suspend my disbelief and accept that corporeal soul forms are subject to the exact same physical limitations of a normal human body (blood, sweat, stamina exhaustion, breathing, etc), my willingness to just shut my brain off and accept that the concept of soul swords manifesting as Japanese style katanas with various abilities for no reason, my willingness to overlook every little oddity surrounding how this series depicts things like souls and spirit energy and such…all went down the toilet as soon as I realized the Soul Society was just medieval Japan was some slightly fantastical elements.
There are fucking nobility in the Soul Society. There are currencies. There are peasants and villages. There is population control. Why the fuck, do these things exist in the fucking afterlife. Titty really looked at the unlimited and abstract possibilities in depicting the world of souls and the afterlife, and said “fuck it, medieval Japan.” I cannot express my disappointment as I learn more and more that the Soul Society is just Samuraiville where Samurai possess slightly magical powers. This is just about the most boring possible setting for an arc of this nature, and as I said my willingness to accept some of the more unimaginative aspects of spiritualism that Titty drew is now nonexistent.
There’s enough good in Bleach to keep me pressing on for now, but Titty is just about one less than passable fight away from losing me.
Alright guys. I really don’t know what to make of this series. I can tell that (as this is an “older” series) that there are a lot of good ideas here that other manga later took heavy inspiration from, so I can respect that Kubo was a source of inspiration for later Shonen that I do enjoy like Black Clover. There is also a lot of mediocrity and predictability, and a lot of cringe bullshit. So I’ll start with what I like:
-Aizen’s death was pretty surprising, I like the conspiracy stuff happening but unfortunately I know from years of seeing people talk about Bleach that Aizen is a major villain of some sort, but I can see how his eventual reveal as a villain would be shocking since I’m supposed to believe the guy is dead right now.
-The captains are pretty cool. In particular Captain of Squad 8 immediately had my favorite design among these captains so I was glad to see that not only did he get some focus in the Chad fight, but he also didn’t lose to some pointless tweenage powerup or whatever.
-Kubo is a talented artist. A lot of his characters and choreography are nice looking.
…And that’s it. That’s really all I can say I’m enjoying about this series. So now the bad:
-Bleach has a plot structure problem that I really need to come up with a term for. In particular when it comes to how Ichigo resolves conflict. It’s the same problem that ruined Black Clover’s Spade Kingdom arc for me but it’s much worse here. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is a great example.
So in Ichigo vs Kenpachi, the fight starts off where Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi and is forced to just run away from him. Then Ichigo has a revelation that if his friends lose. Then Ichigo can suddenly cut Kenpachi.
And that’s been Ichigo Kurosaki in a fucking nutshell right there. Ichigo can’t do something, Ichigo has a revelation, and Ichigo can now do the thing he couldn’t do before. This is the most predictable and lame way to solve conflicts in manga, and this is literally every fucking Ichigo conflict in a nutshell aside from Byakuya. Ichigo is the most messiah like main character I have ever seen in Shonen, his only competitors being Luffy and Naruto but at least Luffy and Naruto have come up against walls they couldn’t overcome with sheer brute force before. With Ichigo, he got completely negged by Byakuya like a week ago and then literally just by learning the fucking basics of how soul Reapers powers work, is now cutting Kenpachi who’s whole thing is that he’s supposed to be like, impossible to cut. Literally all Ichigo needed was one single week of training and then a swell of resolve to now cut the uncuttable man. He went from straight up fodder to now in competition with Soul Reaper captains who are tiers and tiers beyond their subordinates, by literally just learning the fucking basics of his power.
This, is complete dogshit. Isn’t RUkia like hundreds of years old or something? Like she just looks like a teenage girl but is much older than that? I can’t imagine how old someone like Kenpachi who apparently has killed more opponents than any other Soul Reaper and is known as a battle maniac is, and now Ichigo has already overcome his gimmick in a completely unexplained manner with one week of training and a Soul Reaper trainee understanding of how his powers work.
And there’s no explanation. Ichigo is just suddenly emitting more spirit juice than Kenpachi simply because he became more confident. Ichigo is simply born a messiah like entity emitting fucking gargantuan amounts of spirit energy with no explanation, enough to slice a durability focused Captain literally with less than a week’s worth of spirit combat experience.
A similar fight happens in Kingdom, Ouhon vs Earl Shi. Earl Shi and Ouhon are both spearmen, but Earl Shi outclasses Ouhon in every regard: power, speed, and experience. Their fight begins with Shi completely bodybagging Ouhon, but Ouhon insists that if their fight continues, he will be able to defeat Shi Ei. And this ultimately happens, Ouhon slays Shi Ei and kills him. The reason for this is explained and built up to in the fight: Shi Ei learned the spear by being thrown into suicide mission after suicide mission and simply being expected to win or die. He learned the spear by having to defend himself in life or death encounters, but he actually had no/minimal formal spear training. Ouhon is the opposite. He was born the heir to the Ou family and as such, received ultra high level theoretical spear training from childhood. The reason Ouhon defeats Shi Ei, is because Ouhon is able to apply the extremely high but extremely theoretical understanding of the spear that he was taught from childhood, to gain the advantage that he lacked in raw speed, power, and experience to win. This fight also involves a mid fight revelation: Ouhon realizes that Shi Ei is bloodlusted and is not actually defending himself but is solely a blind raging attacker with no interest in self preservation, which again, Ouhon learns by observing Shi Ei as they fight using his high level of martial knowledge.
The fight starts with Ouhon being completely inferior to Shi Ei, then Ouhon has a mid fight revelation that gains him a unique advantage based on his particular skill set, and Ouhon uses this particular skill set to win.
This shit is so much better than Ichigo vs Kenpachi so far. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is just, Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi, and then he can cut Kenpachi. If Kenpachi gets effectively mid diffed by a teenager…I don’t know my guys. There may be no saving this arc for me.
-The Soul Society is the lamest, most bland and forgettable setting I’ve ever seen for a major manga arc. All of the little nitpicks I’ve had up until now are slowly starting to compound in on this arc. My ability to suspend my disbelief and accept that corporeal soul forms are subject to the exact same physical limitations of a normal human body (blood, sweat, stamina exhaustion, breathing, etc), my willingness to just shut my brain off and accept that the concept of soul swords manifesting as Japanese style katanas with various abilities for no reason, my willingness to overlook every little oddity surrounding how this series depicts things like souls and spirit energy and such…all went down the toilet as soon as I realized the Soul Society was just medieval Japan was some slightly fantastical elements.
There are fucking nobility in the Soul Society. There are currencies. There are peasants and villages. There is population control. Why the fuck, do these things exist in the fucking afterlife. Titty really looked at the unlimited and abstract possibilities in depicting the world of souls and the afterlife, and said “fuck it, medieval Japan.” I cannot express my disappointment as I learn more and more that the Soul Society is just Samuraiville where Samurai possess slightly magical powers. This is just about the most boring possible setting for an arc of this nature, and as I said my willingness to accept some of the more unimaginative aspects of spiritualism that Titty drew is now nonexistent.
There’s enough good in Bleach to keep me pressing on for now, but Titty is just about one less than passable fight away from losing me.
Agree on the SS world building, its kinda meh but the reason for population control will also be explained later.
Sad you kinda got spoiled about Aizen but it can't be helped.
Kyoraku ( the 8th captain) is GOATED so Im glad you're liking him lol.
Also not sure I get your complaint about Zanpakuto having abilities for no explained reason ( will be touched on later) when like One Piece has had devil fruits with no realy explanation for their origin for years.
Oh and Kenpachi is the GOAT, that is all.
@Owl Ki @Topi Jerami @Jaguark101 @Fujishiro @TheAncientCenturion @ZenZu @TheKnightOfTheSea @Indigo @Warchief Sanji D Goat
Alright guys. I really don’t know what to make of this series. I can tell that (as this is an “older” series) that there are a lot of good ideas here that other manga later took heavy inspiration from, so I can respect that Kubo was a source of inspiration for later Shonen that I do enjoy like Black Clover. There is also a lot of mediocrity and predictability, and a lot of cringe bullshit. So I’ll start with what I like:
-Aizen’s death was pretty surprising, I like the conspiracy stuff happening but unfortunately I know from years of seeing people talk about Bleach that Aizen is a major villain of some sort, but I can see how his eventual reveal as a villain would be shocking since I’m supposed to believe the guy is dead right now.
-The captains are pretty cool. In particular Captain of Squad 8 immediately had my favorite design among these captains so I was glad to see that not only did he get some focus in the Chad fight, but he also didn’t lose to some pointless tweenage powerup or whatever.
-Kubo is a talented artist. A lot of his characters and choreography are nice looking.
…And that’s it. That’s really all I can say I’m enjoying about this series. So now the bad:
-Bleach has a plot structure problem that I really need to come up with a term for. In particular when it comes to how Ichigo resolves conflict. It’s the same problem that ruined Black Clover’s Spade Kingdom arc for me but it’s much worse here. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is a great example.
So in Ichigo vs Kenpachi, the fight starts off where Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi and is forced to just run away from him. Then Ichigo has a revelation that if his friends lose. Then Ichigo can suddenly cut Kenpachi.
And that’s been Ichigo Kurosaki in a fucking nutshell right there. Ichigo can’t do something, Ichigo has a revelation, and Ichigo can now do the thing he couldn’t do before. This is the most predictable and lame way to solve conflicts in manga, and this is literally every fucking Ichigo conflict in a nutshell aside from Byakuya. Ichigo is the most messiah like main character I have ever seen in Shonen, his only competitors being Luffy and Naruto but at least Luffy and Naruto have come up against walls they couldn’t overcome with sheer brute force before. With Ichigo, he got completely negged by Byakuya like a week ago and then literally just by learning the fucking basics of how soul Reapers powers work, is now cutting Kenpachi who’s whole thing is that he’s supposed to be like, impossible to cut. Literally all Ichigo needed was one single week of training and then a swell of resolve to now cut the uncuttable man. He went from straight up fodder to now in competition with Soul Reaper captains who are tiers and tiers beyond their subordinates, by literally just learning the fucking basics of his power.
This, is complete dogshit. Isn’t RUkia like hundreds of years old or something? Like she just looks like a teenage girl but is much older than that? I can’t imagine how old someone like Kenpachi who apparently has killed more opponents than any other Soul Reaper and is known as a battle maniac is, and now Ichigo has already overcome his gimmick in a completely unexplained manner with one week of training and a Soul Reaper trainee understanding of how his powers work.
And there’s no explanation. Ichigo is just suddenly emitting more spirit juice than Kenpachi simply because he became more confident. Ichigo is simply born a messiah like entity emitting fucking gargantuan amounts of spirit energy with no explanation, enough to slice a durability focused Captain literally with less than a week’s worth of spirit combat experience.
A similar fight happens in Kingdom, Ouhon vs Earl Shi. Earl Shi and Ouhon are both spearmen, but Earl Shi outclasses Ouhon in every regard: power, speed, and experience. Their fight begins with Shi completely bodybagging Ouhon, but Ouhon insists that if their fight continues, he will be able to defeat Shi Ei. And this ultimately happens, Ouhon slays Shi Ei and kills him. The reason for this is explained and built up to in the fight: Shi Ei learned the spear by being thrown into suicide mission after suicide mission and simply being expected to win or die. He learned the spear by having to defend himself in life or death encounters, but he actually had no/minimal formal spear training. Ouhon is the opposite. He was born the heir to the Ou family and as such, received ultra high level theoretical spear training from childhood. The reason Ouhon defeats Shi Ei, is because Ouhon is able to apply the extremely high but extremely theoretical understanding of the spear that he was taught from childhood, to gain the advantage that he lacked in raw speed, power, and experience to win. This fight also involves a mid fight revelation: Ouhon realizes that Shi Ei is bloodlusted and is not actually defending himself but is solely a blind raging attacker with no interest in self preservation (explained by a superb backstory!), which again, Ouhon learns by observing Shi Ei as they fight using his high level of martial knowledge.
The fight starts with Ouhon being completely inferior to Shi Ei, then Ouhon has a mid fight revelation that gains him a unique advantage based on his particular skill set, and Ouhon uses this particular skill set to win.
This shit is so much better than Ichigo vs Kenpachi so far. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is just, Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi, and then he can cut Kenpachi. If Kenpachi gets effectively mid diffed by a teenager…I don’t know my guys. There may be no saving this arc for me.
-The Soul Society is the lamest, most bland and forgettable setting I’ve ever seen for a major manga arc. All of the little nitpicks I’ve had up until now are slowly starting to compound in on this arc. My ability to suspend my disbelief and accept that corporeal soul forms are subject to the exact same physical limitations of a normal human body (blood, sweat, stamina exhaustion, breathing, etc), my willingness to just shut my brain off and accept that the concept of soul swords manifesting as Japanese style katanas with various abilities for no reason, my willingness to overlook every little oddity surrounding how this series depicts things like souls and spirit energy and such…all went down the toilet as soon as I realized the Soul Society was just medieval Japan was some slightly fantastical elements.
There are fucking nobility in the Soul Society. There are currencies. There are peasants and villages. There is population control. Why the fuck, do these things exist in the fucking afterlife. Titty really looked at the unlimited and abstract possibilities in depicting the world of souls and the afterlife, and said “fuck it, medieval Japan.” I cannot express my disappointment as I learn more and more that the Soul Society is just Samuraiville where Samurai possess slightly magical powers. This is just about the most boring possible setting for an arc of this nature, and as I said my willingness to accept some of the more unimaginative aspects of spiritualism that Titty drew is now nonexistent.
There’s enough good in Bleach to keep me pressing on for now, but Titty is just about one less than passable fight away from losing me.
Alright guys. I really don’t know what to make of this series. I can tell that (as this is an “older” series) that there are a lot of good ideas here that other manga later took heavy inspiration from, so I can respect that Kubo was a source of inspiration for later Shonen that I do enjoy like Black Clover. There is also a lot of mediocrity and predictability, and a lot of cringe bullshit. So I’ll start with what I like:
-Aizen’s death was pretty surprising, I like the conspiracy stuff happening but unfortunately I know from years of seeing people talk about Bleach that Aizen is a major villain of some sort, but I can see how his eventual reveal as a villain would be shocking since I’m supposed to believe the guy is dead right now.
-The captains are pretty cool. In particular Captain of Squad 8 immediately had my favorite design among these captains so I was glad to see that not only did he get some focus in the Chad fight, but he also didn’t lose to some pointless tweenage powerup or whatever.
-Kubo is a talented artist. A lot of his characters and choreography are nice looking.
…And that’s it. That’s really all I can say I’m enjoying about this series. So now the bad:
-Bleach has a plot structure problem that I really need to come up with a term for. In particular when it comes to how Ichigo resolves conflict. It’s the same problem that ruined Black Clover’s Spade Kingdom arc for me but it’s much worse here. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is a great example.
So in Ichigo vs Kenpachi, the fight starts off where Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi and is forced to just run away from him. Then Ichigo has a revelation that if his friends lose. Then Ichigo can suddenly cut Kenpachi.
And that’s been Ichigo Kurosaki in a fucking nutshell right there. Ichigo can’t do something, Ichigo has a revelation, and Ichigo can now do the thing he couldn’t do before. This is the most predictable and lame way to solve conflicts in manga, and this is literally every fucking Ichigo conflict in a nutshell aside from Byakuya. Ichigo is the most messiah like main character I have ever seen in Shonen, his only competitors being Luffy and Naruto but at least Luffy and Naruto have come up against walls they couldn’t overcome with sheer brute force before. With Ichigo, he got completely negged by Byakuya like a week ago and then literally just by learning the fucking basics of how soul Reapers powers work, is now cutting Kenpachi who’s whole thing is that he’s supposed to be like, impossible to cut. Literally all Ichigo needed was one single week of training and then a swell of resolve to now cut the uncuttable man. He went from straight up fodder to now in competition with Soul Reaper captains who are tiers and tiers beyond their subordinates, by literally just learning the fucking basics of his power.
This, is complete dogshit. Isn’t RUkia like hundreds of years old or something? Like she just looks like a teenage girl but is much older than that? I can’t imagine how old someone like Kenpachi who apparently has killed more opponents than any other Soul Reaper and is known as a battle maniac is, and now Ichigo has already overcome his gimmick in a completely unexplained manner with one week of training and a Soul Reaper trainee understanding of how his powers work.
And there’s no explanation. Ichigo is just suddenly emitting more spirit juice than Kenpachi simply because he became more confident. Ichigo is simply born a messiah like entity emitting fucking gargantuan amounts of spirit energy with no explanation, enough to slice a durability focused Captain literally with less than a week’s worth of spirit combat experience.
A similar fight happens in Kingdom, Ouhon vs Earl Shi. Earl Shi and Ouhon are both spearmen, but Earl Shi outclasses Ouhon in every regard: power, speed, and experience. Their fight begins with Shi completely bodybagging Ouhon, but Ouhon insists that if their fight continues, he will be able to defeat Shi Ei. And this ultimately happens, Ouhon slays Shi Ei and kills him. The reason for this is explained and built up to in the fight: Shi Ei learned the spear by being thrown into suicide mission after suicide mission and simply being expected to win or die. He learned the spear by having to defend himself in life or death encounters, but he actually had no/minimal formal spear training. Ouhon is the opposite. He was born the heir to the Ou family and as such, received ultra high level theoretical spear training from childhood. The reason Ouhon defeats Shi Ei, is because Ouhon is able to apply the extremely high but extremely theoretical understanding of the spear that he was taught from childhood, to gain the advantage that he lacked in raw speed, power, and experience to win. This fight also involves a mid fight revelation: Ouhon realizes that Shi Ei is bloodlusted and is not actually defending himself but is solely a blind raging attacker with no interest in self preservation (explained by a superb backstory!), which again, Ouhon learns by observing Shi Ei as they fight using his high level of martial knowledge.
The fight starts with Ouhon being completely inferior to Shi Ei, then Ouhon has a mid fight revelation that gains him a unique advantage based on his particular skill set, and Ouhon uses this particular skill set to win.
This shit is so much better than Ichigo vs Kenpachi so far. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is just, Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi, and then he can cut Kenpachi. If Kenpachi gets effectively mid diffed by a teenager…I don’t know my guys. There may be no saving this arc for me.
-The Soul Society is the lamest, most bland and forgettable setting I’ve ever seen for a major manga arc. All of the little nitpicks I’ve had up until now are slowly starting to compound in on this arc. My ability to suspend my disbelief and accept that corporeal soul forms are subject to the exact same physical limitations of a normal human body (blood, sweat, stamina exhaustion, breathing, etc), my willingness to just shut my brain off and accept that the concept of soul swords manifesting as Japanese style katanas with various abilities for no reason, my willingness to overlook every little oddity surrounding how this series depicts things like souls and spirit energy and such…all went down the toilet as soon as I realized the Soul Society was just medieval Japan was some slightly fantastical elements.
There are fucking nobility in the Soul Society. There are currencies. There are peasants and villages. There is population control. Why the fuck, do these things exist in the fucking afterlife. Titty really looked at the unlimited and abstract possibilities in depicting the world of souls and the afterlife, and said “fuck it, medieval Japan.” I cannot express my disappointment as I learn more and more that the Soul Society is just Samuraiville where Samurai possess slightly magical powers. This is just about the most boring possible setting for an arc of this nature, and as I said my willingness to accept some of the more unimaginative aspects of spiritualism that Titty drew is now nonexistent.
There’s enough good in Bleach to keep me pressing on for now, but Titty is just about one less than passable fight away from losing me.
oh man.... how do you feel about the fact that most people consider the soul society arc to be by far the best one
@Fleet Admiral Lee Hung I get your frustration at Ichigo I really do.
@Owl Ki @Topi Jerami @Jaguark101 @Fujishiro @TheAncientCenturion @ZenZu @TheKnightOfTheSea @Indigo @Warchief Sanji D Goat
Alright guys. I really don’t know what to make of this series. I can tell that (as this is an “older” series) that there are a lot of good ideas here that other manga later took heavy inspiration from, so I can respect that Kubo was a source of inspiration for later Shonen that I do enjoy like Black Clover. There is also a lot of mediocrity and predictability, and a lot of cringe bullshit. So I’ll start with what I like:
-Aizen’s death was pretty surprising, I like the conspiracy stuff happening but unfortunately I know from years of seeing people talk about Bleach that Aizen is a major villain of some sort, but I can see how his eventual reveal as a villain would be shocking since I’m supposed to believe the guy is dead right now.
-The captains are pretty cool. In particular Captain of Squad 8 immediately had my favorite design among these captains so I was glad to see that not only did he get some focus in the Chad fight, but he also didn’t lose to some pointless tweenage powerup or whatever.
-Kubo is a talented artist. A lot of his characters and choreography are nice looking.
…And that’s it. That’s really all I can say I’m enjoying about this series. So now the bad:
-Bleach has a plot structure problem that I really need to come up with a term for. In particular when it comes to how Ichigo resolves conflict. It’s the same problem that ruined Black Clover’s Spade Kingdom arc for me but it’s much worse here. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is a great example.
So in Ichigo vs Kenpachi, the fight starts off where Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi and is forced to just run away from him. Then Ichigo has a revelation that if his friends lose. Then Ichigo can suddenly cut Kenpachi.
And that’s been Ichigo Kurosaki in a fucking nutshell right there. Ichigo can’t do something, Ichigo has a revelation, and Ichigo can now do the thing he couldn’t do before. This is the most predictable and lame way to solve conflicts in manga, and this is literally every fucking Ichigo conflict in a nutshell aside from Byakuya. Ichigo is the most messiah like main character I have ever seen in Shonen, his only competitors being Luffy and Naruto but at least Luffy and Naruto have come up against walls they couldn’t overcome with sheer brute force before. With Ichigo, he got completely negged by Byakuya like a week ago and then literally just by learning the fucking basics of how soul Reapers powers work, is now cutting Kenpachi who’s whole thing is that he’s supposed to be like, impossible to cut. Literally all Ichigo needed was one single week of training and then a swell of resolve to now cut the uncuttable man. He went from straight up fodder to now in competition with Soul Reaper captains who are tiers and tiers beyond their subordinates, by literally just learning the fucking basics of his power.
This, is complete dogshit. Isn’t RUkia like hundreds of years old or something? Like she just looks like a teenage girl but is much older than that? I can’t imagine how old someone like Kenpachi who apparently has killed more opponents than any other Soul Reaper and is known as a battle maniac is, and now Ichigo has already overcome his gimmick in a completely unexplained manner with one week of training and a Soul Reaper trainee understanding of how his powers work.
And there’s no explanation. Ichigo is just suddenly emitting more spirit juice than Kenpachi simply because he became more confident. Ichigo is simply born a messiah like entity emitting fucking gargantuan amounts of spirit energy with no explanation, enough to slice a durability focused Captain literally with less than a week’s worth of spirit combat experience.
A similar fight happens in Kingdom, Ouhon vs Earl Shi. Earl Shi and Ouhon are both spearmen, but Earl Shi outclasses Ouhon in every regard: power, speed, and experience. Their fight begins with Shi completely bodybagging Ouhon, but Ouhon insists that if their fight continues, he will be able to defeat Shi Ei. And this ultimately happens, Ouhon slays Shi Ei and kills him. The reason for this is explained and built up to in the fight: Shi Ei learned the spear by being thrown into suicide mission after suicide mission and simply being expected to win or die. He learned the spear by having to defend himself in life or death encounters, but he actually had no/minimal formal spear training. Ouhon is the opposite. He was born the heir to the Ou family and as such, received ultra high level theoretical spear training from childhood. The reason Ouhon defeats Shi Ei, is because Ouhon is able to apply the extremely high but extremely theoretical understanding of the spear that he was taught from childhood, to gain the advantage that he lacked in raw speed, power, and experience to win. This fight also involves a mid fight revelation: Ouhon realizes that Shi Ei is bloodlusted and is not actually defending himself but is solely a blind raging attacker with no interest in self preservation (explained by a superb backstory!), which again, Ouhon learns by observing Shi Ei as they fight using his high level of martial knowledge.
The fight starts with Ouhon being completely inferior to Shi Ei, then Ouhon has a mid fight revelation that gains him a unique advantage based on his particular skill set, and Ouhon uses this particular skill set to win.
This shit is so much better than Ichigo vs Kenpachi so far. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is just, Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi, and then he can cut Kenpachi. If Kenpachi gets effectively mid diffed by a teenager…I don’t know my guys. There may be no saving this arc for me.
-The Soul Society is the lamest, most bland and forgettable setting I’ve ever seen for a major manga arc. All of the little nitpicks I’ve had up until now are slowly starting to compound in on this arc. My ability to suspend my disbelief and accept that corporeal soul forms are subject to the exact same physical limitations of a normal human body (blood, sweat, stamina exhaustion, breathing, etc), my willingness to just shut my brain off and accept that the concept of soul swords manifesting as Japanese style katanas with various abilities for no reason, my willingness to overlook every little oddity surrounding how this series depicts things like souls and spirit energy and such…all went down the toilet as soon as I realized the Soul Society was just medieval Japan was some slightly fantastical elements.
There are fucking nobility in the Soul Society. There are currencies. There are peasants and villages. There is population control. Why the fuck, do these things exist in the fucking afterlife. Titty really looked at the unlimited and abstract possibilities in depicting the world of souls and the afterlife, and said “fuck it, medieval Japan.” I cannot express my disappointment as I learn more and more that the Soul Society is just Samuraiville where Samurai possess slightly magical powers. This is just about the most boring possible setting for an arc of this nature, and as I said my willingness to accept some of the more unimaginative aspects of spiritualism that Titty drew is now nonexistent.
There’s enough good in Bleach to keep me pressing on for now, but Titty is just about one less than passable fight away from losing me.
Alright guys. I really don’t know what to make of this series. I can tell that (as this is an “older” series) that there are a lot of good ideas here that other manga later took heavy inspiration from, so I can respect that Kubo was a source of inspiration for later Shonen that I do enjoy like Black Clover. There is also a lot of mediocrity and predictability, and a lot of cringe bullshit. So I’ll start with what I like:
-Aizen’s death was pretty surprising, I like the conspiracy stuff happening but unfortunately I know from years of seeing people talk about Bleach that Aizen is a major villain of some sort, but I can see how his eventual reveal as a villain would be shocking since I’m supposed to believe the guy is dead right now.
-The captains are pretty cool. In particular Captain of Squad 8 immediately had my favorite design among these captains so I was glad to see that not only did he get some focus in the Chad fight, but he also didn’t lose to some pointless tweenage powerup or whatever.
-Kubo is a talented artist. A lot of his characters and choreography are nice looking.
…And that’s it. That’s really all I can say I’m enjoying about this series. So now the bad:
-Bleach has a plot structure problem that I really need to come up with a term for. In particular when it comes to how Ichigo resolves conflict. It’s the same problem that ruined Black Clover’s Spade Kingdom arc for me but it’s much worse here. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is a great example.
So in Ichigo vs Kenpachi, the fight starts off where Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi and is forced to just run away from him. Then Ichigo has a revelation that if his friends lose. Then Ichigo can suddenly cut Kenpachi.
And that’s been Ichigo Kurosaki in a fucking nutshell right there. Ichigo can’t do something, Ichigo has a revelation, and Ichigo can now do the thing he couldn’t do before. This is the most predictable and lame way to solve conflicts in manga, and this is literally every fucking Ichigo conflict in a nutshell aside from Byakuya. Ichigo is the most messiah like main character I have ever seen in Shonen, his only competitors being Luffy and Naruto but at least Luffy and Naruto have come up against walls they couldn’t overcome with sheer brute force before. With Ichigo, he got completely negged by Byakuya like a week ago and then literally just by learning the fucking basics of how soul Reapers powers work, is now cutting Kenpachi who’s whole thing is that he’s supposed to be like, impossible to cut. Literally all Ichigo needed was one single week of training and then a swell of resolve to now cut the uncuttable man. He went from straight up fodder to now in competition with Soul Reaper captains who are tiers and tiers beyond their subordinates, by literally just learning the fucking basics of his power.
This, is complete dogshit. Isn’t RUkia like hundreds of years old or something? Like she just looks like a teenage girl but is much older than that? I can’t imagine how old someone like Kenpachi who apparently has killed more opponents than any other Soul Reaper and is known as a battle maniac is, and now Ichigo has already overcome his gimmick in a completely unexplained manner with one week of training and a Soul Reaper trainee understanding of how his powers work.
And there’s no explanation. Ichigo is just suddenly emitting more spirit juice than Kenpachi simply because he became more confident. Ichigo is simply born a messiah like entity emitting fucking gargantuan amounts of spirit energy with no explanation, enough to slice a durability focused Captain literally with less than a week’s worth of spirit combat experience.
A similar fight happens in Kingdom, Ouhon vs Earl Shi. Earl Shi and Ouhon are both spearmen, but Earl Shi outclasses Ouhon in every regard: power, speed, and experience. Their fight begins with Shi completely bodybagging Ouhon, but Ouhon insists that if their fight continues, he will be able to defeat Shi Ei. And this ultimately happens, Ouhon slays Shi Ei and kills him. The reason for this is explained and built up to in the fight: Shi Ei learned the spear by being thrown into suicide mission after suicide mission and simply being expected to win or die. He learned the spear by having to defend himself in life or death encounters, but he actually had no/minimal formal spear training. Ouhon is the opposite. He was born the heir to the Ou family and as such, received ultra high level theoretical spear training from childhood. The reason Ouhon defeats Shi Ei, is because Ouhon is able to apply the extremely high but extremely theoretical understanding of the spear that he was taught from childhood, to gain the advantage that he lacked in raw speed, power, and experience to win. This fight also involves a mid fight revelation: Ouhon realizes that Shi Ei is bloodlusted and is not actually defending himself but is solely a blind raging attacker with no interest in self preservation (explained by a superb backstory!), which again, Ouhon learns by observing Shi Ei as they fight using his high level of martial knowledge.
The fight starts with Ouhon being completely inferior to Shi Ei, then Ouhon has a mid fight revelation that gains him a unique advantage based on his particular skill set, and Ouhon uses this particular skill set to win.
This shit is so much better than Ichigo vs Kenpachi so far. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is just, Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi, and then he can cut Kenpachi. If Kenpachi gets effectively mid diffed by a teenager…I don’t know my guys. There may be no saving this arc for me.
-The Soul Society is the lamest, most bland and forgettable setting I’ve ever seen for a major manga arc. All of the little nitpicks I’ve had up until now are slowly starting to compound in on this arc. My ability to suspend my disbelief and accept that corporeal soul forms are subject to the exact same physical limitations of a normal human body (blood, sweat, stamina exhaustion, breathing, etc), my willingness to just shut my brain off and accept that the concept of soul swords manifesting as Japanese style katanas with various abilities for no reason, my willingness to overlook every little oddity surrounding how this series depicts things like souls and spirit energy and such…all went down the toilet as soon as I realized the Soul Society was just medieval Japan was some slightly fantastical elements.
There are fucking nobility in the Soul Society. There are currencies. There are peasants and villages. There is population control. Why the fuck, do these things exist in the fucking afterlife. Titty really looked at the unlimited and abstract possibilities in depicting the world of souls and the afterlife, and said “fuck it, medieval Japan.” I cannot express my disappointment as I learn more and more that the Soul Society is just Samuraiville where Samurai possess slightly magical powers. This is just about the most boring possible setting for an arc of this nature, and as I said my willingness to accept some of the more unimaginative aspects of spiritualism that Titty drew is now nonexistent.
There’s enough good in Bleach to keep me pressing on for now, but Titty is just about one less than passable fight away from losing me.
Yeah I saw him and was like, damn he looks sick lol. Glad Titty hasn’t fucked with him yet.
As for the rest of your comment: I don’t care for manga that fix their problems later. I was not a fan of Sanji’s character arc in WCI at all as I thought it was an incomplete mess. Then later the events of Wano effectively resolved a lot of the issues set up for Sanji in WCI. So while Sanji’s WCI character arc was effectively resolved in Wano, I still think Oda did a bad job writing Sanji in WCI. Fixing problems after the fact (for me) doesn’t excuse you from those problems to begin with.
Even if Titty does resolve some of the issues you mentioned later, I think these things should’ve been explained much earlier on. Such as during the SS training arc where a lot of these concepts were already being explained.
To be clear, the whole arc isn’t dogshit, just Ichigo. I am still reading it I guess, so if I had to give it a score I’d say a 6/10? Which is still passing right? I guess?
As for the rest of your comment: I don’t care for manga that fix their problems later. I was not a fan of Sanji’s character arc in WCI at all as I thought it was an incomplete mess. Then later the events of Wano effectively resolved a lot of the issues set up for Sanji in WCI. So while Sanji’s WCI character arc was effectively resolved in Wano, I still think Oda did a bad job writing Sanji in WCI. Fixing problems after the fact (for me) doesn’t excuse you from those problems to begin with.
Even if Titty does resolve some of the issues you mentioned later, I think these things should’ve been explained much earlier on. Such as during the SS training arc where a lot of these concepts were already being explained.
To be clear, the whole arc isn’t dogshit, just Ichigo. I am still reading it I guess, so if I had to give it a score I’d say a 6/10? Which is still passing right? I guess?
@Owl Ki @Topi Jerami @Jaguark101 @Fujishiro @TheAncientCenturion @ZenZu @TheKnightOfTheSea @Indigo @Warchief Sanji D Goat
Alright guys. I really don’t know what to make of this series. I can tell that (as this is an “older” series) that there are a lot of good ideas here that other manga later took heavy inspiration from, so I can respect that Kubo was a source of inspiration for later Shonen that I do enjoy like Black Clover. There is also a lot of mediocrity and predictability, and a lot of cringe bullshit. So I’ll start with what I like:
-Aizen’s death was pretty surprising, I like the conspiracy stuff happening but unfortunately I know from years of seeing people talk about Bleach that Aizen is a major villain of some sort, but I can see how his eventual reveal as a villain would be shocking since I’m supposed to believe the guy is dead right now.
-The captains are pretty cool. In particular Captain of Squad 8 immediately had my favorite design among these captains so I was glad to see that not only did he get some focus in the Chad fight, but he also didn’t lose to some pointless tweenage powerup or whatever.
-Kubo is a talented artist. A lot of his characters and choreography are nice looking.
…And that’s it. That’s really all I can say I’m enjoying about this series. So now the bad:
-Bleach has a plot structure problem that I really need to come up with a term for. In particular when it comes to how Ichigo resolves conflict. It’s the same problem that ruined Black Clover’s Spade Kingdom arc for me but it’s much worse here. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is a great example.
So in Ichigo vs Kenpachi, the fight starts off where Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi and is forced to just run away from him. Then Ichigo has a revelation that his friends might lose. Then Ichigo can suddenly cut Kenpachi.
And that’s been Ichigo Kurosaki in a fucking nutshell right there. Ichigo can’t do something, Ichigo has a revelation, and Ichigo can now do the thing he couldn’t do before. This is the most predictable and lame way to solve conflicts in manga, and this is literally every fucking Ichigo conflict in a nutshell aside from Byakuya. Ichigo is the most messiah like main character I have ever seen in Shonen, his only competitors being Luffy and Naruto but at least Luffy and Naruto have come up against walls they couldn’t overcome with sheer brute force before. With Ichigo, he got completely negged by Byakuya like a week ago and then literally just by learning the fucking basics of how soul Reapers powers work, is now cutting Kenpachi who’s whole thing is that he’s supposed to be like, impossible to cut. Literally all Ichigo needed was one single week of training and then a swell of resolve to now cut the uncuttable man. He went from straight up fodder to now in competition with Soul Reaper captains who are tiers and tiers beyond their subordinates, by literally just learning the fucking basics of his power.
This, is complete dogshit. Isn’t RUkia like hundreds of years old or something? Like she just looks like a teenage girl but is much older than that? I can’t imagine how old someone like Kenpachi who apparently has killed more opponents than any other Soul Reaper and is known as a battle maniac is, and now Ichigo has already overcome his gimmick in a completely unexplained manner with one week of training and a Soul Reaper trainee understanding of how his powers work.
And there’s no explanation. Ichigo is just suddenly emitting more spirit juice than Kenpachi simply because he became more confident. Ichigo is simply born a messiah like entity emitting fucking gargantuan amounts of spirit energy with no explanation, enough to slice a durability focused Captain literally with less than a week’s worth of spirit combat experience.
A similar fight happens in Kingdom, Ouhon vs Earl Shi. Earl Shi and Ouhon are both spearmen, but Earl Shi outclasses Ouhon in every regard: power, speed, and experience. Their fight begins with Shi completely bodybagging Ouhon, but Ouhon insists that if their fight continues, he will be able to defeat Shi Ei. And this ultimately happens, Ouhon slays Shi Ei and kills him. The reason for this is explained and built up to in the fight: Shi Ei learned the spear by being thrown into suicide mission after suicide mission and simply being expected to win or die. He learned the spear by having to defend himself in life or death encounters, but he actually had no/minimal formal spear training. Ouhon is the opposite. He was born the heir to the Ou family and as such, received ultra high level theoretical spear training from childhood. The reason Ouhon defeats Shi Ei, is because Ouhon is able to apply the extremely high but extremely theoretical understanding of the spear that he was taught from childhood, to gain the advantage that he lacked in raw speed, power, and experience to win. This fight also involves a mid fight revelation: Ouhon realizes that Shi Ei is bloodlusted and is not actually defending himself but is solely a blind raging attacker with no interest in self preservation (explained by a superb backstory!), which again, Ouhon learns by observing Shi Ei as they fight using his high level of martial knowledge.
The fight starts with Ouhon being completely inferior to Shi Ei, then Ouhon has a mid fight revelation that gains him a unique advantage based on his particular skill set, and Ouhon uses this particular skill set to win.
This shit is so much better than Ichigo vs Kenpachi so far. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is just, Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi, and then he can cut Kenpachi. If Kenpachi gets effectively mid diffed by a teenager…I don’t know my guys. There may be no saving this arc for me.
-The Soul Society is the lamest, most bland and forgettable setting I’ve ever seen for a major manga arc. All of the little nitpicks I’ve had up until now are slowly starting to compound in on this arc. My ability to suspend my disbelief and accept that corporeal soul forms are subject to the exact same physical limitations of a normal human body (blood, sweat, stamina exhaustion, breathing, etc), my willingness to just shut my brain off and accept that the concept of soul swords manifesting as Japanese style katanas with various abilities for no reason, my willingness to overlook every little oddity surrounding how this series depicts things like souls and spirit energy and such…all went down the toilet as soon as I realized the Soul Society was just medieval Japan was some slightly fantastical elements.
There are fucking nobility in the Soul Society. There are currencies. There are peasants and villages. There is population control. Why the fuck, do these things exist in the fucking afterlife. Titty really looked at the unlimited and abstract possibilities in depicting the world of souls and the afterlife, and said “fuck it, medieval Japan.” I cannot express my disappointment as I learn more and more that the Soul Society is just Samuraiville where Samurai possess slightly magical powers. This is just about the most boring possible setting for an arc of this nature, and as I said my willingness to accept some of the more unimaginative aspects of spiritualism that Titty drew is now nonexistent.
There’s enough good in Bleach to keep me pressing on for now, but Titty is just about one less than passable fight away from losing me.
Alright guys. I really don’t know what to make of this series. I can tell that (as this is an “older” series) that there are a lot of good ideas here that other manga later took heavy inspiration from, so I can respect that Kubo was a source of inspiration for later Shonen that I do enjoy like Black Clover. There is also a lot of mediocrity and predictability, and a lot of cringe bullshit. So I’ll start with what I like:
-Aizen’s death was pretty surprising, I like the conspiracy stuff happening but unfortunately I know from years of seeing people talk about Bleach that Aizen is a major villain of some sort, but I can see how his eventual reveal as a villain would be shocking since I’m supposed to believe the guy is dead right now.
-The captains are pretty cool. In particular Captain of Squad 8 immediately had my favorite design among these captains so I was glad to see that not only did he get some focus in the Chad fight, but he also didn’t lose to some pointless tweenage powerup or whatever.
-Kubo is a talented artist. A lot of his characters and choreography are nice looking.
…And that’s it. That’s really all I can say I’m enjoying about this series. So now the bad:
-Bleach has a plot structure problem that I really need to come up with a term for. In particular when it comes to how Ichigo resolves conflict. It’s the same problem that ruined Black Clover’s Spade Kingdom arc for me but it’s much worse here. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is a great example.
So in Ichigo vs Kenpachi, the fight starts off where Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi and is forced to just run away from him. Then Ichigo has a revelation that his friends might lose. Then Ichigo can suddenly cut Kenpachi.
And that’s been Ichigo Kurosaki in a fucking nutshell right there. Ichigo can’t do something, Ichigo has a revelation, and Ichigo can now do the thing he couldn’t do before. This is the most predictable and lame way to solve conflicts in manga, and this is literally every fucking Ichigo conflict in a nutshell aside from Byakuya. Ichigo is the most messiah like main character I have ever seen in Shonen, his only competitors being Luffy and Naruto but at least Luffy and Naruto have come up against walls they couldn’t overcome with sheer brute force before. With Ichigo, he got completely negged by Byakuya like a week ago and then literally just by learning the fucking basics of how soul Reapers powers work, is now cutting Kenpachi who’s whole thing is that he’s supposed to be like, impossible to cut. Literally all Ichigo needed was one single week of training and then a swell of resolve to now cut the uncuttable man. He went from straight up fodder to now in competition with Soul Reaper captains who are tiers and tiers beyond their subordinates, by literally just learning the fucking basics of his power.
This, is complete dogshit. Isn’t RUkia like hundreds of years old or something? Like she just looks like a teenage girl but is much older than that? I can’t imagine how old someone like Kenpachi who apparently has killed more opponents than any other Soul Reaper and is known as a battle maniac is, and now Ichigo has already overcome his gimmick in a completely unexplained manner with one week of training and a Soul Reaper trainee understanding of how his powers work.
And there’s no explanation. Ichigo is just suddenly emitting more spirit juice than Kenpachi simply because he became more confident. Ichigo is simply born a messiah like entity emitting fucking gargantuan amounts of spirit energy with no explanation, enough to slice a durability focused Captain literally with less than a week’s worth of spirit combat experience.
A similar fight happens in Kingdom, Ouhon vs Earl Shi. Earl Shi and Ouhon are both spearmen, but Earl Shi outclasses Ouhon in every regard: power, speed, and experience. Their fight begins with Shi completely bodybagging Ouhon, but Ouhon insists that if their fight continues, he will be able to defeat Shi Ei. And this ultimately happens, Ouhon slays Shi Ei and kills him. The reason for this is explained and built up to in the fight: Shi Ei learned the spear by being thrown into suicide mission after suicide mission and simply being expected to win or die. He learned the spear by having to defend himself in life or death encounters, but he actually had no/minimal formal spear training. Ouhon is the opposite. He was born the heir to the Ou family and as such, received ultra high level theoretical spear training from childhood. The reason Ouhon defeats Shi Ei, is because Ouhon is able to apply the extremely high but extremely theoretical understanding of the spear that he was taught from childhood, to gain the advantage that he lacked in raw speed, power, and experience to win. This fight also involves a mid fight revelation: Ouhon realizes that Shi Ei is bloodlusted and is not actually defending himself but is solely a blind raging attacker with no interest in self preservation (explained by a superb backstory!), which again, Ouhon learns by observing Shi Ei as they fight using his high level of martial knowledge.
The fight starts with Ouhon being completely inferior to Shi Ei, then Ouhon has a mid fight revelation that gains him a unique advantage based on his particular skill set, and Ouhon uses this particular skill set to win.
This shit is so much better than Ichigo vs Kenpachi so far. Ichigo vs Kenpachi is just, Ichigo can’t cut Kenpachi, and then he can cut Kenpachi. If Kenpachi gets effectively mid diffed by a teenager…I don’t know my guys. There may be no saving this arc for me.
-The Soul Society is the lamest, most bland and forgettable setting I’ve ever seen for a major manga arc. All of the little nitpicks I’ve had up until now are slowly starting to compound in on this arc. My ability to suspend my disbelief and accept that corporeal soul forms are subject to the exact same physical limitations of a normal human body (blood, sweat, stamina exhaustion, breathing, etc), my willingness to just shut my brain off and accept that the concept of soul swords manifesting as Japanese style katanas with various abilities for no reason, my willingness to overlook every little oddity surrounding how this series depicts things like souls and spirit energy and such…all went down the toilet as soon as I realized the Soul Society was just medieval Japan was some slightly fantastical elements.
There are fucking nobility in the Soul Society. There are currencies. There are peasants and villages. There is population control. Why the fuck, do these things exist in the fucking afterlife. Titty really looked at the unlimited and abstract possibilities in depicting the world of souls and the afterlife, and said “fuck it, medieval Japan.” I cannot express my disappointment as I learn more and more that the Soul Society is just Samuraiville where Samurai possess slightly magical powers. This is just about the most boring possible setting for an arc of this nature, and as I said my willingness to accept some of the more unimaginative aspects of spiritualism that Titty drew is now nonexistent.
There’s enough good in Bleach to keep me pressing on for now, but Titty is just about one less than passable fight away from losing me.
Yeah, the Soul Society is the foremost example I know of a setting with practically unlimited potential but is hampered by the author's chronic lack of creativity.
There is nothing in Bleach that gives you the impression that this is some other worldly place beyond the mortal plane of existence besides characters explicitly calling it the afterlife.
If there weren't characters calling this place the Afterlife, you would think you were just in yet another generic fantasy setting example 101.
I think what makes Bleach so frustrating (beyond all the terrible writing decisions) is that Bleach is not a fundamentally terrible concept. There are good, fun, interesting concepts in Bleach but they are fumbled badly by an author who is attempting a story telling endeavour that is unfortunately beyond his capacity.
Also, yeah the power scaling of Bleach is broken. Between ludicrous jumps in power and completely bat shit abilities, it is completely unsalvageable.
Have you read Uryu's main fight yet?