Bleach = All style, No substance

[whacha]

Don't get me wrong, I do actually enjoy the manga/anime for it's style, but as time goes along the plots feel increasingly retarded.

I just saw the Diamond Dust Bleach movie, and I think the movie exemplifies the strategy of the Bleach series; throw a bunch of nonsense at the viewer along with pretty art till they forget what is going on.

The following is my gripe list:

There are faaaar too many characters in Bleach. To me it seems as if the creator just threw out as many characters as he could, then tried to tailor the story to the ones best recieved. We're left with a bunch of mostly shallow characters in desperate need of expansion, but who merely get pulled along and brought back when they want to show off new techniques.

There's too much unexplained or random stuff. It's frustrating when random super powerful artifacts are brought up out of nowhere to fit a dumb story line and then vanish just as fast. Not to mention all these BS shinigami rules that make absolutely no sense (Rukia had to die, the whole plot of the dust movie). Let's not forget Head Captain Yamamoto, who has to be one of the most annoying and shallow head characters to a story ever ("Go kill that person that we all like and have fought alongside, because those are the rules!" "But captain yamamoto..."
"NO THOSE ARE THE RULES!! I HAVE SPOKEN!! DO THE NONSENSE THAT I SAY!")
And where is this "royal family" and all the other different components of the soul society that have absolutley nothing to do with what shinigami do (kill hollows) but yet hold so much say over them?

It troubles me that Bleach is spoken highly of. When it comes to art and the sword concepts, no doubt that bleach is great. But when it comes to story telling, it's really feels more of a unfullfilling experiment. There's not enough time in our lives to flesh out all the potential story arcs bleach has created. I have a feeling this manga will end catashophically bad and whenever creator gets bored with it, he's going to spend months on hiatus trying to make a fullfilling end to the series.

I think Bleach was created during a brainstorming session about making an anime about Shinigami, and the creator said "well it all sounds great. Let's just do it all." That's why Bleach more than any other anime has a zillion "What-If" posts where people are trying to figure out the plot. The answer is, the creator doesn't know how the story is going to go either.

[kuroihikari]

There's a "bitch about Bleach" thread.

[Afro Thunda]

Well at least for the manga, the plot hasn't deviated from "We've got to stop Aizen's Master Plan!!!". But the 'too many characters' thing has been noted many times before. Aside from Ichigo, there hasn't been many random powerups. Unless you count characters revealing hidden attacks and zanpakuto abilities. The 'Royal Family' issue is still waiting to be addressed unless Kubo is going to drop that potential plot point. Yamamoto is the archetypical old guy stuck on upholding the rules.

Anyways, the real issue with Bleach is that the plot moves at a snail's pace. There's a lot of nothing getting done really fast. Kubo could take his manga to the next level if he could just move the story along at a decent pace. He's strung so many fights together, that the plot has been doing what Aizen had been doing for like a full year...Standing around.

[LeaT]

I would also like to point out that the movie The DiamondDust Rebellion is not a good form of source material when it comes to Bleach. Anyone knows that fan movies usually got crappy made up plots that have nothing to do with the original universe just to get as many fights in as possible.

As for the amount of characters, the problem is that Kubo usually come up with a concept of a character so he must introduce it, but he doesn't know what to do beyond that point. And he likes his own characters too much.

[Hand Banana]

There's a "bitch about Bleach" thread.

[merciless]

If this manga had both then it would be number 1

[blindSharingan]

Anyways, the real issue with Bleach is that the plot moves at a snail's pace. There's a lot of nothing getting done really fast. Kubo could take his manga to the next level if he could just move the story along at a decent pace. He's strung so many fights together, that the plot has been doing what Aizen had been doing for like a full year...Standing around.

Very accurate analysis wish someone would kick Kubo in the ass to get him to figure out what he needs to do to fix Bleach.

Kubo loves large panels and full page reactions. Absolutely ridiculous for keeping the manga at a good pace. I find the best way to read Bleach is skip it a couple weeks and than catch up, but even than the plot hardly moves most of the time.

[LeaT]

Kubo loves large panels and full page reactions. Absolutely ridiculous for keeping the manga at a good pace. I find the best way to read Bleach is skip it a couple weeks and than catch up, but even than the plot hardly moves most of the time.

Honestly, I prefer large panels because it's more friendly to those who are more interested in his artwork, such as myself.

[bankai]

There's a "bitch about Bleach" thread.

There's a "bitch about Bleach" thread.

lol HB did you just copy and paste his post

anyways bleach is just fine by me.

[bd43]

There's minor substance - And the issue with too many sub characters is, ultimately, the ability to sell them in a way that makes them valuable.

However, I've predicted the death of the vizards once in the past, long before they returned to the fight. Aside from old man, they'd show a clear need for power development among the characters, all of them, but definitely Ichigo's crew going forward.

I don't think, realistically, they could take out the cast without hell to pay, but maybe they'll try to trim it down to Ichigo's friends. Of course, Renji's Bankai is already shown to be averageish assuming there's no realistic way to improve it in a relatively short time. And Chad and Ishida can't win a fight to save their lives. Ichigo usually does that for them though. And his other friends . . . Exist? Are being trained?

The characterization was decent, and arguably needed for this war, but now it's hard to take back, the war was dragged through the mud, and a few of the characters will require SOME gain from all this. Hisagi.