No one in good faith will ever call Bleach a bad anime or manga. Tite Kubo's sprawling saga is undeniably one of the most widely read series in Shonen Jump's long history. The manga sold over 120 million tankōbon (volumes of collected manga chapters) worldwide. However, it's received a fair deal of criticism since its release, culminating in many people dismissing it as purely awful and without merit.

While those that label Bleach as the worst series ever are being hyperbolic, their criticisms are not without merit. Bleach has a ton of problems. But when criticizing Bleach, many often neglect to point out all the good Kubo did when crafting his epic. Let's digest Bleach's complicated legacy.

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BLEACH: A MATTER OF FOCUS

The core of Bleach's story is terrific. It flows from plot point to plot point beautifully. When broken down, Bleach sounds epic, with Ichigo stumbling into one new conflict after another, each one building off the other. When revisiting Bleach, it's remarkable how well the first 60 episodes and 180 chapters hold up. The plot remains narrowed on Ichigo and his friends as they travel to the Soul Society, learning about the culture while confronting and overcoming new challenges along the way.

The narrative works when it's focused. Sadly, Bleach loses that focus right after this point, both in the anime and manga. In the anime, the Soul Society arc is shortly followed by the Bount Arc, a filler season that completely deflates the tension of the reveal before. By the time Aizen's Arrancars show up to wreak havoc, audiences would've spent just as much time with the Bounts as they did in the retrieving Rukia arc.

Before this, every element of the series built naturally on top of the last. While the Bount arc is a fine enough arc in its own right, this kills the momentum in much the same way the 100 episodes of filler did in Naruto following the Sasuke Retrieval arc.

BLEACH'S OVERCROWDED CAST

While the Aizen reveal flows naturally into the Arrancar Arc in Bleach, it's at this moment that other problems arise. The Soul Society arc introduces a ton of new characters for very good reason: Ichigo and friends had just arrived in a whole new world so it makes sense to introduce a new world of characters. Just as we're coming to know this new set of characters, however, Kubo introduces the Arrancar -- again, more new characters who we're supposed to know and understand very quickly. While some of the Arrancar (Grimmjow and Ulquiorra especially) are important to the plot and very memorable, far too many others clutter the story's focus, taking attention away from the core conflict.

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Many of the Arrancar feel like they only service the plot by giving some of the other characters someone to fight. This gets even more extreme when the Vizards are introduced, who, again, are yet another bunch of characters suddenly dropped on us; the multitude of whom really never get developed. All of these characters are impossible to keep track of, even if you're a dedicated reader or viewer.

There are so many characters Kubo tries to juggle between that, ultimately, the characters you want to see most might be missing for entire volumes. It feels at times as though major characters have been entirely forgotten and that, by the time we return to them, the plot has advanced so much they no longer have a place in the story.

Take the Grand Fisher, for example. This is the Hollow that killed Ichigo's mom. He's absent throughout the Soul Society arc. By the time he returns in the Arrancar arc, he's poised for a strong comeback... only to be killed off in seconds without making any real impact. Then take Chad, one of Ichigo's core group in the early episodes who, ultimately, has little impact on the plot following the Soul Society arc.

Finally, there's Ichigo himself. Many people have argued that central heroes like Ichigo aren't interesting compared to the likes of Luffy or Goku. This isn't necessarily the case. Ichigo is a good protagonist -- the problem is that he just feels lost in the cast he leads. The core cast of characters fans fell in love with in the early chapters and episodes of Bleach come to feel increasingly less important. Orihime, once one of the core cast of characters, and a vibrant one at that, becomes just another hostage used to motivate Ichigo later on.

NOTHING IN BLEACH MATTERS

Another problem with Bleach is that a lot of things feel inconsequential. Until the Thousand Year War arc, it was a running gag that people just didn't die in Bleach. A character could lose their limbs or get stabbed all the way through their body but still be fine. This resulted in much lower stakes, especially past the Soul Society arc. If no one dies, then there's no tension in any of the fights.

On top of that, only the fights with Ichigo really progress the plot. Sure, the battles between Uryu and Mayuri or Kenpachi and Nnoitra might be spectacular, but does the narrative change in any meaningful way as a result? We might learn some character details, and maybe details about the world, but would Bleach's story, when taken in sum, change if these fights were removed?

This is made worse when you also realize that most of Bleach's fights, especially as it goes on, are between characters we don't really know all that well. These sequences feel even more inconsequential as we know the good guys are probably going live, and we don't even like the people fighting that well. So... who cares? It also didn't help that Ichigo would develop new powers as the plot demanded it in order to conquer the newest conflict coming his way. Despite only being a Soul Reaper for a short while, he's able to immediately best the strongest characters in the series that no one else can put a dent on. By the fourth or fifth time this happens, it cheapens every other fight around it.

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Consider this: the Android and Cell Saga from Dragon Ball Z consist of a series of fights. Every fight escalates the conflict and drives the narrative in a very direct and obvious way. None of the fights feel wasted or go on for longer than intended. Every fight either ends with a turn. Goku vs. Android 19? Goku's down with heart disease. Vegeta vs. Android 19? Vegeta's a Super Saiyan now. Vegeta vs. Android 18? Vegeta's new powers reveal he's still out of his league. Every fight means something. Can the same be said for Bleach?

That said, the Thousand Year War arc mostly avoids this problem, but, by then, many people had already dropped Bleach. If the completion of the Aizen arc didn't leave viewers cold, the Fullbringer arc did.

Bleach is undeniably one of the greats. Again, the early chapters and episodes, even years later, hold up remarkably well. But as it continued, its problems compounded, with too many characters and the main conflict slowing to a crawl. Think about this: the Soul Society arc ends at Chapter 182 in the manga while the next major arc ends at Chapter 423. One arc is fast-paced with precise focus and a limited core cast. But the latter is bloated, inconsistent and stuffed with just too many faces.

Ultimately, the problem is that people remember Bleach more for its lows than for its highs. While it's certainly not the worst the shonen genre has to offer, its dramatic rises and falls in quality made it too easy for readers and viewers to lose interest, resulting in it becoming one of the weaker gems in Shonen Jump's crown.

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