Resonate said:
"Bleach, the anime is really not that great, Hours upon hours of my life have been wasted on filler and flash backs because of that series, Im sticking with the manga"
Same here. At this point, I basically watch the anime to see how my favorite manga fights look in color and motion. All the filler, extra dialogue and pointless tangets that they cram into the show to extend the episodes is irritating.
Dysrianism said:
Kubo also should learn how to design villians so they don't suck. The captains are good (although not enemies anymore), but nearly every other bad guy, with a few exceptions like Grimmjaw (however you spell his name).
I disagree. I find most of the villains in the series to be quite interesting, with the
exception of Grimmjow. Now that his part in the story has (it seems) come to an end, I find myself very unimpressed with him. He just seems like an angsty punk in retrospect, with no real motivation for doing anything other than to prove how strong and cool he is. Nnoitra is better in that role; his design is less generic and he's more believable in the "violent psycho" role than Grimmjow, who looks whiney and petulent by comparison.
I'm also a bit confused about the nostalgia for the Soul Society arc that many Bleach fans feel. I agree that the arc was very good, with tight plot focus and a strong emphasis on Ichigo's development, but that was part of the problem for me. It started to get very stock at the end, with each fight as another lesson for Ichigo and Byakuya is the "boss battle" that signaled his final flowering of power. Ichigo's role in the series, both power-wise and as an evolving protagonist, has stalled since then, but I'm actually kind of pleased about that. Ichigo is boring. He's so stereotypical its painful. I'm delighted to see him getting less and less screentime in relation to the other characters, especially the various shinigami. I think it accurately conveys that Ichigo is simply one player in a huge conflict centuries in the making, a conflict that has room for many strong characters that can stand on equal footing with him. Too often in shonen anime I've seen the interesting side-characters forced to play second fiddle to a one-dimensional main character, and the lack of that in the current Bleach story is refreshing. I agree about the length though; the early fights in Hueco Mundo got especially long, and it was a breath of fresh air when the Captains finally showed up to make things interesting again.
