I liked Bleach at first. The first section where Ichigo (the main character) receives his powers and learns the basics of being a Soul Reaper to guide souls to the afterlife was pretty interesting, Ichigo being this sort of lost soul who can't seem to connect to people after some undisclosed tragedy that happened in his past.
The second arc where Ichigo and his friends have to go rescue Rukia (the Soul Reaper that gave Ichigo his powers) from execution was also pretty engaging, introducing us to the Soul Reaper captains and the militaristic Soul Society as well as revealing the main villain.
Then the series started to spiral downward. It took a while, but eventually the pacing of the episodes slowed enough to the point that not even to cool action scenes were engaging, as they were falling into the shonen trap of having characters perform a 13-second special move and then spend the next five minutes explaining EVERY SINGLE DETAIL about said move.
But the crowning moment of lameness came at what should've been the series' most exciting episode. Ichigo is finally ready to confront the big villain who's been causing all the woe and death up to this point; the villain who they've spent episode after episode building up as this invincible god-like entity who is so powerful that you can die just by getting too close to him; the villain who can tame an entire realm. Ichigo has also grown pretty strong, though we haven't exactly seen go through these changes as most of them take place off screen. And when the two meet, do we get a huge explosive finale to the plot that has taken over 300 episodes to conclude? NOPE! Instead we get an two-episode long flashback followed by the exchange of all of THREE attacks (I'm not exaggerating, that is LITERALLY how many blows are exchanged) before the god-like villain who in no way can be defeated is defeated by a deus ex machina.
I have no clue as to what happens next, as this was the point at which I checked out of Bleach. It started off well enough, but the amount of padding combined with the tired shonen tropes that plague long-running anime of today took its toll on me. Ichigo went from being a tortured soul to an emo kid with a connection to his friends that honestly felt kind of fake seeing as he only seems to care about them when they're in danger.
And there's a pointless love subplot that goes nowhere. Seriously, the anime finished in Japan and the girl with the obvious crush on Ichigo remained in the friendzone. LAAAAAAME!
The second arc where Ichigo and his friends have to go rescue Rukia (the Soul Reaper that gave Ichigo his powers) from execution was also pretty engaging, introducing us to the Soul Reaper captains and the militaristic Soul Society as well as revealing the main villain.
Then the series started to spiral downward. It took a while, but eventually the pacing of the episodes slowed enough to the point that not even to cool action scenes were engaging, as they were falling into the shonen trap of having characters perform a 13-second special move and then spend the next five minutes explaining EVERY SINGLE DETAIL about said move.
But the crowning moment of lameness came at what should've been the series' most exciting episode. Ichigo is finally ready to confront the big villain who's been causing all the woe and death up to this point; the villain who they've spent episode after episode building up as this invincible god-like entity who is so powerful that you can die just by getting too close to him; the villain who can tame an entire realm. Ichigo has also grown pretty strong, though we haven't exactly seen go through these changes as most of them take place off screen. And when the two meet, do we get a huge explosive finale to the plot that has taken over 300 episodes to conclude? NOPE! Instead we get an two-episode long flashback followed by the exchange of all of THREE attacks (I'm not exaggerating, that is LITERALLY how many blows are exchanged) before the god-like villain who in no way can be defeated is defeated by a deus ex machina.
I have no clue as to what happens next, as this was the point at which I checked out of Bleach. It started off well enough, but the amount of padding combined with the tired shonen tropes that plague long-running anime of today took its toll on me. Ichigo went from being a tortured soul to an emo kid with a connection to his friends that honestly felt kind of fake seeing as he only seems to care about them when they're in danger.
And there's a pointless love subplot that goes nowhere. Seriously, the anime finished in Japan and the girl with the obvious crush on Ichigo remained in the friendzone. LAAAAAAME!