Another Shonen We've seen Before

Written by MithrilSword on March 26, 2011 at 2:52 AM

I realize Bleach has been running for years and that there are countless reviews of this anime - all ranging from "dis da best animu eva!" to "bleach is s*#t! (insert flaming remark)". I started following this anime way back in 2004 when the first English subs hit the net. But after a while I felt let down because that the anime it became what all Shonen do when they go too long - a poor imitation of Dragon Ball Z.

Story: The basic initial premises of Bleach is great. I felt the writer was really setting us up in the first season, lying down back story about hallows, death gods, Ichigo's past, the 13 court guards, and the soul society. In fact, all the through season 3 was spectacular. What ruined the story for me? 2 things: the extremely poor filler seasons outside the original manga story and the shallowness that overcame the story Bleach originally placed. The pacing got away from the purpose of the conflict and towards shallow character emotion with no real background to give the viewer a true positive or negative emotional attachment. There were too many "small" fight scene that distracted the viewers from the story - most of which were extrapolated far too much for how insignificant they impacted the chain of events. I feel like Bleach is trying to become another Dragon Ball saga with how many episodes they're running and in the process they destroyed what I felt was the original integrity of the show. Its a victim of running far longer than it needed to tell its story.

Dialogue: Again, this was another mixed bag. I liked many of the voice actors and felt they fit their characters perfectly. Yet the content is laughable in the worse way. Every cliche out in the Shonen genre exists in this anime. And it doesn't happen just once or twice; it happens all the time. There are also the terribly timed comedic moments that occur in the midst of a battle to the death. 99.9% of the time, the jokes fail to make a 5-year-old laugh. The further one watches in the seasons of Bleach, the more these glaring dialogue failures bombard the viewer.

Animation: Overall, there are times Bleach shines with the best of action anime. When the story anticipates a long-awaited, especially heated fight, the animation is fantastic, absolutely fantastic. Outside of major plot-driven combat, the anime still looks clean. However, the viewer can tell when Bleach is in a filler season because the quality goes down the primordial pooper. The fillers not only drop the ball on story, but the animation drops to unacceptable levels. Again, I feel that quality of animation degradation could have been avoided if the producers of the anime didn't feel the need to make so much filler and simply wait for the manga before making new seasons. I also feel that animation budget could have been kept higher if they condensed the episodes instead of over-doing the many small skirmishes that took five-plus episodes to complete; they easily could be condensed into one.

Entertainment: Again, this has too many extremes. The climax of the Soul Society arch was incredible -by far season 3 is my absolute favorite section of Bleach. Everything came together perfectly. If the Bleach ended then (of course a totally different ending would've had to been written), this anime would join the truly great Shonens. But as the anime continued further and further, too many instances of shortcuts ruined it. The filler seasons aren't even compelling. They provide nothing to contribute to the original story, the production quality drops to unacceptable lows, and they're far, far too long. Bleach is far too inconsistent to truly enjoy.

Final Verdict: Bleach is crippled by its own success. Its made so much money, and became so popular that the manga and anime have grown too large and distanced itself too much from what Bleach originally set up. I wanted to really like this anime, but it sadly let me down after its popularity blew up its ego.