Bleach is coming to an end

[Mangod]

So after the final arc started back at the start of 2012, Bleach is about to come to its close.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2016-07-03/bleach-manga-to-end-in-74th-volume/.103916

I have to say, I'm impressed it actually got this far. For the longest time it's been a bloody corpse of its former self, just slowly inching towards the finish. With the recent chapters everything is being very rushed, as one villain was taken out with no chance to show of their powers, and we have loose threads being put together with no payoff. While I never really expected much it's still a shame that everything has to be rushed to an end and not allow the author to finish on his own terms. Fans will be sad, and people like me will no longer have this train wreck to read as a source of unintentional comedy.

What's everyone else's thoughts on the ending being nigh?

To be completely honest, calling the ending rushed feels like we're giving it an undeserved pass; how long has the current arc been going on now? 200+ chapters. And of those, how many could have been excised from the story without impacting it in any meaningful way?

Bleach has been horribly managed where pacing is concerned, and quite frankly, the amount of plot threads being left unresolved is entirely the fault of the author leaving so many of them unresolved for so long in favor of adding more fightscenes that go on forever.

 

[-Dragmire-]

I think I made it about 500 chapters in before I lost interest. As I recall, there was about to be some big battle over a fake duplicate city.

At least it's getting an ending. It always sucks when a series just stops without a conclusion.

[small]Edit: Might not have been chapter 500, I just remember being quite a ways into the manga[/small]

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Has it really taken four years to finish the final arc? Imagine the hyper-shitty filler if the anime wasn't put out of its misery around the same time.

(The Bount and Captain Amagi filler arcs were decent (for filler) but everything afterwords went downhill fast. Muramasa and his zanpakto mind control powers could have been handled much better, and the recycled plot of the next arc is where I flipped the table on the anime. Generic zanpakto are randomly turning evil now? Screw you!)

Good. Stopped reading it when they revealed Ichigo's mom was a Quincy, thereby making him a Quincy on top of a Shinigami, and a Vizard, and a Fullbringer, and a weird product of a Hollow attack(? Admittedly I stopped reading around this point).

The fights were becoming formulaic with characters seemingly having the upper hand and then "you fell for my trap card" nonsense ensuing several times to elongate battles.

You could tell Tite Kubo ran out of steam around the end of the Las Noches and False Karakura Town arcs. Orihime actually went through character regression with her time in Las Noches. Fullbringer arc might as well not have happened apart from explaining how Chad and Orihime's abilities manifested. I really would have figured a guy who could rewrite history as his power would have had a bigger impact than next to nothing at all. And Ichigo just became such a miserable character to follow throughout most of these arcs I've mentioned.

Finding out Ichigo is part-everything is about where I stopped, as well. The Fullbringer arc was hard enough to finish. While the first few Quincy invasion chapters almost brought back what made Bleach interesting, more drawn out battles with the excessively numbered side characters and finding out Ichigo's mother died (and Uryu's as well) not because of the hollow attack, but because the new villain is an overpowered life-sucking asshole, did it for me.

It did go on for too many arcs. The Jump execs should have listened to Kubo's original desire to finish the manga with Azien's defeat. Instead, he had to write a quick end to that, take a break to think of some new story arc to tack on and give us another unnecessary manga-story-time-skip. They should have just let him follow through with the original slightly longer plans for the Azien plotline and commissioned him to make a sequel series where, I don't know, Ichigo and Orihime's kid has a has kid with an arrancar and he or she is the new hero that fights some dumb new spirit overlord.

[plot summary of cool-sounding battles]

That makes me want to actually finish reading the manga when it Kubo is done with it. Kenpachi and Mayuri are two of the best written weirdos Bleach has to offer.

Everything about Chad, Orohime, and Uryu was pointless again. Main bad guy can change the future to his will, and took away all of Ichigos powers, where Ichigo gained all of them back the very next chapter.

But that makes me only want to read a summary, in order to skip over the useless fluff I've come to hate about many shonen mangas. I should have seen the thing about Ichigo's powers coming, though. It's a been running gag since the first few chapters for him to lose powers every arc or so and regain them, with extras!

 

[DoPo]

I think I made it about 500 chapters in before I lost interest. As I recall, there was about to be some big battle over a fake duplicate city.

Hey, that's where I stopped watching the anime, as well!

 

[Saltyk]

I remember really liking Bleach early on. It kinda jumped the shark completely after defeating Aizen. I never saw a point in having Ichigo lose his powers in that fight and the series made it even worse by finding a way to give them back. Which turned out being pointless when he was given his powers back by the Captains stabbing him with a sword.

I'm still reading as I've come this far. Hell, we even finally got a few of the Bankais of Captains shown, and even Rukia's Bankai. Finally learned the Bankai of Urahara, which was pretty awesome and OP.

However, I've grown tired of constant asspulls as people fight others who have powers that perfectly counter their own. Fights don't feel like they did in the past. The feel cheap and drag on way too long. And now the series has them fighting the most broken person in fiction and I have no idea how they can beat him and really don't care.

I'll read it. I've come this far. But I'm apathetic at best.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

I might be the only one, but I like the Bleach manga. Though I like it because it is stupid as all hell, but the characters seem in on it. It's like they know they're stuck in a shitty shonen story and try to subvert the rules, but can't because they're stuck in a shitty shonen story. Things like killing a character in the middle of them explaining their powers because it's dumb to let someone sit there and explain how they're going to win, only to have their power be "gets stronger the more they're killed".

 

[CrazyGirl17]

You mean it hasn't already? Then again, I haven't kept up with the series in years, so... I used to like Bleach, but I got sick and tired of how long it got dragged out for. I also have a seeking suspicion Kubo will be forced to make a follow-up because it'll make more money. Stupid business practices...

 

[Super Cyborg]

To be completely honest, calling the ending rushed feels like we're giving it an undeserved pass; how long has the current arc been going on now? 200+ chapters. And of those, how many could have been excised from the story without impacting it in any meaningful way?

Bleach has been horribly managed where pacing is concerned, and quite frankly, the amount of plot threads being left unresolved is entirely the fault of the author leaving so many of them unresolved for so long in favor of adding more fightscenes that go on forever.

Well I didn't expect much even if Kubo was given all the time in the world, just that the last two chapters really show it. We had twice this arc where Bach took away his minions powers to move the story forward, but the first time we had things come to a halt for a while with long fights that went nowhere and no time to actually build up the story. If I was generous I'd say about a third of this actual arc had content and the rest felt like fluff.

Has it really taken four years to finish the final arc? Imagine the hyper-shitty filler if the anime wasn't put out of its misery around the same time.

(The Bount and Captain Amagi filler arcs were decent (for filler) but everything afterwords went downhill fast. Muramasa and his zanpakto mind control powers could have been handled much better, and the recycled plot of the next arc is where I flipped the table on the anime. Generic zanpakto are randomly turning evil now? Screw you!)

Good. Stopped reading it when they revealed Ichigo's mom was a Quincy, thereby making him a Quincy on top of a Shinigami, and a Vizard, and a Fullbringer, and a weird product of a Hollow attack(? Admittedly I stopped reading around this point).

The fights were becoming formulaic with characters seemingly having the upper hand and then "you fell for my trap card" nonsense ensuing several times to elongate battles.

You could tell Tite Kubo ran out of steam around the end of the Las Noches and False Karakura Town arcs. Orihime actually went through character regression with her time in Las Noches. Fullbringer arc might as well not have happened apart from explaining how Chad and Orihime's abilities manifested. I really would have figured a guy who could rewrite history as his power would have had a bigger impact than next to nothing at all. And Ichigo just became such a miserable character to follow throughout most of these arcs I've mentioned.

Finding out Ichigo is part-everything is about where I stopped, as well. The Fullbringer arc was hard enough to finish. While the first few Quincy invasion chapters almost brought back what made Bleach interesting, more drawn out battles with the excessively numbered side characters and finding out Ichigo's mother died (and Uryu's as well) not because of the hollow attack, but because the new villain is an overpowered life-sucking asshole, did it for me.

It did go on for too many arcs. The Jump execs should have listened to Kubo's original desire to finish the manga with Azien's defeat. Instead, he had to write a quick end to that, take a break to think of some new story arc to tack on and give us another unnecessary manga-story-time-skip. They should have just let him follow through with the original slightly longer plans for the Azien plotline and commissioned him to make a sequel series where, I don't know, Ichigo and Orihime's kid has a has kid with an arrancar and he or she is the new hero that fights some dumb new spirit overlord.

[plot summary of cool-sounding battles]

That makes me want to actually finish reading the manga when it Kubo is done with it. Kenpachi and Mayuri are two of the best written weirdos Bleach has to offer.

Everything about Chad, Orohime, and Uryu was pointless again. Main bad guy can change the future to his will, and took away all of Ichigos powers, where Ichigo gained all of them back the very next chapter.

But that makes me only want to read a summary, in order to skip over the useless fluff I've come to hate about many shonen mangas. I should have seen the thing about Ichigo's powers coming, though. It's a been running gag since the first few chapters for him to lose powers every arc or so and regain them, with extras!

Mayuri gets an overall good ending for all his stuff. Kenpachi only had one solo fight against the imagination guy that turned out to be a brain. The other fight is with Byakuya and Hitsugaya helping as well, but it was actually kind of fun to watch. The nice thing about the stuff with Ichigo and his friends is they have almost no screen time. Even with Ichigo being the main hero he only had so much screen time, probably 5 to 6 chapters worth at most since we got to the Elites fights. Overall it's a train wreck that I feel people who had exposure to Bleach should see some of the stuff just to understand the insanity that is the final arc of Bleach

 

[Super Cyborg]

You know, I could have swore the anime had ended already. Did the manga just keep going or something?

Due to a huge decline in popularity, they cancelled the anime after the Fullbringer arc. The manga was still popular enough to keep going and was already in the final arc when the anime cancelled, so it just kept going, for four long agonizing years.

 

[Spider RedNight]

Finally. I jumped ship when I realised the OP OC I made when I was 14 (a Shinigami/Quincy hybrid) was actually the main character. It should've wrapped everything at the Shinigami Arc - rescue Rukia, beat the crap outta Aizen, done. Maybe cut Ichigo out of it altogether - there's a problem when almost all the characters are less contrived and annoying than the main one... but that might be a manga thing because the same could apply to Kuroshitsuji and Naruto... and some others, I'm sure. I haven't read manga in over five years. FIVE WHOLE YEARS

But yeah, no. Good riddance. Wrap up Ukitake's story (either kill him or don't good lord quit hovering him in this perpetual, after-life nightmare), then finish it. Or don't and just cut it off while everyone's still confused. That'd be funny.

No Ichigo is part Shinigami,part Vizard, part Fullbring,and part Quincy so yeah your OC is a hell of a lot more well written the
Ichigo

-blinks- What the HELL is a Fullbringer? I must've skipped over that part. Is it a type of car? Because if Ichigo is also a Transformer, I wouldn't be surprised.

[[ also super bummed that I realised that they're probably never gonna show Ukitake's bankai. Sucks, man. ]]

 

[Vausch]

About time. The fight sequences are the epitome of predictable and the powers increasing levels of arse-pull.

Much as I like the powers available in the series, the ass-pulls that get pulled are especially bad with this last arc. I mean I feel like Yawach and Harvenger from The Culling could pull an "I outplanned you" contest at this point.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Mayuri gets an overall good ending for all his stuff. Kenpachi only had one solo fight against the imagination guy that turned out to be a brain. The other fight is with Byakuya and Hitsugaya helping as well, but it was actually kind of fun to watch. The nice thing about the stuff with Ichigo and his friends is they have almost no screen time. Even with Ichigo being the main hero he only had so much screen time, probably 5 to 6 chapters worth at most since we got to the Elites fights. Overall it's a train wreck that I feel people who had exposure to Bleach should see some of the stuff just to understand the insanity that is the final arc of Bleach

From this post and a few others, this arc sure sounds like a train was derailed, repaired, and wrecked again multiple times. I just might check out the full arc both for the few interesting things and the morbid curiosity everyone here is mentioning.

-blinks- What the HELL is a Fullbringer? I must've skipped over that part. Is it a type of car? Because if Ichigo is also a Transformer, I wouldn't be surprised.

Note: the following comes from someone who hasn't read the Fullbringer arc in over four years.

Fullbringers are a group of people who draw spiritual powers from an object close to them, called a fullbring. Chad and Orihime became fullbringers in the beginning chapters of the manga and just never knew how they got their powers. (Pretty big retcon, there.) Orihime's item is of course her earrings her dead brother gave her. Chad's fullbring is ummm... his arms(?), the love of his granpa(?) or some other asspull Kubo tried to fit to this retcon of Chad's powers. Ichigo somehow manages to become one, with his object being his substitute shinigami badge.

Regrettably, Ichigo's fullbring didn't turn him into a car or do anything remarkable, really. My memory is fuzzy, but I think someone's post above is bringing back memories of the badge just emitting shuriken shaped energy. It was lame. The arc was lame. You didn't miss much (except for more work from acclaimed character designer Titty Kubo).

 

[ArcaneGamer]

Finally. I jumped ship when I realised the OP OC I made when I was 14 (a Shinigami/Quincy hybrid) was actually the main character. It should've wrapped everything at the Shinigami Arc - rescue Rukia, beat the crap outta Aizen, done. Maybe cut Ichigo out of it altogether - there's a problem when almost all the characters are less contrived and annoying than the main one... but that might be a manga thing because the same could apply to Kuroshitsuji and Naruto... and some others, I'm sure. I haven't read manga in over five years. FIVE WHOLE YEARS

But yeah, no. Good riddance. Wrap up Ukitake's story (either kill him or don't good lord quit hovering him in this perpetual, after-life nightmare), then finish it. Or don't and just cut it off while everyone's still confused. That'd be funny.

No Ichigo is part Shinigami,part Vizard, part Fullbring,and part Quincy so yeah your OC is a hell of a lot more well written the
Ichigo

-blinks- What the HELL is a Fullbringer? I must've skipped over that part. Is it a type of car? Because if Ichigo is also a Transformer, I wouldn't be surprised.

[[ also super bummed that I realised that they're probably never gonna show Ukitake's bankai. Sucks, man. ]]

I found a series that's LIKE Bleach, but I thought did it better, and ended. I speak of course...of Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan. http://www.watchcartoononline.com/thumbs/Nura-Rise-of-the-Yokai-Clan-Demon-Capital-Season-2-Episode-4-English-Dubbed.jpg

GOOD KAMI, this series. I could go at length on the beautiful art, the likable characters, the symbolism, how they explain their concepts in a way that makes sense, how when it gets going, it GETS GOING. This is a GOOD series, and I suspect that there are series that are like Bleach, and have done some aspects of it BETTER. This is one of these series, at least to me.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

Honestly, the whole series should have ended with the defeat of Aizen.

The story at the time came to a satisfying conclusion that looped back to the beginning of the series (Ichigo not wanting to deal with or see spirits) and having a meaningful sacrifice that was also bittersweet. Yes, there were a lot of unresolved plots, but the author could have just created a mini series to either explain the aftermath of those plots (Fairy Tail has a blast doing that), or an omake until the author can start a new project/series.

Honestly, I'm glad it's ending; they've muddled and half-explained literally every mystery and plot hole in the series to the point of creating an incredibly OP and unappealing villain. Can't wait to see how they manage to take him out...

 

[Jute88]

I still remember the smug response from Kubo when asked how long he will continue making Bleach and he said as long as he wants.

Should've ended it when they killed Aizen.

Wow, wait. Aizen died? When? By whom? Anyways, it should've ended when they imprisoned him.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

I still remember the smug response from Kubo when asked how long he will continue making Bleach and he said as long as he wants.

Should've ended it when they killed Aizen.

Wow, wait. Aizen died? When? By whom? Anyways, it should've ended when they imprisoned him.

He didn't die. He was jailed and sentenced to 20,000 years by Central 46 (Soul Society Court). He was later let out, albeit still bound and somewhat powerless, some time later and I don't think they've gone further than that with the character.

 

[DeadProxy]

Ahahaha!! Surely you jest. The final boss just retreated into some unknown dimension at the end of the last chapter, and has the bullshit power of changing the future, so literally anything could happen next, and that "anything" could stretch out into more years of shitty over explanations, unrecognizable fight scenes, and pages upon pages of wasted space just showing landmarks.

I've been up to date on bleach for a long, long time now, and there is no love or respect left in me for Bleach, I just want to watch it die. It's just more and more of the same shit for yeeeaaars. For fucks sake, for 3 of the 4 years this damn arc has been going on, Ichigo was NOT in the manga at all. How the hell does the main character not get panels, or background explanations of what he's doing beyond "he's on his way to soul society" for 3 whole years? And once he does show up? He gets at most 3 panels before he's literally face down in his own blood after all the training he's done, and just gets ignore for a couple issues.

And Zaraki's bankai wasn't even impressive, or good or important at all. Zaraki just gets stronger, so strong his body can't even take it. Wow, that sounds almost exactly the same as what his character already is. Remember the kid who had the ice bankai? Now he's suddenly fully grown up because his bankai is matured. Ok? Why the hell was he the only person who was a child BECAUSE OF HIS BANKAI? WTF?

I have nothing but complaints for bleach now. The ONLY moment I was actually interested at all in the past 6-7 years was the fight between Ywach (current big bad) and Ichibe (dude who fights with paint/paintbrush and darkness). I can't remember much now, but I do know I enjoyed it. And then Ichibe loses, then dies, then Ichigo show's up, dead guy talks to Ichigo in his head, Ichigo say's the dude's name, and this causes him to be reborn because "theres life in a name" or some bullshit like that and then we get back to shit-tier manga as usual.

[
[[ also super bummed that I realised that they're probably never gonna show Ukitake's bankai. Sucks, man. ]]

You may not get to see a bankai from him, but it is revealed that he is carrying the Left (or right?) hand of the Soul King inside of himself, if that's any consolation. But then he dies, most likely. Until Ichigo kills Ywach and then we find out that because he's dead, all his time-shenanigans become undone and everyone is happy forever. The End.

 

[Jute88]

I still remember the smug response from Kubo when asked how long he will continue making Bleach and he said as long as he wants.

Should've ended it when they killed Aizen.

Wow, wait. Aizen died? When? By whom? Anyways, it should've ended when they imprisoned him.

He didn't die. He was jailed and sentenced to 20,000 years by Central 46 (Soul Society Court). He was later let out, albeit still bound and somewhat powerless, some time later and I don't think they've gone further than that with the character.

Yeah, I knew all that, I (somehow) managed to go that far reading it until I finally gave up when Grimmjow came back.