Bleach was an amazing manga I feel up until the Soul Society arc. The potential was there and I could not wait until Kubo used it. A shame he never did, and the series just tumbled further and further.

1. There should not have been another kidnapping arc. Awfully repetitive and unequal in terms of effort and succeeding. Both arcs will obviously be compared for quality and the Hueco mundo arc does not reach par.

2. Hichigo/hollow ichigo made the manga become a pseudo shounen manga. Kubo started leaning far too much towards dark and depressing; much like a seinen manga and lost many aspects of previous Bleach. The obvious being a confident protagonist.

3. Lack of plot coherency. I could not for the life of me understand the Decide arc. It was just one big ball of ugly, mixed with several rushed transformations and no conclusion after 5 years of struggling for one. I have never read such pitiful work else where.

4. Absolutely terrible pacing. I am sorry, but Tite Kubo cannot pace a story to save his life. The Hueco Mundo arc was awfully paced, as was the arrancar, decide and fullbring arcs. Fullbring ended too quick with no back stories for the main antagonist, yet the so-so villains got tiny ones. The small arrancar segment before heading into Hueco Mundo, was Kubo's way of steeping on his own logic.

5. Lack of character development for anybody thats not Ichigo. Ichigo's friends all lack severe character development, and so does the rest of the cast. Kubo decided to create a new truck load of characters every arc and then they're either forgotten about or merely killed off (mostly villains die with terribly generic back stories as accompaniment).

6. Ichigo's development consists of a new outfit and sword. All he does attack wise, is fire off Getsuga Tenshou and scream Bankai in belligerence. After several filler arcs, you'll wanna go for your ears with a q tip.

7. Nobody dies except for the arrancar. Who might not even be dead, I've read somewhere. My biggest gripe about deaths, is that Aizen didn't die after all of that terrible pacing and b.s power ups.

8. Aizen and Ichigo are too OP. Unless you enjoy dragon ball z - esque fights, you won't enjoy their matches. Even in dragon ball z, there was a limit to the amount of power ups you could obtain.

9. Kubo trolls. You might of heard this somewhere, you might not even believe this, but yes - Kubo trolls. He hints one thing heavily and does the exact opposite. That my friends, is trolling. Unless, you think that Hitsugaya being sliced cleanly into half and still living is not trolling, then your with me on this one.

10. Why does nobody but Renji have a goal? Why must Ichigo be the under dog forever? Can't he focus and train so he can achieve better results. Screw his formula of waiting for trouble, persistently getting his rear handed to him, and then winning because he claims he has experience. Can't we just skip all the senin underdog vomit and actually try to formalize some thought of winning beforehand. Ichigo looks like a little ***** when he says things like "I want to protect my friends" but keeps making the same mistakes again and again.

Well there are my reasons why Bleach tanks. I'll be gracious and not rate it.

This is one manga that would've gotten a 7 or 8 from me two years ago.

I have now been so thoroughly disappointed by recent happenings that I actually hesitate to give it a 2 instead of a 1.

I loved this series during the first arc. I felt that that particular arc had a nice balance of plot (enough for a shonen manga), battles, humor, and character development. I really liked a lot of the cast that was presented - of course, the artwork helped. But at least the plot was somewhat coherent, and it moved along quickly enough. If I were to complain about one thing back then, it would be how the female characters will all be at some point given the "helpless plot device" treatment. Rukia can obviously kick ass, and I believe Orihime has her good points too - but for some reason, they all get reduced to mere plot devices in their own respective arcs, damsels in distress to be rescued by our big manly Ichigo. ... Okay, alright, I would also complain about Kubo's tendency to overuse certain characters who have proven to be popular with the fanbase, and then make them lose to anyone and everyone. (Poor Renji.)

The second arc, however, is where everything starts to fall apart. New characters are introduced - no real problem there; I love the vizards and the Espada were interesting to watch. It is how Kubo uses these characters that makes zero freaking sense to me. There were some great fights - moments like Kurotsuchi Mayuri vs Szayel Aporro kept me reading the manga.

But that's really everything good I can say about arc two. There is absolutely no plot in this arc - in fact, I can summarize it in one sentence: big bad evil villain with god-like powers sets out to destroy Karakura Town for spiritual energy to make a key -- and be sure to emphasize god like powers, because Kubo seems to think that he hasn't emphasized it enough already. The entire cast is used like rag dolls to repeatedly establish that Aizen is pretty much god and can do whatever the crap he wants to because he is OMG THAT POWERFUL!!1!11!.

I can't really convey how disappointed I was to read 392. I think part of it is because I actually fell for it - I actually thought "nah, it can't be hypnotism because that's SO FREAKING OBVIOUS AND CAN BE SEEN A MILE AWAY AND THUS RENDER A CLIFFHANGER USELESS and really does he really need to establish the whole Aizen is god thing again?". I now see that I've been too optimistic - I really set myself up for that one, because I should've remembered that Kubo has proven that he has no real ability to write (or plan out his manga) logically - or at least, he's lost that ability over the years.

Anyway, I'm tired of being disappointed that the characters I root for are either randomly stabbed in the stomach, cut down in five seconds (Espadas were supposed to be captain level, or really powerful, and their fights were so dull it was almost an afterthought), or used as rag dolls to prove how omguberpowerfulnoonecanbeathim Aizen is. I'm not reading this anymore.

Btw, this Karakura Town battle has been going on for almost two years. I can't believe I read something with no plot for two years.

Bleach is the purest case of style over substance in all the manga I've ever read. That this manga was serialized for ~15 years (while tons of worthwhile manga were discontinued) is a permanent mark of shame on Shounen Jump. Bleach began as a story of smoke and mirrors, with the high point roughly around Aizen's betrayal...and then everything went downhill for the remaining 10+ years.

... Last updated on August 18th, 2016, 6:19am

The beginning of Bleach was pretty good... it started out interesting and was on par with the other shounen mangas, such as(Naruto, One Piece), the whole concept was fascinating.. until after the rukia art... -.- after that its just plain boring an meaningless fighting of characters, who doesn't matter... it isn't just repetitive its just has NO plot... i found it disappointing that they repeated the whole kidnapping.. but i could live with that.. but why the hell are there so many sidecharacter with a own story... i feel they are like rabbits .. 1 sc, 3sc, 10sc , 20sc (side character) .. the main person is exchangeable, or he just doesn't appear in the chapters... altogether if you like to watch pretty picture's or meaningless fighting without a plot this is a manga for you.., else i would advise you to read till the rukia arc, and after that drop the manga...
(Sorry for any spell or grammer mistakes, english is not my native language ^^)

Yeah, Hercule's reference, but with the exact opposite meaning, for those that didn't understand it

I usually don't write comments about mangas, even though I have my share of knowledge with all that I've read so far. I officially dropped Bleach today, after getting tired of all the dragging and the stupidity. Someone said here that it seems that Tite Kubo seems on LSD while writing and I second that. But here's a proper comment:

Art:
The art is gorgeous. I always loved Tite Kubo's art and I still do. Too bad it's such a waste in this manga...

Characters:
When you get to love one, they just don't appear anymore. Some characters are simply random and never made a statement. Others... I just hate them because they are faulty characters. I wasn't expecting perfect characters (even though it seems Kubo is trying to portray Ichigo as the perfect being with ALL the powers in the universe. Yes, a Gary Stu. No, even Naruto wasn't this bad. Naruto didn't have EVERY single power. Just as an example), but I was expecting development. Just don't expect that. It barely exists. For some, it doesn't.

Plot:
Well, it did start great. Bleach was once my favorite manga (and even my favorite anime). It had amazing potential. The first arc was awesome. The second arc (Hueco Mundo) dragged quite a bit, but it's still satisfying. Until the end of it. I won't spoil, but that arc's ending... It was horrible, Everything from that point on is absolutely terrible. From useless arcs (I felt I was reading fillers! Fillers in a manga!) to pointless plot... With some of the worst powers I've ever seen. I can't handle it anymore. It got way too low.

Sorry. I stuck around while it was amazing. Then when it was bearable. Now it's just... Bad. It's not average, it's really bad. Do yourself a favor and go to read something else. Your time is wasted here. I gave it a 6 out of 10 for the good points in this manga (art and the initial plot).

It may seem "cool" to rag on Bleach because of it's popularity. But things don't become popular for no reason. Sure, this isn't the kind of series that will change your life (at least it shouldn't), but as a shounen series, this is pretty much the essence of a shounen manga. Power hierarchies, super powered villains, hidden powers not realized until later, hot chicks, etc. Whatever you think of when you think "shounen", you can probably find it in Bleach. If you're looking for a deep meaningful series with interesting characters and artistic merit, look elsewhere. However, if you're looking for lots of nonsensical, awesome looking violence and action, this is definitely the story for you.

Well, I've been keeping track of this manga since before it started getting crazy popular. It's just not good anymore.

The beginning was fairly awesome, it introduced new ideas that haven't been done before and it had an engaging plot. Now, it's flooded with characters. I'm on chapter 384 and I come to realize that I don't even remember any of the characters' names! I had to scroll up just to remember Ichigo's name, and he's the lead character! That's just how insignificant the characters in this manga have become over time because there's too many to even care about.

Even worse are the battles. They have a single battle spanning what feels like entire volumes. If you're doing only one chapter a week, that's months for a single battle. Who's going to retain in memory all the slew of characters that weren't involved in that battle?

And impossibly none of the good guys die even though they get sliced and stabbed with huge slashes of blood going everywhere. Somehow they either recover in that same battle and power up or whatever, or they take a time out and are revived by the time the story tosses them into another worthless battle along with the mob of other forgettable characters. Kind of reminds me of DBZ, except worse because at least those guys grunted more when they powered up.

I only recommend this manga to guys who don't care about plot or character development...the types who are easily entertained by shallow action manga. "oooh, a guy just got full-body slashed by a blade 2x his size....oooh, he's back up and using some ability he for SOME reason decided not to use from the very beginning"

Worthless.

It was a really good manga in the beginning, something with a score around 9 ish. but recent turn of events are rather bland so to speak. i really think its time for the mangaka to go on a hiatus, recollect his thoughts and start writing again. the way its going right now i would give it a 5 or a 6 which is still ok but it doesnt come anywhere near the previous chapters

Kubo seems to have suffered from Oh! Great syndrome. This is a disease that plagues mangaka who have extremely popular manga's but have run out of ideas. They have made so much money they can afford copious amounts of mind altering drugs and continue to write an incoherent story until the day they are cancelled.

Once part of the Big 3, now the only way you'll find Bleach at the front of Jump is if a foreigner decides to read the magazine from left to right. RIP

... Last updated on February 19th, 2014, 11:48am

In manga, I generally go for a decently well-developed plot, memorable and strong characters, and nice art. I don’t care as much for action scenes or badassness, and if I had to choose, characters would be more important than plot. So I'm just first saying the rating will vary extremely based on what you care about.

Bleach was best at the Soul Society arc, which I'm pretty sure 95% of people would agree with, but like most mainstream shounen series, it falls in overall quality/pacing as we go hundreds of chapters in. The plot at the beginning was more interesting, and the progression was suspenseful and exciting, but then Kubo-sensei kinda loses it a little and starts writing random arcs. The HM arc was pretty much a repeat of SS, so that was tedious to wait through, but I managed. As for the art, it’s pretty solid in my opinion, and I like the style much better than Naruto's. More depth and much better anatomy.

Here's the meat of my opinion of Bleach. To me, certain characters and relationships alone make Bleach worth reading. For other series I’d complain about the plot or pacing or this or that, but Kubo has made me shut my mouth. I know, this series doesn't probe challenging moral issues like in Death Note or Code Geass ect, nor does it artfully deal with characters with severe psychological problems like those in Neon Genesis Evangelion, but I adore Kubo’s storytelling style the most. His word choice and dialogue convey the characters’ emotions very well - I can feel connections with characters in Bleach more than any other series I've read. The way he goes into the characters' minds is quite deep and realistic and though there are a bit too many to keep up with, most people can identify with at least a few.

Personally, I adore Rukia's character and her unique relationship with Ichigo. Rukia is an absolute breath of fresh air – her personality can’t be found anywhere else and she puts all other heroines – shounen and shoujo alike – to shame (with very few exceptions). An extremely strong character, not necessarily physically, but mentally/emotionally. Every time Ichigo loses his cool, she can kick him in gear again because they are in such synch with each other. It sounds contrived in words, but is portrayed very naturally and uniquely throughout the manga. Simply unparalleled. I absolutely love the artful subtlety and even though they don’t share screen time often, Kubo has never lost his touch with their interactions. I honestly feel like Ichigo and Rukia’s relationship is the backbone of the entire story, and the main reason I kept reading all these years. If I had to quit every manga series but one, I’d hold onto Bleach just for this one reason. But that’s just me. And though emotional elements play a bigger part in this series than most mainstream shounen, I don’t think it gets distracting for people who are more into action. Not at all. (Well, maybe the action is sucking at the moment, but that’s a different story.) Bleach has gotten worse from a critical standpoint, but it’s going back up, and I will never complain about anything because I believe in Kubo’s skills to recover. I read his story because I appreciate certain skills of his, so I am perfectly fine with ignoring the flaws of Bleach in exchange for its better elements.