They should have ended when Sōsuke Aizen Died!
The Bleach series was among Japan's most sold manga series for a time. It was part of the "big three" of manga alongside the manga series Naruto and One Piece. Of all the manga to anime series I have watched, Bleach has some of the best battles. I will not argue if they had the "best battles ever" because that is a different topic, but the anime adaptation of the series had some great visuals. Their fights are fluid, and some may argue that the anime looked better than the manga. Bleach's anime fight scenes always amazed me at how big they could get. When two people were in battle, it felt like the entire battle setting was affected, especially towards the end of the series. It reminds you of Dragonball Z, how the whole ground would shake when Goku was powering up. Many of today's anime do the same, trying to give off that epic atmosphere that Dragonball Z gave. Bleach was one of the best at doing it because of the details in the settings and the character's powers. Not to mention the characters themselves were built up well by Kubo. Their lure and the stories behind them were terrific, with character names like Captain Kenpachi Zaraki, or Head Captain Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto. When I heard these names in Japanese, they felt bombastic to me, making the characters more exciting and sometimes fascinating. Unfortunately, Bleach had to cancel their anime because of a reason we may never know. I want to argue why I feel that the series had fallen short of its excellent start and why eventually, its anime had to stop running.
Like various other shonen anime, Bleach was successful because of its Shonen genre and its serialization on WSJ. The fighting and the swordplay made it stand out because Tite Kubo knows how to draw sword duals. Unfortunately, the storyteller fell short of what I believe is the initial hype. Know that's not too bad of a thing because I think that is one reason the anime did so well in America: fans love hype. Out of all the TV anime in America, Bleach was one of the few 100-plus episode anime played on Television for the entire series. Other series like Rave, One Piece, or even Naruto never continued after a certain point in American TV. One main reason is that after Toonami was shut down, adult swim continued the series through its interiority. Also, Bleach later became a relatively shorter anime than the other big three, like Naruto or One Piece. Americans loved that Dragon Ball Z-type atmosphere that gravitated them to the series. It made them want to watch more, even though the story wasn't the best it could be. With all of this propelling it to success in America, Bleach's main problem was its ending.
Bleach's story is based on old Japanese folklore, which can be very interesting to other cultures. This next paragraph will explain the base for those who don't know the story. Bleach started with a boy named Ichigo, who could see spirits. One day he sees a soul reaper named Rukia Kuchiki who kills evil Hollows, which are bad spirits. But then, one day, a Hollow try's to kill Ichigo's family, so he takes most of Rukia's powers to become a Soul Reaper himself and fights off the Hollows. The story's beginning makes no sense to me because there was no real need for Rukia to give up her powers. She one shots a hollow at the beginning of the first episode, and then because of Ichigo, she can't take out the second one quickly enough. I realize this was a plot device that was the catalyst for the rest of the story, but it still irritates me. We later learn that Rukia was a well-trained soul reaper who had been alive for serval decades. Because she gives away her powers, she is arrested months later by the Soul Society and sentenced to execution. Ichigo then goes on a mission with his friend to save her. Once he saves her, Aizen is revealed to be the real villain who somehow orchestrated all the events in the story that led them to take an artifact hidden inside Rukia by some guy she didn't know. Now the Soul Society, which was just Ichigo's biggest enemies, must work with Ichigo to stop Aizen from finishing his plans. Now coincidently, Aizen's plans are related to Ichigo cause it is his hometown that is the target to be destroyed to create a key that can bring him to the God of their world called the Soul King. He will then Kill the Soul King and rule over the world with his minions, then so on. (Maniacal laughs in the background)
At first, the story was about Ichigo finding out how to control his new powers and learning about the world around him that he never saw before gaining those powers. He gains friends and allies that help him protect his town from Hollows and gains new abilities. Then when Rukia is captured, it becomes a story of friendship where he has to save her with the help of his friends, which was only about five of them against an army of over 10,000 soul reapers, excluding the Gotei 13 Captains. Then Aizen comes in and blows the entire thing out of the water because he was a captain in the Soul Society that betrayed everyone. Ichigo then has to go to the land of the Hollows, Hueco Mundo, to save a different friend. Whom Aizen had manipulated into thinking he needed their power. But then it turned out he never needed Ichigo's friend; he just wanted to make Ichigo leave his town. The story is filled with plot holes and convenient story progressions that make the characters reasoning for doing things unexplainable. After all that, Aizen becomes the main focal point of the story because Ichigo somehow became the only Soul Reaper who could defeat him. Might I add most Soul Reapers are centuries older than Ichigo, and he is only 15 when the story starts, but somehow the world rests on his shoulders? In the end, Kubo could have still saved the story by fixing the end.
At the series' climax, Aizen reveals to Ichigo that he had been watching him since he was a child and made all the things that happened in his life. Ichigo has to fight with himself to fight Aizen and his craziness. Ichigo gains his "final" power, which makes all of his powers disappear once he uses them. Ichigo uses this power to stop Aizen, only to discover that Aizen can't die. Ichigo's "final" power only weakens him, so he is eventually sealed away. What makes this ending worse is that Ichigo eventually gets his powers back.
Know I will say other than action and swordplay, Kubo is good at righting poetic things. He seems to have a French and Spanish background or at least knowledge of those things. Unfortunately, I don't think that was enough for me and millions of other fans. The Bleach anime was canceled in the arc after Aizen's defeat, even though the manga still went on with one more arc called the Thousand Blod arc. In my opinion, Kubo should have ended the series with Aizen. Ichigo should have been able to kill Aizen, and then he would have lost his powers and returned to a typical high schooler. Aizen's death would have made the series much more satisfying because of everything he put us through as fans. What makes it worse about not killing him is that the Soul Society brings him back into battle in the manga to help them defeat the new bad guy, who also tells Ichigo he has been in control of his life since he was a kid and set everything in the story into motion. I don't think Kubo realizes how much chaos Aizen made. I think the main problem Kubo had was that there were a lot of unsolved answers that Bleach made that had to be explained later. He continued the series to answer those questions. I'm afraid I disagree with doing that, but if you had to make more for the story, he should have skipped the Fullbring arc and gotten straight to the Quincy arc. The Quincy arc makes things make sense, even if I didn't like the explanations.
In the end, the Bleach anime was a success, but the Bleach series wasn't doing what it should have. I think they had to cancel the series because the anime production costs more than the number of views and money they were receiving. The fans were dwindling due to the stories issues, which again stems from how Aizen's arc ended and the series kept moving as if all the setup didn't matter.
Ultimately, I am just a fan of Bleach, with many critics. I wish they continued the anime series because I love Tite Kubo's work. I also believe the Thousand Blood year arc has better qualities than some past arcs. In another essay, maybe I'll explain why I feel like the "Thousand Blood Year" arc changes many previously stated events, and don't get me started on that ending. (Sigh, Shaking my head) I Believe Tite Kubo overextended the story of Bleach and went on for too long. In the end, despite why I believe Bleach sucks, don't get me wrong, it is still a top Anime of all time. The series manga sales rank among the top 20, and I will watch it when the anime returns. This rant, in a sense, is not really "why it sucks," but why I feel like it could have done a better job in telling the story of Ichigo Kurasaki.
Orihime saving boob arc?
Saving her was meaningless because her kidnapping was pointless. It was just a plot device to bring Ichigo and his gang to Heonco Moondo. It makes no sense why Ichigo can become so strong in his full hollow mode; it's cool, but it makes no sense.
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