Bleach - My Personal Opinion

The beginning felt like a typical anime/manga about a guy and his friends going about exterminating monsters. It was fine, which was why many people liked it at first. It was usually just Ichigo and Rukia running around beating the hell out of Hollows while Ichigo learns how to fight better and Rukia regains her powers.

Nothing new, nothing unique. Occasional comedy and the appearance of simple (and weird) characters like Kon. That's probably why you used to like it, chengyee.

Then, Renji and Byakuya show up, shifting the entire theme of the story. The style changed from an everyone's anime/manga to a guys only action-filled anime/manga. It wasn't bad, it just changed. It's like the mangaka decided to change the theme of the story.

After all that were just battles after battle. And for the very first time (at least for me), imba power was introduced into anime/manga.

Back in Dragon Ball, it was raw physical power. Goku was almost always stronger or equal to his opponents (with the exception of Raditz), which is why he almost always wins. He wins because he was always stronger or at least had a strong technique. But Bleach is different.

If you've read the manga so far, you can see that there were many times where the opponents are much stronger than the protagonists. How do they win? Imbalance. Basically, as ungodly powerful as their opponents are, the protagonists always has a certain skill that exploits the one or few weak points their opponents have.

Rukia certainly isn't as powerful as a former Espada or a sub-Espada, but they always give the opponents some sort of weak point which she can exploit. Against the guy who can summon an endless wave of Hollows with his roots, she just freezes his roots. Against a guy who can fly very high into the sky, her ice pillar reaches to the heavens.

The creator of Bleach always has a way of turning the tide of battle with a single technique or a single attribute. Very seldom has there been a battle won by an actual difference in power. One of which is Ichigo's victory against Ulquiorra.

Despite the seeming lack of storyline, there actually is one and it's filled with mysteries. Unfortunately, due to the excessive spamming of fight scenes, many readers have already long forgotten what the hell the story was about. I mean they give you 3 chapters of story for 20 chapters of fight scenes.

Being a guy, I love fight scenes. Being a writer in search of inspiration, I love the style and techniques they introduce. It's actually very good material if you're planning a battle scene in a story. I do hate the excessive spamming of characters and techniques though, so I've never bothered to remember them. I just learn what they can do when the characters use it and then forget it afterwards. I do keep them in mind if they seem useful for my stories though.

P.S. My cosplay is screwed!! There's only a month left!!!!