I have to say that Bleach had so much potential and there was so much good writing in the first arc of Bleach, the substitute shinigami one not the soul society(which everyone says was what made Bleach gold back then).
From the introduction of all the leads to how the various mini arcs was resolved. I really liked the Kon and Don Kanoji's ones.Also our main character had such a funny badass personality, Rukia was easily one of my favourite and her chemistry with Ichigo isone thing that Kubo did right, Orihime was this air-head that makes really funny jokes and had some depth in her that could have been developed, Chad was this really cool and chill guy that's like a bro.
Uryu…well..I'm not sure, I can't really decide on his personality because his character appeared last during the arc but he was interesting with his backstory of the last quincy and the rival dynamic with Ichigo that was fun to read too.
Then there's Memories in the Rain.
That was the moment when I felt that Kubo could actually write his arcs with something for all of us to take away.
Even Soul Society. If we put aside the stupidity of the entire legal system they have there, the arc itself is really good.But I guess that was Kubo's first mistake that would snowball into the disaster now was by introducing so much characters at once and specially developing them even before the arc ended. The main characters like Chad and Orihime would get shafted aside when he decided that his new cast of black kimonos will make the series more popular.
At one point of time in SS, Kubo just like his new introduced Shinigamis way more than the human characters and that was when the main cast got cast aside for them to enter the spotlight.
And then there's Ichigo who Kubo now believes can only grow through relying on powerups after the fame of the fight with Byakuya(one day asspull training win).
From then on, how much the MC character growth is now limited to the powerups fights and the inner world dialouges. Apparently Ichigo have a new perspective in life every time he gets a powerup and somehow becomes more mature and cooler.
This is the same Kubo who had made Ichigo achieve growth without any powerups, inner world dialouges or any asspull training in the Memories of the Rain and almost all the pre-Byakuya fights.
After that fight he simply became a blank canvas and a pawn that is dragged around in Urahara and Aizen's chess game.
SS would have ended with a bang if each of the human characters had a fight in the last part instead of captains just running around fighting each other.
Bleach had so much potential if only Kubo knows how to handle his characters better and actually learns how to look at the big picture instead of focusing so fucking much on making things look cool and flashy or polishing his ego with his self proclaimed smartass plot twists.
Ironically, Bleach has turned into the manga which we all thought it would not have become given its first arc.
