After letting the last Bleach chapter sink in for the past 24 hours, I feel that this is the worst chapter of Bleach yet, which is a culmination of all the other chapters from this arc leading up to this point. Large amount of text incoming.
! This arc is worse than the Fullbringer arc. At least that arc had the decency to be about a year long. I’ll admit at first I was glad the Quincies were the antagonists, because despite making SS more incompetent than it already is, there was potential for this to be interesting. I was stupid to think that because this is Kubo, and him and interesting story do not go together. They started with the idea that Quincies weren’t bad, it’s just that their ability could cause damage to the balance of things, which is why the conflict originally happened. Not only does the balance thing never come up, these people are shown to be complete dicks, especially Juhabach. There is no reason for us to feel like these people were wronged. If anything, you just wish SS and the Quincies would wipe each other out, that way everybody could become a hollow and at least that would be a better fate.
! Worse than that, they took the most interesting aspect of Quincies, bow n arrow as well as various other stuff they could use, and instead give them random abilities. This could have been interesting to go along with the weapons, but ultimately these abilities are stupid and any interesting ones are wasted. Bambietta, just causes explosions. As Nodt,could’ve been interesting, but no, pep talk from big brother equals I’m no longer scared. Mask dude, takes down two captain vizards and Renji acts like it’s nothing when Mask goes full powered. Worse yet, besides a few lines from each Quincy during one chapter, they have almost zero character. Kubo expects us tolike the antagonists from just a few lines, or in the female Quincies case,love them because they bicker among each other. No Kubo, that’s not how it works. They don’t all have to have a personality right away, but overall there is nothing interesting about any of them.
! The first invasion didn’t help us at all. That’s where you first failed making this arc possibly good. You could have set this up to show that the Quincies mean business, that they are here to destroy everyone. Only one character of importance was killed, and he died because he was too stupid to realize that the guy he failed to kill 1000 years ago is acting scared, and that should be suspicious. Even after he died, there was little to show the effect, it was “Here’s zero squad, and they are talking down to everyone, oh we gonna take some popular characters and power them up, bye”. I wouldn’t have minded it as much if you actually killed off Byakuya and Kenpachi, and a few others, but instead they only lost their Bankais.
! Now let’s talk about the worst thing you did, the Bankai stealing. I was actually interested in this. You would force characters to have to learn how to fight not only without their full power, but possibly as a team. You even show Soifon and Hitsugaya ready to fight with their VC’s. All you had to do was let them win at least one fight, show that while they can beat a weaker opponent, they will need to recover their Bankai if they want a winning chance for this war. You could have made this much more intense, but what did you do instead? "LOL, Newbs got taken down, what’s this? Urahara conveniently found acure quickly so everyone can use their Bankai now". This was the point where I knew nothing good was, or will come out of this arc. Not only that, but at this point, SS has the better numbers before including the RG, so any suspense that should happen is null.This part pissed me off to no end, because this was your last chance to actually make a really good arc, or at least make it somewhat interesting.
! This has only really been dealing with the Quincy, now let’s talk about the Shinigami. Because you didn’t kill off some off the characters, you had way too many to use. So instead of taking advantage of the no Bankai thing, to thin some of them out, you fodderize them. Why should the Vizards, who have hollow in them which the Quincy are weak against, be dropping like flies. Worst of all, why have them give important information about their Bankai, which the enemies can easily figure out a counter attack. I know why. They aren’t popular, so lets take them out in the most stupid way possible. I’ll give Kubo credit for letting Yachiru fight, but that lasted less than a chapter. With both the Shinigami and Quincies, you take powers that could be very interesting, and make them boring as possible. I could go much more indepth about all the other stupid stuff, but I still need to get to Ichigo.
! I’m gonna skip Ichigo being Quincy, cause that’s more than I want to get in to. How is it that a guy that has fought so many life and death battles still getting surprised from the most stupid things? Also, why does he go from bored/motivated to stupefied/why me every chapter? Yes at times unexpected things happen, but you are a seasoned warrior, act like one. Ichigo is such a boring character, that he is now bored during fights. The entire fight with Candace, he has the most bored look. If you are over powering her,crack a smile, are at least show something. RG training apparently didn’t do much for you. Yeah you have two swords for two of the same boring attack.That’s really gonna shake the foundation of this manga.
! So all this leads to this latest chapter. You have a title page where everyone is attacking each other with the most bored look, as if to say “Kubo wants me to fight, guess I got to do it”. There is no tension, no emotion, nothing to get us hyped for this fight. Nothing has been built upto this moment to make readers excited for this fight. Why are the Quincies fighting the Shinigami, especially since Juhabach doesn’t care for them and none of them seem to have a grudge against the shinigami. Oh right because they could get their wish granted if they kill Ichigo. That’s the worst reason I’ve heard. The title page encompasses this Manga perfectly. Nothingness. There is nothing to what’s going on. No reason to get excited, no story, no drama, no tension, absolutely nothing.
! If Ichigo wasn’t bad enough, he goes into the screaming phase, again. After being told to not get riled up at everything, he gets surprised when Ishida shows himself again. A Quincy with the Quincies, how is that possible. Dad never mentioned anything that could possibly give a reason why he would be with them (If you remembered stuff Ichigo, Ishida probably wants revenge for his Mom’s death). Not only that, Chad and Orihime show up just so they can show their shocked faces. And they all have to ask at separate times what’s going on, because once isn’t enough. And it all culminates into the panel where Ichigo yells out Ishida’s name. I laughed so hard. This wasn’t emotional at all. There was no build up to the moment. It just happened. It was bland, and I couldn’t help laughing at the scene.
! So where does this leave us? Really who cares? I’ve been reading this not only because I’ve read up to this point, but because it makes everything else I read so much better. I read this then I read Naruto, Toriko,One Piece, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, and it makes them look so much better.There I no possible way that Kubo can make this interesting. The time for build-up has ended. Everything has been set in motion. Even if you have adecent chapter, even a good on somehow, the rest of this crap will remind us that it doesn’t matter. Now if you excuse me, I need to read more part 4 of JoJo, because that actually takes abilities and makes them interesting, as well as good characters and tension.
And then Naruto grew him a new one.
Because he can now.
