Even considering Kubos miserable track record, i thought he would at least try a little for the series ending. You know, asess the fallout of the conflict, and how people respond to the conflict. Lessons learned. Arcs completed. Dreams achieved. Themes reaffirmed. Some sense of closure for the characters, and a memorable outtro.
Instead, Kubo mostly skipped the ending, and went straight for the epilogue, which ain't the same thing. Especially considering the handling of the giant empty void by the name of Kurosaki Ichigo. But really, how can you make a compelling resolution when your main character has no character? Ichigo had nothing that he wanted, no dreams or ambitions, and the best Kubo could come up with for a drive was the relentlessly generic "he wants to protect things". Eh, lets stick him in the family clinic as a doctor despite showing no interest in said profession, I guess that'll do. Throghout the arc, nay, series, villains would relentlessly try and forge some emotional connection between Ichigo and the current arc, and time and again Ichigo would fail to respond to it beyond surface level "!?". Ichigos increased manbearpiggedness, recurring revelations that his life has been masterminded, confrontations with his mothers murderer ultimately mean nothing, because Ichigo never seems to reflect on it, the story doesn't DO anything with it. Just look at this week where Ywhach is free to vomit out accusations and philosophy at Ichigo, who respond is nothing more than "…"
Ichigo is an empty husk of a character, and Bleach itself has never aspired to any themes more complex than "fighting", as per Kubos own words. So in the end, Kubo zooms in on the easy way out; the way of fanservice. "What will X look like 10 years from now" and "what would X and Ys kid look like" is the kind of stuff people put in over the credits once the actual ending is done. Its the kind of cute extra that Oda might cook up in an SBS. The closest thing to an actual story resolution we get is Aizen monologuing to an empty room in order to explain what actually fucking happened in the final battle, while incomprehensible nonsense happens with Ywhachs black goo. Thats the note we leave the SS characters on; looking at some swirling goo vanishing. And the ultimate message we get is just "COURAGE!", superimposed not on Ichigo doing something heroic, like a two page spread of rescuing some poor ghost from a hollow, but on Ichigo having a random argument with Rukia.
Character design updates while a character gives a deadpan literal explanation the moral of the story using flowery language. Thats the note Bleach ends on.
Speaking of, I appreciate that Aizen got locked up again as opposed to Orochimaru running free, but are you seriously telling me that Aizen let himself be captured, and that AIZEN gets the reading of the saccharine moral of the story? At least Oros continued horrible experimentation was in character.
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