CondeSebastian said:The first cour of Bleach was insane, Tite Kubo managed to correct some flaws from the manga in the anime, the manga was extremely rushed and with several flaws and plot holes, but the anime was practically perfect, although some secondary fights were a slideshow, such as: Bambieta vs Komamura first round, Toshiro vs Cang Du first round, Soi Fon vs BG9 first round, and several others that I could mention, but the main ones were extremely well animated and fluid, like Yamamoto vs Yhwach, Ichigo vs Yhwach, Zaraki vs Unohana and Byakuya vs As Nodt, and then the pacing was really good.
And I must point out that the rain animation of the first cour was beautiful, probably one of the best of all anime, it reminded me of the Deep Sea King episodes in the first season of One Punch Man, and the rain in Masaki and Isshin's flashback was perhaps the second best of all anime behind only Araragi's Fight against Dramaturgy from Kizumonogatari II, having said that now I will criticize the second cour of Bleach, which to me is pretty mediocre.
First, the character designs are still very beautiful, just like the first cour, nothing to criticize here, but the animation has gone downhill, it looks like a slideshow at times, and Bleach fans defend it at all costs, it seems that they are blinded by the return from the anime and are not being impartial when evaluating, Shinji Hirako's Bankai was horrible, the fans argument is: "but we didn't even have his Bankai in the manga, we should be grateful", I would prefer that it didn't have it then, because in addition to being used on extras, that CGI was horrible, and then there was a slideshow with the extras killing each other, I thought it was very bad, and Kubo kept the same error as in the manga, Bambieta defeated Shinji very easily, it was pathetic, he didn't even wear his Visored mask and was randomized, the Toshiro's fight was also horrible, a slideshow without any fluidity, everything plastered. The design and the colors were beautiful, but the animation reminds me of a gourmetized Record of Ragnarok, that's all.
Now about the Komamura fight, that CGI was horrible, a little superior perhaps to Kimetsu's Gyokko fish, but infinitely inferior to Zohakuten's Wood Wyverns.
They even made the design much more terrifying, the fire in Bankai's eyes was insane, but the movements and appearance were not polished enough, the camera angles and Bambieta's movements were cool, but the CGI hindered the experience a little , I'm not one to complain about CGI, but when it gets bad we have to complain, the first cour was insane, bordering on perfection, there were still some mistakes, the first episode also had CGI with the Hollows against Ichigo's group, but I thought it stayed much better polished.
This season in relation to the designs are still as beautiful as the first cour, the scenery with the red sky is very aesthetic, but the animation has gone downhill, a complete slideshow, for those who are fans of Bleach it is worth watching, but it was a total disappointment for me, we had much better debuts this season, the previous season was Bleach's to shine, but this season it's not even on the podium of the top 3 of the season.
Medium season at maximum!
I like how you wrote this entire review comparing 4 episodes of the new season to the full 13 of the previous one. You do realize the first 4 episodes of cour 1 looked like this as well right? Because they were min-maxing their pool of talent and budget until the main courses of the season like they obviously are here as well. Every "extremely well animated and fluid" fight that you mentioned occurred post-episode 4. The same applies here. Also, calling the CGI horrible is CondeSebastian said:we had much better debuts this season, the previous season was Bleach's to shine, but this season it's not even on the podium of the top 3 of the season.
Which anime outside of Zom 100 and JJK has had a stronger start than Bleach this season? Mushoku Tensei? LOL.