MyAnimeList.net

Bleach
Edit

What would you like to edit?

Add to My List

Add to Favorites

Alternative Titles

Japanese: BLEACH

Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 74

Chapters: 705

Status: Finished

Published: Aug 7, 2001 to Aug 22, 2016

Genres: Action, Adventure, Award Winning, Fantasy

Demographic: Shounen

Serialization: Shounen Jump (Weekly)

Authors: Kubo, Tite (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 7.87¹ (scored by 236,742 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #1126²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #14

Members: 385,722

Favorites: 36,053

Resources

Write a Review
Reviews

Filtered Results: 38 / 137

Sort

Suggested
Most voted
Newest
Oldest

Filter Preliminary Spoiler

Apr 1, 2013

gabunomi

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (Unknown/705 chp)

To be honest I am not a Bleach fan. I usually just read it while waiting for something better to come out. I literally stopped reading Bleach for like a year, started at the most reason chapter and felt like I didn't miss a single thing. The story line has been done to death(no pun intended) and the characters are two dimensional(I'm on a roll right now). Out of all the weekly manga I am currently reading, Bleach would be the easiest to say goodbye to.

Jan 19, 2022

Flangel

Mixed Feelings

A short review about every major arc in Bleach:

Man i wish someone gave me a donut everytime a Deus Ex Machina happened.

Bleach is a manga that has the highest highs and the lowest lows, at it's best is a really hype story with cool looking characters that you can root for and care about. At it's worst it's just a bunch of characters beating the crap out of each other trying to look cool and memorable but fails doing so.

-The Soul Society Arc:

An overall great arc that introduces some very cool characters, the main characters and all of the Gotei 13, the captains and ...

Jul 21, 2017

Swoleking

Mixed Feelings

This is my first review, I'll try my best not to spoil anything. I'll try to keep this short so that you won't have to read paragraph after paragraph.

Story: 6/10

The story is of a freshman in high school who becomes a Shinigami after trying to protect his friends. Cliche, but not bad cliche. Further into the story, battles become less interesting as they drag on to the point of having the urge to skim through the chapters. Like most mangas with overpowered characters, there are bound to be asspulls, such as in this manga. Quite a bit of plotholes and unanswered questions. If you're fine ...

Jun 24, 2020

L3teesh

Mixed Feelings

Everything was great until the Aizen arc finished! I tried trust me I tried to lot get through it but it was becoming so ridiculous I just got disappointed. I know people are hyped to see the anime come back but ah... no thank you. I really want to give this a 5.5 but ehhhhhh.
I loved the diversity in bleach and the clothing variations for characters it really was good. There’s not too many characters I dislike. Though again the development after Aizen is meh for me.
Character development is a personal thing I really pay attention to. I felt like too much plot convince ...

May 25, 2022

spaceboydom

Mixed Feelings

The first few arcs are really good. The characters are fun and the story and setting is intriguing and exciting, keeping you on your toes. As the series goes on the art becomes even better and features some of the best artwork in shounen battle manga of its time. The characters and their powers are also quite cool and stylish. However, the story also takes a divebomb. The manga basically devolves into a long chain of battles. If you take out the battles in the latter half of the series, you will find that very little substance remain in the story. Basically, it becomes style ...

May 14, 2021

lubu42

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (200/705 chp)

To be fair, I haven’t finished the entire series yet, but after getting through volume 22, I have really burnt out on Bleach. The art is great and there are bits I thoroughly enjoy, but overall I’ve found that the story seems kind of dry and the engagements between characters are kind of dull. I appreciate the comedic moments and there are certain characters I love like Aizen and Kenpachi, but the rest of the side characters don’t do much for me. I will probably pick this back up in the future but for the time being, it’s not my cup of tea. Hearing that ...

Jun 12, 2012

buastete

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (107/705 chp)

The first time i encounter Bleach, i loved it very much: the story was intresting, good story twist, lovable characters, fine art.
it was catchy, new and refreshing, but after the soul society arc it started to go down, but still it was ok, even the hueco mundo arc was enjoyable in some parts, but after that i lost my intrest.
it's very disapointing to see such a good series going downhill without any hope to get better, cos now author is just trying to wrtite jus for the sake of writing.
My point is, the series should have ended after soul society or hueco mundo arc, that ...

Sep 4, 2023

Aakash1811

Mixed Feelings

My last read out of the big 3, and surprisingly the least talked manga out of them, with some people not even considering Bleach to be the part of big 3. For being a complete battle Shonen Bleach is really great with genre, and for me personally I believe it is better than Naruto Shippuden in many aspects. Having watched and read many of the contemporary manga, the influence of Bleach on them is very evident with many of the style and themes being adapted and being inspired.

Bleach as a story has nothing monumental to offer, but its cast and relationships between them is ...

Feb 5, 2021

mrpengo88

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (423/705 chp)

I'm well aware that I'm not saying anything groundbreaking here, but I felt like writing down my thoughts anyway. Finally reading this after being so engrossed with the DS game as a kid some 12-13 years ago was quite the trip. While it does contain several shounen tropes that hold it back, the Soul Society arc is genuinely engrossing and well done. It's an intricate but simple story with effective characterization that makes every fight feel important. The series is essentially diet Yu Yu Hakusho at the beginning, but during the SS arc it really comes in to its own and displays signs of the ...

Jun 24, 2020

claretravels

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (548/705 chp)

Bleach is a series that began promisingly, but sadly became less and less compelling over time, due to a variety of factors.

Bleach's story has a fair enough setup: Ichigo meets Rukia, a soul reaper, and becomes a soul reaper himself. Antics ensue. Right? Well...to some extent, yes. For a little while the story has a kind of monster-of-the-week feel, with our characters facing some fun, inconsequential enemies. We see a little of Ichigo's high school life. Then the big Soul Society arc begins, and it's pretty fun! It introduces a bunch of new characters and lore, we see plenty of fights, it's a good time. ... It's a pretty long arc, and it culminates in a villain reveal that has obviously been memorable among fans.
In my opinion, this is the highest point the manga ever reached. Unfortunately, this arc is generally accepted to end around chapter 182. And there are *705* chapters. That's a pretty big gap. So what was going on for the rest of the time? To be brutally honest, nothing that ever felt that important. There are really only 3 big arcs after the Soul Society. I think that in order to hold your attention over such a long-running shounen series, there should ideally be a higher number of slightly shorter arcs, or at the very least the arcs need to be more varied. But each new arc in Bleach seems to follow the exact same structure as the first, but in increasingly bleaker locations.

I think characterisation is another place Bleach falls short. There's nothing wrong with the characters designs; but I just couldn't ever connect with the main characters the way I wanted to. I'm not certain why this is. They're not TERRIBLE - but I just don't feel that their motivations and goals are well expressed. Ichigo, for example, should be the biggest driver of the story, and I guess I like him well enough - but I don't know what his ultimate goals are. I think this makes it apparent that the story really lacks something important: an emotional core. Without this it's hard to feel invested in any of the goings on. I also always found it kind of odd that Ichigo's high school pals all happened to have their own super abilities outside of the reaper powers.

The artwork of the series, while it's biggest strength, also suffered from deteriorating quality through the years. I think initially the art and designs of Bleach were very impressive; Tite Kubo is a very talented artist. The characters look sleek and very very cool. The fight scenes were visually exciting. But by the mid point there is less and less to hold your eye's attention - the scenery and backgrounds seemed to become much bleaker and washed out. It feels like you're just looking at the characters talking or battling in a blank void, and this only lends to an increasingly empty story.

Overall, I think it's a shame that Bleach fell from grace the way it did. I read it faithfully every week for 3-4 years up till sometime in 2013, and yet I find it hard to pinpoint many memories from that all time spent reading. For some time I convinced myself that I would eventually catch up and finish the manga, but I've now long accepted that I will probably never bother. I've seen summaries of the very last chapters and they're not enough to compel me to spend my time reading through more of the same.
I don't want to place blame too harshly on any one factor for the disappointing nature of the series. I think perhaps Tite's strengths lie in artwork and character design, rather than character development. I understand that the world of weekly manga, especially Weekly Shounen Jump, is a unique and unforgiving environment in which to publish these stories, but that doesn't automatically mean that any series in there is doomed to the same failures. And I know that eventually Tite was given a brutally short frame in which to end the manga, but, truthfully, what would have happened otherwise? Would the manga have been drawn out for another 150 chapters of stale plot? Who knows.
Ultimately, I think Bleach would have worked much better as a shorter series; perhaps after the Soul Society arc there could have been a short conclusion. I think Bleach would be remembered more fondly if had ended sooner. But, alas. It's certainly not the worst manga in the world; if shounen manga in a cool, modern setting appeals to you then I think it's worth your time to read the beginnings of it. Just know that, even if you enjoy it to start with, and you're determined to power through the lacklustre arcs in the hopes that the story will get better: it won't.

Mar 14, 2020

KillyChides

Mixed Feelings

I still can't, to this day, pinpoint the exact reason the manga went downhill for me, as I remember finishing it and feeling absolute disdain and thinking that all these years of loyally following the manga were a complete waste of time. But I will still try to list a couple of possible causes:

(Spoilers ahead)

1. Lousy, poorly executed fights. Bleach is a shonen manga, a BATTLE manga, but the fights were never its strongest suit. I understand, as neither is One Piece (my favorite shounen manga) that phenomenal with its fights, but having to achieve a new transformation/unlock a secret power EVERY SINGLE TIME Ichigo ... is struggling with an opponent got pretty dull. Fights could be interesting when the protagonist ends up winning from sheer will, determination, or tactics, or when their opponents are generally on equal footing with them, making the fights more logical. With Bleach it was never like that. Every time Ichigo was defeated we had to brace ourselves for a new transformation that more often than not felt like an asspull or it was poorly executed. There are just so many new forms Ichigo could unlock before we all got sick of it and the hype had died down. Ichigo had a baffling identity crisis by the end of the series because no one knew what he was anymore and it no longer mattered. We were so desensitized to him constantly unlocking a new transformation that made less and less sense as the series went on.

2. Horrible plot points and mustache-twirling villains. The motivations of the main villains were shallow at best, and laughable at worst. (I say main villains because Ulquiorra, Grimmjow, and Kenpachi as side villains, were done well). Aizen's 'I planned this all along' still irks me to this day when I think about it. I still can't fathom the existence of that plotline. It did nothing but totally disregarded every single development that Ichigo went through and made it all seem meaningless, like the suspense we felt throughout the journey was for nothing. Yhwach's true identity came completely out of left field, as every single interaction that Ichigo had with Zangetsu made little sense and again, disregarded everything that the two went through together. Building a better relationship with his Zanpakto. The rain. Zangetsu's fusion with Ichigo's hollow form. It all meant nothing because OH, IT WASN'T HIS TRUE ZANPAKUTO ALL ALONG. As for Byakuya, I still don't understand how smoothly he became a 'good guy' just because it was revealed his true intentions weren't to kill Rukia all along. He's still the one who hunted her down, brought her to Soul Society, and was overseeing her execution himself. Getting his full backstory served to only make his motivations more and more senseless. I like Byakuya, but the reveal was so poorly done I still wonder how the hell his relationship with Rukia improved so much. And Kugo? I don't remember a single thing about him. The whole arc felt like a blur of nonsensical events.

3. As a main character from a shonen manga, Ichigo lacks individuality. Thing is, "protecting the people I love" isn't a concrete goal. Let's compare him to the MCs from the other big three, now granted, Luffy and Naruto have their own selfish goals, but that is 100% ALONGSIDE their motivation to keep their friends safe. Protecting their friends, saving innocent people, and overall making the world a better place is a given to them. Luffy literally goes around different islands cleansing them of evil, tyranny, and injustice just because it's the right thing to do. Naruto is a ninja, whose sole purpose is to help the world become a better place and keep it in order. Their goal of becoming the Pirate King/Hokage is a desire they selfishly have because it gives them more depth as characters. Having a character who simply wants to 'protect their loved ones' or 'do the right thing' is shallow, as there must be a driving force that gives them individuality when there isn't any danger to said loved ones. The truth of the matter is, if presented with the choice to protect their loved ones or achieve their goals, both Luffy and Naruto will choose to protect their friends, which is literally the reason it takes them so long to reach said goals. Doing the right thing comes first to them. THAT'S what makes these characters relatable. Having their quirky personalities and unique goals is what gives them individuality. Ichigo lacks the latter.

4. Various characters, various factions/organizations, multiple dimensions, but all with no proper world-building. Kubo absolutely excels at designing characters. Out of the big three, Bleach had the most intricately drawn and awe-inspiring character designs with unique abilities, however, it doesn't help that he constantly liked to create a faction of characters, make them all beautiful and badass looking, hype them up, then completely neglect them when their story is over. Think of One Piece, with the Shichibukai, the Yonkou, the Supernovas, and how each of their introductions were grand events in the series and their role continued to be important even decades after their first appearances. Bleach doesn't have that, unfortunately, as the backstories of these side characters are often vague and the source of their powers is left unexplored, which is a shame. The reason I got into Bleach was the unique (and definitely not stupid looking) characters.

5. The anticlimactic ending. I don't even need to expand on this point. Yhwach got increasingly overpowered as the story reached its climax, to a point where everyone was sure there was absolutely no way to defeat him. Yhwach being defeated the way he did made everyone feel cheated, and we must admit that this was the main source of the community's dissatisfaction and hatred toward the series, which I can't, logically, claim it's undeserved.

Oct 3, 2022

Ethan2K

Mixed Feelings

Funny

Bleach is the second-longest manga I’ve ever read and what a journey it was. If I could define it in one sentence, it is the very definition of “style without substance.”
The bad: About halfway through I realized I’d gotten everything I wanted out of the series. I kept reading for the sake of completion, but still. Particularly after the Soul Society arc, characters become way less interesting and storylines are replaced with endless nonsensical fights. With every character and plot change I started seeing more and more wasted opportunities for development, which is a shame.
The good: Bleach is by far the coolest of the ...

Feb 2, 2017

Leegf

Mixed Feelings

Here I am, finally finished reading Bleach. It's been quite a long journey for me which started with anime series. Just to be clear, I started to read manga once series had ended, following the story. Can't believe all these long series of my childhood are finally coming to their end. Kinda sad.

The story is the main issue for Bleach. It's very vague. Starting from begining, there were dozens of question popping up in my head. The whole setting is rather vague. I was hoping the author would explain all this mess... but instead I was still receiving new and new conundrums . To ... speak in general it's way too unlogical. Setting was given almost just it is to readers. Well, sure, there were explanations but, once again, they weren't sufficient.
What was good is fights. Well, I mean all of them were done in particular shounen style, almost always ending in a predictable way using deus ex machina. Kubo's scheme never changes. Nonetheless, they were epic. Full of pathos and good speeches. Probably that's why I was caught on in my childhood times.
Unfortunately, the more manga was reaching its prolonged final boss battle... the more it was getting boring. Some of concepts were utterly dumb. I was compelled to make facepalms with a frequency of one facepalm per 5 pages. By the way, they say, there were some earthquakes in Japan caused of Japanese people clasping their hands onto their faces teamwise while reading new chapters...
It was super rushed at the end. Some storylines just vanished without further explanations. I wonder what made Kubo to rush things like that. I can't express how much I'm dissapointed in the ending. It doesn't feel like a decent ending to me at all.

Speaking about art, there was nothing remarkable. It's fine. In some places it was smooth and good, in some other places it was getting worse. But I can't really complain. Maybe I didn't like designs of some foes in the end. I had a slight feeling that Kubo Tito was lazy to draw them... If you were reading final arc you'll know what I mean. Hm, also I should say I liked shinigamis' outfits. They were cool. If I were to cosplay someone from Bleach I'd definitely choose any shinigami.

Characters were good. I liked foes, I liked main(save Ichigo) and support characters. They weren't unique, yet they felt pretty alive to me. I could easily sympathised with them. Every character had its flaws and strenths, own fighting style constantly evolving. Oh, and surely there were some badass characters(especially the particular captain) which I could only admire and couldn't wait for their next appearance in the series. The main antagonist of the first part of Bleach is awesome.
However, approaching the end... new characters were lacking depth, I think It had became little overflowed with new characters. One moment they appear, the next moment they die.
What do you think is the most important part of shounen manga to be succesful? On my opinion, this is the main character. Unfortunately, main character of Bleach is lame. I can't even remember any specific characteristic of him. I've got a feeling that he was just there to beat bosses in every arc. Even episodic characters were better and more interesting than him. Ichigo could be easily replaced with any random overpowered character.

In conclusion, the quality has been relentlessly declining approaching the ending. The way it's ended... it could be done much more better. Even within the confines of shounen predictability. Actually, I think it should have been ended on Aizen arc. That was the time Bleach was the most good.
If you are a fan of shounen genre I wouldn't recommend you Bleach. There are a lot of better series out there. I can recall only one shounen series worse than Bleach: "katekyo hitman reborn".
To end my review with more pleasant note, I should admit I'll miss Bleach. I'm already feeling slight nostalgie for my childhood series. I haven't greatly enjoyed reading Bleach, yet I don't regret the time I've spent for these years.

May 29, 2017

ImRingo

Mixed Feelings

In the world of action manga, most people have attributed 3 titles as the "big 3" or various names. Of these three manga, one really stood out for me by starting out truly spectacular but unfortunately losing a lot of steam.

Story:

Agent of the Shinigami/Soul Society Arc (10/10)

Arrancar/Hueco Mundo Arc (7/10)

Turn Back the Pendulum Mini-Series (8.2/10)

...

Sep 6, 2016

TomatoFork

Mixed Feelings

Bleach is a manga that has a lot of potential which is why it's one of the most popular ones in recent history. But popularity alone can only get you so far. It's how well it lives up to that potential that determines if it's truly worthy of certain recognition. it doesn't matter how big of a fan-base a story can build by pandering to a certain audience, in this case to young Japanese boys between the ages of 4 and 12, when you're looking at something critically but it does help at looking at something and understanding how it got so well received in ... the first place.

It's important to make clear from the start that Bleach was only decent from the beginning despite its vast potential as a huge Jump series. Of course a lot of the long running series have the same kind of beginning that usually depends on the fact whether it's gonna be a marketing success or not. Therefore only once Bleach had its established place in the magazine it could start focus on a more broad scope of things knowing that there'd be time to close it all.

Problem is that the things presented in the beginning partially contradict what it slowly becomes. A lot of elements and details are conveniently forgotten overtime like the very mechanic of the introduced souls leaving bodies etc. This isn't uncommon for battle shonens, especially for long-running ones, but it still doesn't excuse the repetitive usage of lazy and predictable writing techniques almost even abused during the first proper arc of the series, Soul Society.

Soul Society is a decent arc overall with tons of exiting fights, mediocre story-line, entertaining characters and a new and interesting environment. it's not as hugely impressive as some other stories opening arcs and happens rather late overall but it gives you at least a sense of where the story can go and even ends with a surprisingly good cliffhanger. Although the beginning parts of Bleach isn't still anything to write home about it still explains enough of why it got popular among children, even overseas. And unlike the anime filled with filler, the manga actually steps from what it set up with Soul Society straight to the story-line that follows it.

Now the parts that lower Bleach as a story from pretty decent to nearly kind of average mostly start during this area of the story. In which again, there are interesting environments introduced, new exiting characters, enjoyable action and a hugely mediocre story progression that kind of stops and continues at weird times (even more than in the first arc). This part of the story serves as interesting enough to keep the reader's attention but still fails to make a conclusion satisfying enough because you feel like you've read just the same thing again, just with less certainty of what it's supposed to be.

And that's the main problem that the series has all through it. It ignores the well established theme and doesn't give the feeling that the events in the story have a point towards something. It's not a parody but it's not serious enough either, the plot gets filled with characters but is too generic to use them, the premise is refreshing and deep but isn't taken full advantage of.

The third arc is very poor compared to the rest while introducing some interesting aspects and is overall forgettable because it would honestly work better as an individual story. The final arc which covers almost half of all the content suffers from mostly the same problems as the second one except this time the beginning is actually exciting for much longer which makes it even more disappointing when it just kind of derails to a mess of writing and inconsistent usage of techniques. The fourth arc has also the worst fights all out and makes a bunch of the best characters the story had to just simple "this is my real strength"-"no this is my real strength"-characters along with the new bland villains introduced.

A lot of the last events in the manga end up as just empty and flashy fights between previously well-developed characters. Instead of using all this time to tie in all the opened plot-lines the author decided to fill most of the endgame content with shallow and repetitive scenes. As an addition to everything there are also old characters brought back for fan-service that barely have a role to play which makes the ending even more satisfying when it actually happens.

Overall it's an entertaining but rather empty series all out. There are many poorly constructed moments but also redeemable aspects to keep it going. It has flashy action, a too huge but still mostly enjoyable cast, good art style, average designs, impressive panels/ compositions, interesting symbolism with rather low effort, lacking fights and a decent story compared to the demographic and genre it represents.

Pretty much what you'd expect from a hugely popular battle shonen, nothing more, nothing less.

Nov 8, 2017

orerreug

Mixed Feelings

Bleach starts with an interesting story

The female protagonist is Rukia that is a character who tells good jokes and earns the reader's empathy quickly. That's why the first arc works relatively well.

However the decent story ends in the first arc

Thereafter the good thing are the fights. There are some fights that hit me at the time like ichigo-ulquiorra ichigo-grimmjow and in the last arc the one between the fat one against the Quincy's boss

The History however is very shallow because the author put many characters, the only thing they had was different appearance. But they were the same thing

And many characters that one would expect ...

Jul 6, 2017

nocturn246

Mixed Feelings

Bleach was a series I decided to tackle last of the Big 3 manga, and at first I thought it was pretty entertaining. Naruto had already finished before I started Bleach, and the disappointing ending left me hopeful that Bleach would be a bit better, especially since the ending of bleach was incoming by the time a began reading. At first, I thought the story was actually pretty good, with Ichigo learning about hollows and soul reapers from Rukia, and the dynamic between these two was actually pretty amusing. While I was never a huge fan of Orohime, Uryu was intriguing and Chad was hilariously ...

Jun 8, 2023

Weebosquirtle_17

Mixed Feelings

I read this all the way in 2023 because the anime went away from my streaming service(plus at the time, TYBW wasn't a thing yet) and in my eyes, the end of this story makes it the weakest in the Big 3. I've watched Naruto, started on One Piece, and now have read Bleach and most of my issues with this series take place during the time skip(volumes 49-74). Up until that point, I had an amazing time with most of Bleach(Especially with Aizen). There are things about Ichigo's character that I like that differentiated him from his Big 3 compatriots in Naruto Uzumaki and ...