Bleach is a mixed bag as far as story goes. The first arc (ep1-63), which covers the soul society, is interesting and engaging. It contains both action and a good plot. However, after episode 63 things go downhill. A lot. The Bount arc which follows it isn't even in the manga and has no relevance to the overall story, as well as being entirely uninteresting. It picks up a bit when the story shifts back to the plotline of the manga, but there isn't much of a plot to follow at that point. Basically, the main characters fight the bad guys from there on out with little else of interest to be found. If the action was great, it might make up for this, but it isn't. While it isn't terrible, it is never enough to carry the anime by itself. In addition, there are frequent fillers, which I would recommend ignoring entirely if you decide to watch this.
Aside from the generally uneventful plot, Bleach suffers from an unwillingness to kill off anyone. Despite having tons of shinigami, Bleach never kills off a single one. The only characters who ever die are the bad guys, and very few of them ever perish either.
If I were rating only the first arc, I would give this a 7 or an 8, but the decay which has happened since then forces me to drop it significantly to a 5.
Art:
Character design is excellent, overall very solid animation. It does occasionally have issues though.
Sound:
Sound is generally good, music appropriate to the mood. No complaints here.
Character:
This is where Bleach should shine, but doesn't. As said before, character design is great. However, there are so many characters that none of them get any sort of development. With the sheer volume of characters in the show, even main characters are often forgotten for several episodes. Most of the characters seem like they would be interesting if developed, but they simply aren't.
Overall:
I would recommend watching the first 63 episodes and dropping it there. Aside from the Turn Back the Pendulum story (206-212) there is essentially nothing of value plotwise after that point.
If you're only in it for the action, I suppose Bleach is a decent show. But even in that case, you could do much better.
