You can see how the story of Bleach has captivated a large majority of those that watch anime. It’s a fantasy of many; to be transformed from a regular guy to a hero with a badass sword. Being very shounen, it echoes the characteristics of other popular anime such as DBZ, where the excitement comes from exceeding limits in power and beating ridiculously strong opponents - against all odds. Unfortunately (for us), Bleach has fallen into a large and highly populated pitfall where this story is not masterfully told. At all. It is a long, drawn out filler poop-fest with plot holes and some irritatingly predictable twists along the way. The fantasy wanted to watch is spoiled with every episode and is way too drawn out for you to care in the end. Overall, the fact that the story is so spread out across so many episodes is the flaw that makes it so bad. It doesn’t feel intense and the climatic parts of the story just don’t arouse the way they should.
Characters:
Most of the time the characters felt 2-D. It felt like I was watching an anime which made it a mostly painful experience. Don't get me wrong, I don't want a sob story all the time but I didn't feel connected I guess. Nonetheless, not all character development in Bleach is pants. There are definitely some characters that make you interested in the plot and its eventual conclusion but generally, this is spread very thin across its 300+ eps. Mostly, the interesting characters are the ones that are shrouded in mystery thus generating the appeal. Others are just too cool for you to dislike but that leaves you with a very shallow set of characters. It isn’t enough to keep you entertained for the amount of episodes that there are.
Art / Animation:
Absolutely freaking shite. It is so bad. You would think that an anime with poor character development and an under-emphasis on the story would have some epic fight sequences but no. It really doesn't. Most episodes are filled with still images with shoddy layering techniques, they are constantly re-using animations, there is minimal expression and low (and sometimes absolutely no) movement - even in fight scenes!! It makes it boring and incredibly hard to watch - honestly. It is shockingly bad animation for an anime (
