Help sell me on Bleach...please? (spoilers OK)

[raikage]

After reading the manga on-and-off, I said 'the heck with it' and...obtained...all the scanlated manga, so I'm up to 318.

I like the pop-culture-reference weekly chapter covers, and I think the use of Spanish for the bad guys is at the same time a cute quirk and possibly borderline-racist but I'm still not seeing what 'it' is that makes this series so beloved.

Spoiler for the latest manga arc:

All I read was pretty much stereotypical DBZ:
Team Ichigo has zanpakutous.
Arrancar have zanpakutous.
----fight---
Team Ichigo 'powers up' through Bankai.
Arrancar 'powers up' through Bankai.
Arrancar gains an additional powerup by bonding with their weapons.
---fight, Team Ichigo gets curbstomped---
*Revelation! Team Ichigo has been surpressing their TRUE strength!*
Team Ichigo gets their strength multiplied by 5!
One-chapter (hell, almost one-page) win in the end for Team Ichigo (except...y'know...for Ichigo himself)!

The last-moment revelation: The opponents you fought and destroyed (rather effortlessly if you think about it) are NOT the strongest of the villians, but rather the weakest. Dramatic tension!

Am I just being too snarky? What is it that I'm not getting?

For that matter, I'm still not able to emphatize with some of the characters.

Example -- aside from being the 10th division captain, who is Hitsugaya? I don't really know anything about who he is or who he wants to be.

[Varis]

ummm have you read all the manga? or you skipped around to get to the arrancar. Hitsugaya is the captain the figured out Aizen's plot. He runs the 10th division and leads the shinigami team that goes to earth. He is still very young so he is working hard to gain exprience.

I don't know about the DBZ referrence. Sure, it's the same style of manga but we have a bad guy from the very beginning that is still the bad guy. Battles also don't last 50 episodes. There are also not 3 levels of bankai =)

[peter2004]

Hitsugaya sucks that what i think he is week, if you want to understand more just download the anime it's up to ep 91 right now.

[Qc0Jh1axT]

Originally Posted by raikage

After reading the manga on-and-off, I said 'the heck with it' and...obtained...all the scanlated manga, so I'm up to 318.

I like the pop-culture-reference weekly chapter covers, and I think the use of Spanish for the bad guys is at the same time a cute quirk and possibly borderline-racist but I'm still not seeing what 'it' is that makes this series so beloved.

Spoiler for the latest manga arc:

All I read was pretty much stereotypical DBZ:
Team Ichigo has zanpakutous.
Arrancar have zanpakutous.
----fight---
Team Ichigo 'powers up' through Bankai.
Arrancar 'powers up' through Bankai.
Arrancar gains an additional powerup by bonding with their weapons.
---fight, Team Ichigo gets curbstomped---
*Revelation! Team Ichigo has been surpressing their TRUE strength!*
Team Ichigo gets their strength multiplied by 5!
One-chapter (hell, almost one-page) win in the end for Team Ichigo (except...y'know...for Ichigo himself)!

The last-moment revelation: The opponents you fought and destroyed (rather effortlessly if you think about it) are NOT the strongest of the villians, but rather the weakest. Dramatic tension!

Am I just being too snarky? What is it that I'm not getting?

For that matter, I'm still not able to emphatize with some of the characters.

Example -- aside from being the 10th division captain, who is Hitsugaya? I don't really know anything about who he is or who he wants to be.

318?!?! We're only up to 238 now.

I don't think you read the manga properly, as I could not understand your babble. Sorry!

Please start from Chapter 01. It would help A LOT.

[sazan fan]

Pretty much all adventure manga stories are like that.

1. Main character fights, and is defeated
2. Main character trains and becomes stronger
3. Main character fights again and wins
4. New enemy appears and defeats main character
5. Main character trains and becomes stronger...

and it pretty much repeats over and over until the story is finished.

The only difference is how the story is presented. In this case, I believe bleach does have a "somewhat" unique and interesting story. But basically it is just mindless fun entertainment. You are not reading War and Peace, so just turn off your brain and let the Bleach ride take you. If you just do that, the ride isn't all that bad.

318?!?! We're only up to 238 now.

I think he means 218, because judging by his spoiler he is at the "lift the limit chapter", meaning he is actually behind. And yes, Ichigo does go off and train to become stronger, hence continuing the "DBZ" cycle.

[raikage]

Originally Posted by Qc0Jh1axT

318?!?! We're only up to 238 now.

I don't think you read the manga properly, as I could not understand your babble. Sorry!

Please start from Chapter 01. It would help A LOT.

Typo.

The Naruto manga is up to 318 -- hence the typo. )

Originally Posted by Varis

ummm have you read all the manga? or you skipped around to get to the arrancar. Hitsugaya is the captain the figured out Aizen's plot. He runs the 10th division and leads the shinigami team that goes to earth. He is still very young so he is working hard to gain exprience.

I don't know about the DBZ referrence. Sure, it's the same style of manga but we have a bad guy from the very beginning that is still the bad guy. Battles also don't last 50 episodes. There are also not 3 levels of bankai =)

Not quite what I meant, but thanks.

Vash from Trigun is the idealist who fights but whose ultimate wish is to one day set aside his gun.

Byakuya is someone who (initially) holds family traditions and codes in the highest priority; even placing them above loyalty to family.

Ikkaku and Kenpachi are people who will go into battle and die with a sword in their hearts and a smile on their faces.

Kurotsuchi is the mad scientist who will do anything for the sake of experimentation, placing knowledge above ethics.

Speaking in those terms, who is Hitsugaya? All I know is that he's a guy with a sword who can pass for a high-school student.

Maybe sazan fan is right and I'm just overthinking this series...

[NoSanninWa]

Originally Posted by raikage

Example -- aside from being the 10th division captain, who is Hitsugaya? I don't really know anything about who he is or who he wants to be.

Originally Posted by Varis

ummm have you read all the manga? or you skipped around to get to the arrancar. Hitsugaya is the captain the figured out Aizen's plot. He runs the 10th division and leads the shinigami team that goes to earth. He is still very young so he is working hard to gain exprience.

Yes, but who is Hitsugaya and who does he want to be? Quite frankly few characters in Bleach or any other shounen have that level of characterizations. The only person thing we know about Hitsugaya is that he has a crush on Momo. Aside from that we have no clue what makes him tick as a person. Most other characters are similar ciphers. It really is a lot like Dragonball in that everyone is defined by their ability to fight.

raikage: None of the characters you mention are much more complicated than Hitsugaya either. In your terms, I'd define him as someone who fights to protect the girl who looked after him when he was young. That is pretty shallow, but at least it defines him on the same level as the examples that you've mentioned.

I can't sell you on Bleach at all. If reading up to chapter 238 hasn't made you like it, then I have no idea why you wasted all that time to read 238 chapters of something you didn't like. Why do you even need to be sold on it? You've read more than enough to make up your own darn mind.

This show is pretty obvious and lacking in subtlety. There aren't any metaphors whose revelation will change your mind about the show. This isn't Haibane Renmei or Utena where you might actually change your opinion once someone explains what is really going on in the metaphorical reality behind the obvious.

Why should anyone watch (or read) Bleach? Because it is simple fun. It is cool action and escapism where you can turn your brain off and enjoy the eye candy. The characters are fun and extremely likeable. There is a nice blend of comedy and simple drama. That's what Bleach is about.

[Scep]

If you read it till now and dont like it no one can really sell you on anything, what you see is what you see, man.

Hitsugaya is actually one of the more main characs in the manga lately, but he's really more of the hinamori crusher, he does everything for momo, angsting when hinamori goes all berserk, but lately its been more fighting and less charac. development.

[Snubben_Pierre]

i still think you have gotten to know hitsugaya pretty well.. of course we havent gotten a 10 chapters flashback of his life or anything like that but one can understand him as a person pretty well.. at least i can, of course its nothing like byakuya but that is because he was the captain they had most focus on in the begining. at least i think so because he was the first one we saw,he was rukias brother, and he came with his stupid garbage that the rulez are more important then his sister etc.. if you want to know to much about the character i suggest stop looking on bleach.. dont think you will get to know that much.. i think just some small back story is enough..only captains i would like to know more about would be captain yamamoto and the captain of nanao's squad..(i forget his name to often ^^, ).. all the other character i know at least something of their past so..
oh right unohana also maybe even though she isnt to interesting

[epyon96]

Originally Posted by raikage

After reading the manga on-and-off, I said 'the heck with it' and...obtained...all the scanlated manga, so I'm up to 318.

I like the pop-culture-reference weekly chapter covers, and I think the use of Spanish for the bad guys is at the same time a cute quirk and possibly borderline-racist but I'm still not seeing what 'it' is that makes this series so beloved.

Spoiler for the latest manga arc:

All I read was pretty much stereotypical DBZ:
Team Ichigo has zanpakutous.
Arrancar have zanpakutous.
----fight---
Team Ichigo 'powers up' through Bankai.
Arrancar 'powers up' through Bankai.
Arrancar gains an additional powerup by bonding with their weapons.
---fight, Team Ichigo gets curbstomped---
*Revelation! Team Ichigo has been surpressing their TRUE strength!*
Team Ichigo gets their strength multiplied by 5!
One-chapter (hell, almost one-page) win in the end for Team Ichigo (except...y'know...for Ichigo himself)!

The last-moment revelation: The opponents you fought and destroyed (rather effortlessly if you think about it) are NOT the strongest of the villians, but rather the weakest. Dramatic tension!

Am I just being too snarky? What is it that I'm not getting?

For that matter, I'm still not able to emphatize with some of the characters.

Example -- aside from being the 10th division captain, who is Hitsugaya? I don't really know anything about who he is or who he wants to be.

Knowing that you also follow Naruto religiously, the same questions you asked about Bleach can apply to Naruto. The plot is simple minded and seemingly endless. For me, every single of the characters except for characters that get little screentime like Shikamaru, Temari, and Neji, are unlikable. All the characters seem very simple and illogical.

Yet you still watch it and seem to read it as your name appears once in a while int eh manga forums. I know many of my friends have stopped naruto and continued bleach exclusively. I have more or less done the same. For me, the reason is that I like almost the entire cast of Bleach; in the sense that I would be saddened if any of the protagonists cast dies (but I still look forward to it for story progression). Also, the manga has some amusing scenes along with the anime with shinigami cup. The latter shinigami cup is almost the sole reason I still follow the anime fillers.

EPYON

[raikage]

Originally Posted by sceptileex

If you read it till now and dont like it no one can really sell you on anything, what you see is what you see, man.

Hitsugaya is actually one of the more main characs in the manga lately, but he's really more of the hinamori crusher, he does everything for momo, angsting when hinamori goes all berserk, but lately its been more fighting and less charac. development.

Originally Posted by NoSanninWa

raikage: None of the characters you mention are much more complicated than Hitsugaya either. In your terms, I'd define him as someone who fights to protect the girl who looked after him when he was young. That is pretty shallow, but at least it defines him on the same level as the examples that you've mentioned.

I can't sell you on Bleach at all. If reading up to chapter 238 hasn't made you like it, then I have no idea why you wasted all that time to read 238 chapters of something you didn't like. Why do you even need to be sold on it? You've read more than enough to make up your own darn mind.

This show is pretty obvious and lacking in subtlety. There aren't any metaphors whose revelation will change your mind about the show. This isn't Haibane Renmei or Utena where you might actually change your opinion once someone explains what is really going on in the metaphorical reality behind the obvious.

Why should anyone watch (or read) Bleach? Because it is simple fun. It is cool action and escapism where you can turn your brain off and enjoy the eye candy. The characters are fun and extremely likeable. There is a nice blend of comedy and simple drama. That's what Bleach is about.

I've found that it's a decent series. I'll probably keep up with it, though I won't go out of my way to make sure I've gotten the latest chapter the minute it's released.
I didn't say that I didn't like it -- though I can see how my post (and this thread) can be interpreted as such.

I was at Anime Expo and saw tons of Bleach cosplayers.

I was at San Diego Comic-Con and saw tons of Bleach cosplayers.

It's been touted as anywhere between The Next Big Thing™ and The Greatest Series of the past (5?) Years™ and I was wondering what makes the series worthy of that level of praise.

From what you guys have said, it seems like you enjoy it as a fun series, but hardly groundbreaking and/or revolutionary and/or changing the face of anime as we know it.

And I can certainly enjoy it on that level.

[NoSanninWa]

Originally Posted by raikage

I was at Anime Expo and saw tons of Bleach cosplayers.

I was at San Diego Comic-Con and saw tons of Bleach cosplayers.

It's been touted as anywhere between The Next Big Thing™ and The Greatest Series of the past (5?) Years™ and I was wondering what makes the series worthy of that level of praise.

From what you guys have said, it seems like you enjoy it as a fun series, but hardly groundbreaking and/or revolutionary and/or changing the face of anime as we know it.

Oh! That's what has been bothering you! I'm going to break something to you. Every Big Thing™ is less than the best. The current Big Thing™ is Naruto. Before that it was .hack//sign and Cowboy Bebop. These are never the absolute best since the very best shows cannot appeal to the largest possible general audience. Complicated shows with a great deal of subtlety and character simply don't click with large groups. A Big Thing™ is merely a very fun show. Sometimes it is even a bit complicated, but it is always flawed. Sometimes such a show can coincide with your personal taste and you'll end up enjoying it, but it is never the best of the best. Though I suspect that a lot of people around here might disagree with me.

[Snubben_Pierre]

Originally Posted by NoSanninWa

Oh! That's what has been bothering you! I'm going to break something to you. Every Big Thing™ is less than the best. The current Big Thing™ is Naruto. Before that it was .hack//sign and Cowboy Bebop. These are never the absolute best since the very best shows cannot appeal to the largest possible general audience. Complicated shows with a great deal of subtlety and character simply don't click with large groups. A Big Thing™ is merely a very fun show. Sometimes it is even a bit complicated, but it is always flawed. Sometimes such a show can coincide with your personal taste and you'll end up enjoying it, but it is never the best of the best. Though I suspect that a lot of people around here might disagree with me.

i actually agree with you, for example "monster" what ive heard hasnt had the largest scale of watchers like bleach and naruto but i think monster is a big thing..i do think bleach and naruto are very good but the story isnt to complicated and i like complicated stories..

[raikage]

[NoSanninWa]

Okay... maybe I was wrong about people disagreeing with me on that point.

Originally Posted by Snubben_Pierre

i actually agree with you, for example "monster" what ive heard hasnt had the largest scale of watchers like bleach and naruto but i think monster is a big thing..

An excellent example of a show that would have been a Big Thing™ if the defining attribute of such shows was quality.

i do think bleach and naruto are very good but the story isnt to complicated and i like complicated stories..

Agreed. It is a shame that complicated stories are anathema to many people.

Originally Posted by raikage

Spoiler for wide image:

Thank you. I really appreciate the thought.

[Myname]

Originally Posted by raikage

After reading the manga on-and-off, I said 'the heck with it' and...obtained...all the scanlated manga, so I'm up to 318.

I like the pop-culture-reference weekly chapter covers, and I think the use of Spanish for the bad guys is at the same time a cute quirk and possibly borderline-racist but I'm still not seeing what 'it' is that makes this series so beloved.

Spoiler for the latest manga arc:

All I read was pretty much stereotypical DBZ:
Team Ichigo has zanpakutous.
Arrancar have zanpakutous.
----fight---
Team Ichigo 'powers up' through Bankai.
Arrancar 'powers up' through Bankai.
Arrancar gains an additional powerup by bonding with their weapons.
---fight, Team Ichigo gets curbstomped---
*Revelation! Team Ichigo has been surpressing their TRUE strength!*
Team Ichigo gets their strength multiplied by 5!
One-chapter (hell, almost one-page) win in the end for Team Ichigo (except...y'know...for Ichigo himself)!

The last-moment revelation: The opponents you fought and destroyed (rather effortlessly if you think about it) are NOT the strongest of the villians, but rather the weakest. Dramatic tension!

Am I just being too snarky? What is it that I'm not getting?

For that matter, I'm still not able to emphatize with some of the characters.

Example -- aside from being the 10th division captain, who is Hitsugaya? I don't really know anything about who he is or who he wants to be.

I think you should stop watching Shounen.

Have a good day.