Continuing my series on the 20 best-selling manga of all time (the ones I’ve read anyway), this time we have Bleach by Kubo Tite
As with most shounen stories, especially recently, Bleach starts out relatively simply with a standard Monster of the Week format and then rapidly spirals out of control. I picked up the Bleach anime
Then Soul Society happened. And that was okay, really. But it just went on for so, so long that I was ready to drop the manga by the end of it. I decided in to hang in there a little longer and what did I get for my troubles? Hueco Mundo. My anime-fu powers told me by that point that Ichigo & Co. were going to be in Hueco Mundo for a loooong, long time, so I decided to get out while the going was good. IIRC the last chapter I read featured Kenpachi fighting with one of the Hueco Mundo bad guys and the battle was like “I’m stronger than you!” “No, I’m stronger than you!” “No, I’m stronger than you!” Repeat for 10 chapters. In fact, repeat for 200 chapters and you have every battle in Bleach.
Of the Big Three Shonen Jump manga (One Piece, Naruto, Bleach), Bleach is the one I dropped the fastest. Which is a little sad because I introduced several people to the series and they absolutely loved it. So they’d keep coming up to me week after week with “Did you see X vs Y this week!?” and I’d be like nooo, I dropped Bleach ages ago and they wouldn’t believe me. Unfortunately they’ve all grown tired of Bleach as well now. They stuck it out through Hueco Mundo and through the Karakura Town arcs and then instead of the manga ending Kubo Tite apparently started a new arc. Which I hear isn’t half bad, but series fatigue has just set in for most people I know.
tl;dr Bleach is not a bad series at all for shonen fans, but you do need a lot of patience. If you haven’t started it yet, it might be best to wait for the whole thing to end and then read it all in one go.
