Book Cover

It's meaningless to just live, and it's meaningless to just fight. I want to win.

# Review

It's currently exam season and I have multiple deadlines coming up, so it's natural that I'm spending my time reading through the 686 chapters of Bleach (I call it the manga study method, I read 10 chapters for every 25 minutes of deep work).

To be honest I'm not too sure why I spend time reading these, maybe it's just so easy to read, and as with Naruto, I had read them growing up, so I guess nostalgia also factors in.

Bleach follows Ichigo Kurosaki, a highschool student with the abilities to see ghosts; Ichigo accidentally becomes a Soul Reaper and has to fulfill his duty to shepherd the dead to the afterlife and to protect the balance between the world of the dead and the world of the living.

This manga is primarily an action manga, with many fight scenes; the story is decent (until the end, when it just gets too weird) but the artstyle is where it really shines. The character designs are just so cool, especially the designs of the weapons and outfits. The series also has an excellent sense of humour and is very entertaining to read.

The story starts out as an urban fantasy, with Ichigo and his group of friends protecting his hometown and fighting off evil spirits, but quickly accelerates into more complex and more nuanced story arcs. Some of said earlier arcs were pretty good, with a solid plot and interesting characters, but some of the later plots were repetitive and contained multiple plot holes which were never fully explained away. The story near the end almost lost my interest.

# Conclusion

Really solid manga except near the end.

# Overall rating: 7.7

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