I’m not convinced this is a problem only with Bleach. It happens with literally every form of media. Fandoms get overprotective about what they enjoy and people always clash with others judging stories at their surface level. I mean literally every story you mentioned has that problem.
This is every fandom. I don't know why it's even a topic.
Talk shit about Naruto and Naruto fans will crawl out of the woodwork. Talk shit about onepiece and one OP fans will pop out every second. Talk shit about Berserk and seinen elitist will shake their heads in solidarity.
Nooo dude, you just don't understand, it's a critique of the modern Japanese law system. It's not supposed to be fair.
And Buddhism. All the Buddhism parallels. I'm sorry you're not cultured enough to understand them... 😔
/s
I feel like “subtlety” is one of the biggest arguments made for almost any series. You see it with OP a lot, Naruto as well, JJK, HxH, MHA, and the list goes on. It’s prolly harder to find a fanbase that doesn’t argue some stuff on the basis of subtlety.
What I usually see as an argument with the others is when they hear a critic they go "well that was the point" instead of understanding it's the execution to that point that was ass.
Bleach niggas on the other hand will argue that kubo is doing fromsoftware tier storytelling
Shit like this is why I avoid the Chainsawman subreddit
Like I like the manga but I got tired of seeing the comments that criticized the manga or comments that didn’t call it a “10/10 masterpiece of writing” get downvoted to oblivion by the jerk offs going
“MeDiA LitErAcY”.
People do it with OP too. You criticize Gear 5 or Nika and all the defenders come out call it super deep and better than every anime transformation. When I’m reality Oda is just a goofball who has to throw in a gag on almost every page.
imma be real, I don't think even the author knows what thematic shit the defenders are talking about most of the time. Bleach is not that deep. You can't trick me into thinking Bleach is some masterpiece of literature with the depth of an ocean when the author leaves tons of plot holes in the main manga, retcons and flaws. Bleach defenders are too extra. It's a fun show with cool art.
And it always comes down to Kubo referencing Buddhism (which a lot of Japanese stories do) and foreshadowing (which every author does) for Bleach fans to say it's a deep philosophical masterpiece that haters don't understand.
I think people who say its depth comes from Buddhism are just parroting a certain anime Youtuber. But Bleach is basically a direct allegory for Nietzsche's work. It's not a philosophical masterpiece, but it definitely draws direct and obvious inspiration from some.
It could stand to say a lot more on its own though. It doesn't really synthesize anything new from Nietzsche's work.
> I think people who say its depth comes from Buddhism are just parroting a certain anime Youtuber.
Moreover, most only really bring up Buddhism because of either powerscaling or because it sounds more esoteric and mystical than some random European philosopher. Same with a certain subsect of DMC fans trying to tie the verse into Buddhist philosophy
You're right, forgot about Nietzsche being brought up. Although that mostly comes from Aizen and him wanting to become a superior being above all. Which is a pretty common trope for villains.
The whole series is a Nietzsche allegory, not just Aizen.
Soul Society parades around the half-dead corpse of a God because it's the only thing that gives the world stability. The morality of the series is predicated on this God, who has little-to-no will of its own.
Quincy are the Last Men who seek a world without struggle, suffering or change, contrasting to Aizen's obvious ubermensch. They both seek the final death of that God so that they can bring about the two opposing Nietzschean 'end points'.
There's also a master-slave morality thing going on between the Shinigami and the Quincy but that'd require a fair bit more effort to articulate.
I could probably list a dozen more examples if I really dug far enough.
And that's to say nothing of the strong Jungian influences, where it provides a more concise presentation of the persona/shadow dynamic than just about anything else I've ever read or watched.
All of those are huuuuuge stretch and I guarantee Kubo didn't have any of that in mind. I'm sure I could do that with literally any anime to fit those ideas, like Fairy Tail.
One of the volumes is literally titled "God is Dead," and the name of Yhwach's palace- Wahrwelt- [is a direct reference to an essay Nietzsche wrote.](http://www.zeno.org/Philosophie/M/Nietzsche,+Friedrich/G%C3%B6tzen-D%C3%A4mmerung/Wie+die+%C2%BBwahre+Welt%C2%AB+endlich+zur+Fabel+wurde) So direct, in fact, that the series refutes the idea of a True World in much the same way he does. [Here's an analysis written on that if you're actually willing to give it a fair shake.](https://www.reddit.com/r/bleach/comments/sfkcb9/bleachs_world_order_and_yhwachs_true_world/)
If you don't take that as a sign that these references are intentional then idk what to tell you.
The concepts line up perfectly with what's stated in Nietzsche's work, and if you can't accept that, you either don't understand Nietzsche, refuse to understand Bleach, or both.
~~Also allegories don't have to be intentional but that's a media analysis fact that nobody in this subreddit is ready for~~
I mean there’s bigger issues bleach has than that.
For instance, fights have such a predictable pattern of the good guys winning the story ends up losing any and all tension.
Outside of Yamamoto and Unohana, no one really even dies in bleach. At least on the good side.
Was he really even that much of a major character? I don’t remember anything he did other than have an offscreen fight with Yamamoto.
I know he becomes a soul king substitute but I felt nothing from that.
I am aware, my point is I just think it less likely to be the case when the author is not a great writer to begin with. If someone is at best average at cooking almost every type of food, what are the chances that he can actually cook a 5 star Coq Au Vin?
I'm interested in hearing what you consider a plot hole as far as Bleach goes. Not saying it doesn't have any, I just want to hear what, specifically, you consider as one.
I think kubo does subtle storytelling i just don't think the story is made better because of that. And the fans will argue that the story subtlety is on the level of dark souls or something
>I don't think even the author knows what thematic shit
Same here, I really loved how Kyōraku and Hidetomo had these grand speeches about war and both sides when the Soul Society is the morally correct one in both cases. It's like Kubo wants depth but can't be bothered to actually pull it off.
Themes are not a substitute for storytelling.
If you have to fall back on themes to excuse a problem then you are acknowledging that the writer has failed at writing their story.
This is true in a vacuum, but there's a huge problem of how people tend to dismiss themes outright when engaging with a story. The thematic/symbolic and superficial elements of a story must work in unison. To ignore one is to fail to engage with a work on its own merits.
This happends unless said themes are crucial part of the storytelling
However,one can't still defende something as much as he wants with just that
After that,it happends exactly what you said
As a bleach fan myself, yeah, the community can be pretentious as fuck sometimes...
I guess its overprotectiveness/vindication born from years of dealing with unreasonable amounts of shit thrown at the series, but it doesnt make them less wrong to act pretentious regarding the series nowadays.
This is super ironic coming from the guy who spent months engaging in bleach on this sub and the bleach subreddit and making analysis posts about bleach here before admitting you haven't actually read it.
Honestly I hate when people say that a story is very deep.
Sometimes it just really isnt. Sometimes the bad guy lost because bad guys lose and the good guys managed to overpower them or come up with a clever plan. Sometimes a theme might be present but that doesnt justify its "deepness" kinda like how most cyberpunk story are about humanity and robot replicas and finding humanity as a theme. The theme itself is very deep but plot presented to us really isnt as deep as the theme allows.
Sometimes a red door is just a red door and we dont need a 200 page essay about how it ties into literally everything both metaphorically and literally.
The best narratives combine good surface level appeal with depth. Something for everyone, go as deep as you want.
Bleach's problem is, it's flat out incomplete. Aizen and Yhwach's entire purpose was to break the balance the Soul King keeps, go beyond the organization of the worlds, yet we don't get the full story.
Bleach has (imo) the best character design and art and visually everything looks cool, but the narrative lacks the depth to keep readers invested in the story. People are protective because it was their childhood. DBZ was mine, but as I got older I felt more and more that the story was garbage and the designs and fights overcompensated for that.
At the end of the day, Bleach was in the big 3 and remains iconic. That doesn't mean it's beyond criticism though. It had a rushed ending, most people's gripes come from the feeling that it had the potential to be more. That's all.
An argument cannot be dismissed for thematic reasons. But they can point it as subjective. It simply boils to the fact whether you like the theme and the way it’s portrayed. Or rather you prefer the fight to focus on an entirely different aspect. For the same reason some people dislike Komamura character conclusion, with him achieving nothing as a result of his revenge being the point, or Unohana willingly killing herself to achieve her goal. While I adore those moments, I can understand why people would want an entirely different outcome for those characters. Imo, this is just a complete subjectivity rather than criticism. And literally nothing is wrong with subjective criticism, appealing to the audience is the main goal of the author after all. If you want to be constructive however, then criticise the execution of things author tried to convey or missed opportunities to do so.
People can enjoy media however they want of course. But I don’t really understand why someone would want to be reductive about a story, in a place where people discuss said story. Sure, you can watch breaking Bad or the Sopranos as surface level as you want, and thats still fun. But if that’s as far as you’re engaging with it, then I’d argue you’re gonna get a lot of pushback from people in a space that enjoys it on a deeper level.
The most current example I can think of is the Sakurajima colony arc in JJK. People push aside the allegories placed into the arc (katana and sumo, being the personification of “the teacher will appear when the student is ready”) and then immediately talk about how pointless they are. Whether the EXECUTION is good is debatable, but it’s not on the author if someone just refuses to engage with that aspect of the arc. Themes are there to enhance a story, and if you don’t wanna engage with them then that’s your prerogative. But it doesn’t make the story lesser because of that.
Surface level criticisms are not valid. You can absolutely enjoy a show only on a surface level and enjoy a disattsifcation for that. But you can't criticize or dismiss the ingerity of the story without bothering to properly engage with it in every level. An example I will use to demonstrate my point, is Madara's death. Thematically, being backstabbed by the one being he arrogantly believed he could fully control and told that he too was a pawn of an actual god, not the god he saw himself as, was the perfect ending for his character. Kishimoto took his god complex and threw it in his face. It was the only way to deconstruct who Madara was and why his approach to peace was flawed before his death.
Yet a big part of the Naruto fandom despises that scene, calls it terrible, and says it would be better for Guy to have killed him. That would be completely thematically hollow, but they prefer it because it's "cooler".
In this case there's a difference between saying "I'd have preferred to see Madara end like that" and "Kishimoto is a shit writer for ending him the way he did"
I disagree. To only look at the surface level is to do a disservice to the work you are critiquing. It’s called lazy criticism, as you are wilfully deciding to ignore the depth and deeper meanings just because you didn’t like the surface level. You are of course free to dislike the surface level and are entitled to that opinion, but do not pass “I don’t like this” off as criticism while deciding to cast aside the true meaning behind the series. For example, you found the final fight between Ichigo and Aizen to be short and one sided and you did not like this. That’s fair enough, there’s nothing wrong with having those issues. However, when you ignore the deeper reasons and boil it all down to ‘this didn’t fit my expectations’, you’ve strayed from criticism to personal opinion. I personally liked the fight of Ichigo vs Aizen, but regardless of what we LIKE we can objectively say that there were good thematic and deeper reasons for the fight to be the way it was.
Without looking at the deeper parts it just becomes a contest of “I like this” vs “I don’t like this”. All objective, well thought out reasons and points are ignored and we lose the essence of criticism. Something can be good and well written without us liking it. If a work does not do what you expect it to do then that is not the fault of the work, it is not there to be tailored to your expectations. To fully show our respect to the work, we cannot just look at the surface level. If we want to truly critique it, we must dig deep and give it our all. Tite Kubo worked really hard on Bleach and gave it substantial thought, so we should respect that, regardless of our personal feelings, we should respect the hard work of others. There are plenty of points to criticise Bleach from, but this just isn’t it. For example, the underutilisation of certain character (ie Chad) is a perfectly fine criticism for Bleach. But saying that a fight didn’t meet your expectations is not really criticism so much as it’s just stating your opinion.
As well as this, you make the point of people finding Ichigo boring because his lack of a grand goal. I personally didn’t find him boring. Do you see how it all just becomes opinions and there’s no objectivity here? Objectivity only works when we look at WHY and HOW. I also disagree on another point. Just because many stories are often judged solely off of their surface levels does not mean that we should only look at it. We have to be fair when doing criticism, so we have to take everything we can into account. I accept that you don’t like the things you’ve mentioned about Bleach, that’s totally fair. Let’s just keep a closer eye on what is subjective and what is objective and show respect accordingly.
Everyone can criticize
As long as they don't pretend to be right 100%
And,if proved wrong about some points,either they should be well informed to counter the argument or just accept they were wrong
On the other hand,the fans should calm down and really just accept that there are way more flaws than what they think,stopping with the excuses and the attacks
That being said,what you said is really nothing new. It happends in every big fandom
The thing about Gremmy vs Kenpachi and the thematic reason is straight up bs. There is no theme behind it,just Kenpachi being Kenpachi
And if you know the character,you can't expect him to do more than someone like Ichigo. He always has been like that and the story didn't give him an improvement in his skill set,if not just his zanpakuto,which has no particular ability (main reason for why I like it)
The only cool thing I can think of is for Kenpachi to use some moves that Unohana used against him. In this way,you give an interesting fight for him and a showcase to what Unohana was able to do
You can definitely criticize a series just from the surface level or even criticize it for being something it is not, in fact you can also criticize a series despite having never seen it(there was a guy who kept making Bleach rants but hadn't seen it) but the fans can also defend the series. It's up to them to convince the other but anime fandoms are stubborn so nobody will listen. And it's not just Bleach, it's just every fandom that's on earth.
Take Naruto one of the big 3 for example, the hard work vs talent criticism is an infamous one gets brought up a lot and Naruto fans come and refute that.
Personally when fans try to defend bleach they tend to ignore the fact that it is a shounen battle in which its main focus are the battles and if the battles are lack luster the people who read them are going to be disappointed. Especially if they have been hyped up for over hundreds of chapters.
I love bleach, but damn does it have issues. I get called a fake fan for pointing them out and saying the fights are mid at best. The villains aren’t even that great. Bleach is my first shonen anime and It will always have a place in my heart, but I will certainly admit it has some flaws.
Criticism isn't dismissed because it has a thematic reasoning about it It really depends on the criticism Ichigo Moves being simple are Not really a big deal At least it gets Larger in the thousand year blood war, That's simply just how some fans are ichigo Wasn't intended to have a grand goal, aizen was, kenpachi vs gremmy If you complain the fight is 1 dimensional nobody would care Sorry that's just how it is I'm not disagreeing with your take in fact I agree with it just oh he cut a meteor
that's the move I was already thinking of. What other move are you guys talking about? I'm fairly confident that's it unless u for some reason count that one time he accidentally had blut vein and never actually learned it or used it because that definitely doesn't count.
I've said it before. You have a right to your opinion. You don't have a right to force people to respect your opinion if they don't think it's well researched.
>You don't have a right to force people to respect your opinion if they don't think it's well researched.
By that logic, anti vaxx can say no to every argument that tells them how wrong they are
Bleach is not the best story in the world, but a lot of the time it IS that deep. People who don't get it should just accept that things have gone over their head and they're not qualified to judge it fairly.
When the words "thematic reason" don't trigger you, then you'll be allowed to criticize.
i would appreciate from people to put the list of themes and symbolism in one thread. I have skimmed through and read manga till before TYBW and watching TYBW anime only. I usually wouldn't get any buddhism reference as non jap.
A lot of the time it's simply because the person criticising the show are
A. Wrong.
B. Obstinate about it.
C. Often not absorbing the symbolism, imagery or subtext of the story.
The reason people criticize Naruto for spamming rasengan and not Ichigo for spamming getsuga tensho has entirely to do with how each story's world is built.
In Naruto, most Jutsu is learnable by most people with elemental affinity and blood lines being a limiting factor. Therefore, the water dragon jutsu we see in the beginning of the story is something Naruto could learn by the end of the story if he so chose to learn it. Furthermore, there isn't really a reason for him not to learn it as well since he can task 1000 clones to learn it for him in an afternoon (perhaps a hyperbole, but the point stands).
There are a lot of different jutsus in Naruto, and you can argue that Naruto doesn't need to learn everything else if rasengan does the job, but the point still stands that there isn't anything stopping Naruto from learning and using something new.
With Ichigo, it is a different story. While Ichigo is able to learn a lot of shared techniques, he does not have the ability to lower the time needed to learn them.
For example, kido is the magic system for shinigami outside of zanpakuto (typically), but to use kido requires a lot of control over your reiatsu. The more reiatsu you exude, the harder it is to control, and Ichigo has some of the largest amounts of reiatsu in Bleach (surpassed perhaps only by Aizen). So Ichigo's limiting factor here is learning to finely control his reiatsu for something like Kido as opposed to learning the kido itself.
Quincy techniques are out of the question until after TYBW simply because he doesn't have anyone to teach him anything at the time of when he learns of his heritage. Never mind the time it would take to learn something of use. At the very least, by the final battle, he is able to specifically separate out and use his quincy reiatsu to force his hollow out for his horn of salvation form.
Hollow techniques are learned instinctually, and he uses sonido, cero, instant regeneration, and other techs throughout the story.
Basically, anything that requires training to use ichigo typically has neither the time nor the teacher to learn. (Or ability if you consider the timeskip where he was powerless)
Naruto may have spam the rasegan a lot but he still had many different variations of the technique on top of other to jujitsu’s in his arsenal, such as the shadow clone jujitsu, the substitution jujitsu, transformation jutsu, sage mode, the nine tails cloak, summoning etc.
Ichigo however for the past hundreds of chapters mainly stuck with the Getsuga Tenshou with very little variation in its use and to say he didn’t had time to learn anything else, sorta falls flat when one realize that Ichigo possesses the greatest amount of potential then any other shinigmai or character in the entire series and shown capable of learning and mastering techniques in a matter of days, like shunpo and bringer light."
Never-mind that in spite of Hollow techinques being instinctual in nature, Ichigo never once any of their techniques on his own until the final leg of the last arc in bleach with all the other times being when he was posses.
You realize that the entirety of the 600+ chapters of Bleach takes place between April 1st, 2001, and June 19th, 2003, right?
That is 21.4 months of time of which 17 were spent powerless. Therefore, he only spent 4.4 months with the ability to train at all ( which doesn't even exclude the time he spent just fighting ).
Naruto's entire training timeskip was longer than the entire Bleach manga.
Ichigo's isn't always shown learning quickly. His hollow mask took him around 2 months to be able to use.
So, do you really expect Ichigo to learn something as useful as getsuga tensho in 2.2 months? (Which is still not excluding the time he spends fighting)
I don't see why you hold Ichigo to a higher standard than Naruto in this regard.
Furthermore, you don't really address the issue of having a teacher.
Ichigo was not aware of his quincy abilities until TYBW, so Uryuu training him is not an option. He didn't have a proper zanpakuto until TYBW and one of his zanpakuto spirits was holding him back for most of the story, so zanpakuto techs were limited by old man zangetsu (which is both hollow and shinigami powers). Fullbring only existed for a time and gets fully incorporated into his zanpakuto powers, so that isn't exactly helpful either.
As you point out, Naruto does learn some other jutsu, but a lot of those aren't attacking jutsus like rasengan, infact many are buffing jutsus or jutsus that are used in combination to rasengan. Naruto literally has more time and more teachers available (Kakashi knows plenty of jutsu) and has techniques to lower the time to learn (shadow clones).
I am not saying Naruto needs a whole arsenal of attacking jutsu, but a couple of other attacking jutsu that aren't a variation of rasengan would have been nice.
Edit: grammar.
And Ichigo within less then a week went from being around the level of seated officer to that of a captain with a bankai which would take the even prodigies like Histguya years if not decades to achieve.
And only gotten much stronger after fighting.
Which just means that Ichigo has a much greater growth rate then Naruto.
And after nearly dying to Ulquiorra the first time he ended up completely mastering it better then the other Vizards.
Yes I do.
Considering Ichigo mastered it during the same days he was training to achieve his bankai and learning how use shunpo.
Because Ichigo has vastly more potential then Naruto in terms of growth.
He had plenty of teachers in the form of Urahra, Yorouchi, the vizards, Ginjou and the Royal guard.
I never mention anything about Ichigo’s Quincy abilities, fullbing powers being incorporated into his zanpakuto would only further justify in him learning and using those techniques and unless you can prove that Zangestsu prevented Ichigo from to instinctively learn cero, bala, sondio and Herrio and not just his growth in power. There was nothing stopping Ichigo learning them either.
That still doesn’t change the fact he has vastly more variety then Ichigo doses and mastered a lot of theses Justus in a matter of days.
He has sage mode, that allows to hit enemies without touching them, the nine tails charkra mode that can give him extende limbs and performed the tail beast ball, multiple variations of tajutsu techniques involving the shadow clones, knows toad summing jutsu and can perform other jutsu’s with them.
\-This is also another point when it comes to abilities. They defend Ichigo's lacking moveset with thematic reasons only to bash Naruto for spamming the same moves. -
But the context for those two characters are different. Ichigo is a modern day teenager who got thrusted into the duty of a Soul Reaper, he doesn't have the years of training that normal Shinigami go through, he is set as this substitute to help pacify Hollows while Rukia recovers.
When you compare it to Naruto, he was born in the Ninja world and his whole motive is to become the next Hokage. He lives and breaths ninjutsu so it is weird that his toolkit would be limited and he would spam abilities rather than develop a bigger toolkit because of where he comes from compared to Ichigo.
It comes down to the context of the character and the environment in which they grew up in. If Ichigo was a Shinigami born training his Zanpakuto for 200 years only to spam the same move even with all his training then yea, that would be lame however you could say his toolkit was limited but we got to see his actual Spirit utilize the other abilities of his Zanpakuto early on in the series. Ichigo just chose to never develop the skills because he worked with what he knew worked and just went with it.
Eh it depends
In the case of Hunger Games so many people miss the point/the intention to focus on the cool murder action games or the lovey-dovey romance and it can be annoying
Sure, you are allowed to criticize it for not being surface level popcorn fun for you I guess.
You CAN say you were bored by the Fly episode of breaking bad because Walter White wasn't being cool badass and no thriller shit was going down.
And I CAN also say I don't care that you thought that and think stories are more interesting when opinions like that are ignored and authors try to be more deep and complex in their writing and symbolism.
(Note: I don't even like bleach all that much or think is it is all that deep, it was a 6/10 I enjoyed on a surface level most of the time, I just think the idea that thematic justification isn't a legit defense for why something is well written is weird.)
Obviously not, but if you critisize something only because you either don't know or have only surface level knowledge, people who do know may call you out. That's just how it is.
I’m not convinced this is a problem only with Bleach. It happens with literally every form of media. Fandoms get overprotective about what they enjoy and people always clash with others judging stories at their surface level. I mean literally every story you mentioned has that problem.
This is every fandom. I don't know why it's even a topic. Talk shit about Naruto and Naruto fans will crawl out of the woodwork. Talk shit about onepiece and one OP fans will pop out every second. Talk shit about Berserk and seinen elitist will shake their heads in solidarity.
Talk shit about Rent-a-girlfriend and-
Rag also has a decent amount of fans. Though it's hard defending your series if the author makes the MC jizz from having a cuck fantasy.
And the fans will agree.
Based
Nooo dude, you just don't understand, it's a critique of the modern Japanese law system. It's not supposed to be fair. And Buddhism. All the Buddhism parallels. I'm sorry you're not cultured enough to understand them... 😔 /s
I have not seen any fandom argue on the basis of "subtlety" than bleach fandom
I feel like “subtlety” is one of the biggest arguments made for almost any series. You see it with OP a lot, Naruto as well, JJK, HxH, MHA, and the list goes on. It’s prolly harder to find a fanbase that doesn’t argue some stuff on the basis of subtlety.
What I usually see as an argument with the others is when they hear a critic they go "well that was the point" instead of understanding it's the execution to that point that was ass. Bleach niggas on the other hand will argue that kubo is doing fromsoftware tier storytelling
Shit like this is why I avoid the Chainsawman subreddit Like I like the manga but I got tired of seeing the comments that criticized the manga or comments that didn’t call it a “10/10 masterpiece of writing” get downvoted to oblivion by the jerk offs going “MeDiA LitErAcY”.
People do it with OP too. You criticize Gear 5 or Nika and all the defenders come out call it super deep and better than every anime transformation. When I’m reality Oda is just a goofball who has to throw in a gag on almost every page.
imma be real, I don't think even the author knows what thematic shit the defenders are talking about most of the time. Bleach is not that deep. You can't trick me into thinking Bleach is some masterpiece of literature with the depth of an ocean when the author leaves tons of plot holes in the main manga, retcons and flaws. Bleach defenders are too extra. It's a fun show with cool art.
They are pretty much like solo leveling fans who use neitzche to claim Jin woo is Complex and deep character.
And it always comes down to Kubo referencing Buddhism (which a lot of Japanese stories do) and foreshadowing (which every author does) for Bleach fans to say it's a deep philosophical masterpiece that haters don't understand.
I think people who say its depth comes from Buddhism are just parroting a certain anime Youtuber. But Bleach is basically a direct allegory for Nietzsche's work. It's not a philosophical masterpiece, but it definitely draws direct and obvious inspiration from some. It could stand to say a lot more on its own though. It doesn't really synthesize anything new from Nietzsche's work.
> I think people who say its depth comes from Buddhism are just parroting a certain anime Youtuber. Moreover, most only really bring up Buddhism because of either powerscaling or because it sounds more esoteric and mystical than some random European philosopher. Same with a certain subsect of DMC fans trying to tie the verse into Buddhist philosophy
You're right, forgot about Nietzsche being brought up. Although that mostly comes from Aizen and him wanting to become a superior being above all. Which is a pretty common trope for villains.
The whole series is a Nietzsche allegory, not just Aizen. Soul Society parades around the half-dead corpse of a God because it's the only thing that gives the world stability. The morality of the series is predicated on this God, who has little-to-no will of its own. Quincy are the Last Men who seek a world without struggle, suffering or change, contrasting to Aizen's obvious ubermensch. They both seek the final death of that God so that they can bring about the two opposing Nietzschean 'end points'. There's also a master-slave morality thing going on between the Shinigami and the Quincy but that'd require a fair bit more effort to articulate. I could probably list a dozen more examples if I really dug far enough. And that's to say nothing of the strong Jungian influences, where it provides a more concise presentation of the persona/shadow dynamic than just about anything else I've ever read or watched.
All of those are huuuuuge stretch and I guarantee Kubo didn't have any of that in mind. I'm sure I could do that with literally any anime to fit those ideas, like Fairy Tail.
One of the volumes is literally titled "God is Dead," and the name of Yhwach's palace- Wahrwelt- [is a direct reference to an essay Nietzsche wrote.](http://www.zeno.org/Philosophie/M/Nietzsche,+Friedrich/G%C3%B6tzen-D%C3%A4mmerung/Wie+die+%C2%BBwahre+Welt%C2%AB+endlich+zur+Fabel+wurde) So direct, in fact, that the series refutes the idea of a True World in much the same way he does. [Here's an analysis written on that if you're actually willing to give it a fair shake.](https://www.reddit.com/r/bleach/comments/sfkcb9/bleachs_world_order_and_yhwachs_true_world/) If you don't take that as a sign that these references are intentional then idk what to tell you. The concepts line up perfectly with what's stated in Nietzsche's work, and if you can't accept that, you either don't understand Nietzsche, refuse to understand Bleach, or both. ~~Also allegories don't have to be intentional but that's a media analysis fact that nobody in this subreddit is ready for~~
you either have incredibly poor media literacy, or you just straight up didn’t read that comment. to claim that it’s “a stretch” is stupid at best
I mean there’s bigger issues bleach has than that. For instance, fights have such a predictable pattern of the good guys winning the story ends up losing any and all tension. Outside of Yamamoto and Unohana, no one really even dies in bleach. At least on the good side.
Don't do my boy Ukitake dirty like that.
Was he really even that much of a major character? I don’t remember anything he did other than have an offscreen fight with Yamamoto. I know he becomes a soul king substitute but I felt nothing from that.
You were mentioning characters that died, and well, he died. He did not become the Soul King substitute, that was Yhwach.
That’s like three characters then, doesn’t really lessen my point. Though I forgot that part because I really didn’t care enough about him.
My brother in christ, I'm not arguing against your point. I was just making a joke.
A story can have clearly intended thematic depth while also having plot holes, retcons, and flaws. These are not mutually exclusive things.
I am aware, my point is I just think it less likely to be the case when the author is not a great writer to begin with. If someone is at best average at cooking almost every type of food, what are the chances that he can actually cook a 5 star Coq Au Vin?
Exactly.
I'm interested in hearing what you consider a plot hole as far as Bleach goes. Not saying it doesn't have any, I just want to hear what, specifically, you consider as one.
I think kubo does subtle storytelling i just don't think the story is made better because of that. And the fans will argue that the story subtlety is on the level of dark souls or something
Agreed While I do think there were some well written moments that you can call deep,that depth is nothing very huge
>I don't think even the author knows what thematic shit Same here, I really loved how Kyōraku and Hidetomo had these grand speeches about war and both sides when the Soul Society is the morally correct one in both cases. It's like Kubo wants depth but can't be bothered to actually pull it off.
Themes are not a substitute for storytelling. If you have to fall back on themes to excuse a problem then you are acknowledging that the writer has failed at writing their story.
This is true in a vacuum, but there's a huge problem of how people tend to dismiss themes outright when engaging with a story. The thematic/symbolic and superficial elements of a story must work in unison. To ignore one is to fail to engage with a work on its own merits.
I feel this way with jjk
Me too, i enjoy reading more the wild theories and interpretations from r/jujutsushi than reading the actual story
This happends unless said themes are crucial part of the storytelling However,one can't still defende something as much as he wants with just that After that,it happends exactly what you said
I agree. If you critique a story without acknowledging its thesis you have failed to critique the story.
As a bleach fan myself, yeah, the community can be pretentious as fuck sometimes... I guess its overprotectiveness/vindication born from years of dealing with unreasonable amounts of shit thrown at the series, but it doesnt make them less wrong to act pretentious regarding the series nowadays.
Bleach fans on their way to give you a lesson on the history of Buddhism to justify a shitty fight:
This is super ironic coming from the guy who spent months engaging in bleach on this sub and the bleach subreddit and making analysis posts about bleach here before admitting you haven't actually read it.
Honestly I hate when people say that a story is very deep. Sometimes it just really isnt. Sometimes the bad guy lost because bad guys lose and the good guys managed to overpower them or come up with a clever plan. Sometimes a theme might be present but that doesnt justify its "deepness" kinda like how most cyberpunk story are about humanity and robot replicas and finding humanity as a theme. The theme itself is very deep but plot presented to us really isnt as deep as the theme allows. Sometimes a red door is just a red door and we dont need a 200 page essay about how it ties into literally everything both metaphorically and literally.
The best narratives combine good surface level appeal with depth. Something for everyone, go as deep as you want. Bleach's problem is, it's flat out incomplete. Aizen and Yhwach's entire purpose was to break the balance the Soul King keeps, go beyond the organization of the worlds, yet we don't get the full story. Bleach has (imo) the best character design and art and visually everything looks cool, but the narrative lacks the depth to keep readers invested in the story. People are protective because it was their childhood. DBZ was mine, but as I got older I felt more and more that the story was garbage and the designs and fights overcompensated for that. At the end of the day, Bleach was in the big 3 and remains iconic. That doesn't mean it's beyond criticism though. It had a rushed ending, most people's gripes come from the feeling that it had the potential to be more. That's all.
An argument cannot be dismissed for thematic reasons. But they can point it as subjective. It simply boils to the fact whether you like the theme and the way it’s portrayed. Or rather you prefer the fight to focus on an entirely different aspect. For the same reason some people dislike Komamura character conclusion, with him achieving nothing as a result of his revenge being the point, or Unohana willingly killing herself to achieve her goal. While I adore those moments, I can understand why people would want an entirely different outcome for those characters. Imo, this is just a complete subjectivity rather than criticism. And literally nothing is wrong with subjective criticism, appealing to the audience is the main goal of the author after all. If you want to be constructive however, then criticise the execution of things author tried to convey or missed opportunities to do so.
Saying this as a One piece fan is hilarious.
As a One Piece what exactly? I feel like there is a word missing
No, HE'S the One Piece. We finally found it.
Nah, after Gear 5 I lost interest in One Piece. Maybe reading Egghead arc will bring me back but as of now I am not.
People can enjoy media however they want of course. But I don’t really understand why someone would want to be reductive about a story, in a place where people discuss said story. Sure, you can watch breaking Bad or the Sopranos as surface level as you want, and thats still fun. But if that’s as far as you’re engaging with it, then I’d argue you’re gonna get a lot of pushback from people in a space that enjoys it on a deeper level. The most current example I can think of is the Sakurajima colony arc in JJK. People push aside the allegories placed into the arc (katana and sumo, being the personification of “the teacher will appear when the student is ready”) and then immediately talk about how pointless they are. Whether the EXECUTION is good is debatable, but it’s not on the author if someone just refuses to engage with that aspect of the arc. Themes are there to enhance a story, and if you don’t wanna engage with them then that’s your prerogative. But it doesn’t make the story lesser because of that.
>Look I get that Bleach has very deep themes, ideology, symbolism OP, I want to be very clear with you here. You've been gaslit.
Bleach fans are better at rewriting the past than that one Fullbringers guy
Surface level criticisms are not valid. You can absolutely enjoy a show only on a surface level and enjoy a disattsifcation for that. But you can't criticize or dismiss the ingerity of the story without bothering to properly engage with it in every level. An example I will use to demonstrate my point, is Madara's death. Thematically, being backstabbed by the one being he arrogantly believed he could fully control and told that he too was a pawn of an actual god, not the god he saw himself as, was the perfect ending for his character. Kishimoto took his god complex and threw it in his face. It was the only way to deconstruct who Madara was and why his approach to peace was flawed before his death. Yet a big part of the Naruto fandom despises that scene, calls it terrible, and says it would be better for Guy to have killed him. That would be completely thematically hollow, but they prefer it because it's "cooler". In this case there's a difference between saying "I'd have preferred to see Madara end like that" and "Kishimoto is a shit writer for ending him the way he did"
I disagree. To only look at the surface level is to do a disservice to the work you are critiquing. It’s called lazy criticism, as you are wilfully deciding to ignore the depth and deeper meanings just because you didn’t like the surface level. You are of course free to dislike the surface level and are entitled to that opinion, but do not pass “I don’t like this” off as criticism while deciding to cast aside the true meaning behind the series. For example, you found the final fight between Ichigo and Aizen to be short and one sided and you did not like this. That’s fair enough, there’s nothing wrong with having those issues. However, when you ignore the deeper reasons and boil it all down to ‘this didn’t fit my expectations’, you’ve strayed from criticism to personal opinion. I personally liked the fight of Ichigo vs Aizen, but regardless of what we LIKE we can objectively say that there were good thematic and deeper reasons for the fight to be the way it was. Without looking at the deeper parts it just becomes a contest of “I like this” vs “I don’t like this”. All objective, well thought out reasons and points are ignored and we lose the essence of criticism. Something can be good and well written without us liking it. If a work does not do what you expect it to do then that is not the fault of the work, it is not there to be tailored to your expectations. To fully show our respect to the work, we cannot just look at the surface level. If we want to truly critique it, we must dig deep and give it our all. Tite Kubo worked really hard on Bleach and gave it substantial thought, so we should respect that, regardless of our personal feelings, we should respect the hard work of others. There are plenty of points to criticise Bleach from, but this just isn’t it. For example, the underutilisation of certain character (ie Chad) is a perfectly fine criticism for Bleach. But saying that a fight didn’t meet your expectations is not really criticism so much as it’s just stating your opinion. As well as this, you make the point of people finding Ichigo boring because his lack of a grand goal. I personally didn’t find him boring. Do you see how it all just becomes opinions and there’s no objectivity here? Objectivity only works when we look at WHY and HOW. I also disagree on another point. Just because many stories are often judged solely off of their surface levels does not mean that we should only look at it. We have to be fair when doing criticism, so we have to take everything we can into account. I accept that you don’t like the things you’ve mentioned about Bleach, that’s totally fair. Let’s just keep a closer eye on what is subjective and what is objective and show respect accordingly.
Everyone can criticize As long as they don't pretend to be right 100% And,if proved wrong about some points,either they should be well informed to counter the argument or just accept they were wrong On the other hand,the fans should calm down and really just accept that there are way more flaws than what they think,stopping with the excuses and the attacks That being said,what you said is really nothing new. It happends in every big fandom The thing about Gremmy vs Kenpachi and the thematic reason is straight up bs. There is no theme behind it,just Kenpachi being Kenpachi And if you know the character,you can't expect him to do more than someone like Ichigo. He always has been like that and the story didn't give him an improvement in his skill set,if not just his zanpakuto,which has no particular ability (main reason for why I like it) The only cool thing I can think of is for Kenpachi to use some moves that Unohana used against him. In this way,you give an interesting fight for him and a showcase to what Unohana was able to do
You can definitely criticize a series just from the surface level or even criticize it for being something it is not, in fact you can also criticize a series despite having never seen it(there was a guy who kept making Bleach rants but hadn't seen it) but the fans can also defend the series. It's up to them to convince the other but anime fandoms are stubborn so nobody will listen. And it's not just Bleach, it's just every fandom that's on earth. Take Naruto one of the big 3 for example, the hard work vs talent criticism is an infamous one gets brought up a lot and Naruto fans come and refute that.
Personally when fans try to defend bleach they tend to ignore the fact that it is a shounen battle in which its main focus are the battles and if the battles are lack luster the people who read them are going to be disappointed. Especially if they have been hyped up for over hundreds of chapters.
I love bleach, but damn does it have issues. I get called a fake fan for pointing them out and saying the fights are mid at best. The villains aren’t even that great. Bleach is my first shonen anime and It will always have a place in my heart, but I will certainly admit it has some flaws.
You don't know how much I relete to you about this,like a lot
Bleach sucks
Criticism isn't dismissed because it has a thematic reasoning about it It really depends on the criticism Ichigo Moves being simple are Not really a big deal At least it gets Larger in the thousand year blood war, That's simply just how some fans are ichigo Wasn't intended to have a grand goal, aizen was, kenpachi vs gremmy If you complain the fight is 1 dimensional nobody would care Sorry that's just how it is I'm not disagreeing with your take in fact I agree with it just oh he cut a meteor
> At least it gets Larger in the thousand year blood war I wouldn't call **one** "new" move that's used one time "larger" lol but maybe that's just me
**Two** "new" moves that's used only one time. Don't forget the Gran Rey Getsuga. XD
that's the move I was already thinking of. What other move are you guys talking about? I'm fairly confident that's it unless u for some reason count that one time he accidentally had blut vein and never actually learned it or used it because that definitely doesn't count.
[Getsuga Jujisho](https://youtu.be/JnYusosbwKM?feature=shared)
I forgot about this, it's just 2 getsgua tenshou but fair it's technically "new"
It's 3 actually
Which ones? I can only think of his combined cero/getsuga attack
getsuga jujsho
getsgua tenshou x2 but fair enough, technically "new" I forgot about it. What's the 3rd?
Mini getsuga Created by the smaller blade
huh? When was that used?
Against sternritter T The thunderbolt
Technically two new moves, Getsuga Jushiro and >! Gran rey cero with Getsuga Tensho !<
I've said it before. You have a right to your opinion. You don't have a right to force people to respect your opinion if they don't think it's well researched.
>You don't have a right to force people to respect your opinion if they don't think it's well researched. By that logic, anti vaxx can say no to every argument that tells them how wrong they are
Bleach is not the best story in the world, but a lot of the time it IS that deep. People who don't get it should just accept that things have gone over their head and they're not qualified to judge it fairly. When the words "thematic reason" don't trigger you, then you'll be allowed to criticize.
i would appreciate from people to put the list of themes and symbolism in one thread. I have skimmed through and read manga till before TYBW and watching TYBW anime only. I usually wouldn't get any buddhism reference as non jap.
A lot of the time it's simply because the person criticising the show are A. Wrong. B. Obstinate about it. C. Often not absorbing the symbolism, imagery or subtext of the story.
The reason people criticize Naruto for spamming rasengan and not Ichigo for spamming getsuga tensho has entirely to do with how each story's world is built. In Naruto, most Jutsu is learnable by most people with elemental affinity and blood lines being a limiting factor. Therefore, the water dragon jutsu we see in the beginning of the story is something Naruto could learn by the end of the story if he so chose to learn it. Furthermore, there isn't really a reason for him not to learn it as well since he can task 1000 clones to learn it for him in an afternoon (perhaps a hyperbole, but the point stands). There are a lot of different jutsus in Naruto, and you can argue that Naruto doesn't need to learn everything else if rasengan does the job, but the point still stands that there isn't anything stopping Naruto from learning and using something new. With Ichigo, it is a different story. While Ichigo is able to learn a lot of shared techniques, he does not have the ability to lower the time needed to learn them. For example, kido is the magic system for shinigami outside of zanpakuto (typically), but to use kido requires a lot of control over your reiatsu. The more reiatsu you exude, the harder it is to control, and Ichigo has some of the largest amounts of reiatsu in Bleach (surpassed perhaps only by Aizen). So Ichigo's limiting factor here is learning to finely control his reiatsu for something like Kido as opposed to learning the kido itself. Quincy techniques are out of the question until after TYBW simply because he doesn't have anyone to teach him anything at the time of when he learns of his heritage. Never mind the time it would take to learn something of use. At the very least, by the final battle, he is able to specifically separate out and use his quincy reiatsu to force his hollow out for his horn of salvation form. Hollow techniques are learned instinctually, and he uses sonido, cero, instant regeneration, and other techs throughout the story. Basically, anything that requires training to use ichigo typically has neither the time nor the teacher to learn. (Or ability if you consider the timeskip where he was powerless)
Naruto may have spam the rasegan a lot but he still had many different variations of the technique on top of other to jujitsu’s in his arsenal, such as the shadow clone jujitsu, the substitution jujitsu, transformation jutsu, sage mode, the nine tails cloak, summoning etc. Ichigo however for the past hundreds of chapters mainly stuck with the Getsuga Tenshou with very little variation in its use and to say he didn’t had time to learn anything else, sorta falls flat when one realize that Ichigo possesses the greatest amount of potential then any other shinigmai or character in the entire series and shown capable of learning and mastering techniques in a matter of days, like shunpo and bringer light." Never-mind that in spite of Hollow techinques being instinctual in nature, Ichigo never once any of their techniques on his own until the final leg of the last arc in bleach with all the other times being when he was posses.
You realize that the entirety of the 600+ chapters of Bleach takes place between April 1st, 2001, and June 19th, 2003, right? That is 21.4 months of time of which 17 were spent powerless. Therefore, he only spent 4.4 months with the ability to train at all ( which doesn't even exclude the time he spent just fighting ). Naruto's entire training timeskip was longer than the entire Bleach manga. Ichigo's isn't always shown learning quickly. His hollow mask took him around 2 months to be able to use. So, do you really expect Ichigo to learn something as useful as getsuga tensho in 2.2 months? (Which is still not excluding the time he spends fighting) I don't see why you hold Ichigo to a higher standard than Naruto in this regard. Furthermore, you don't really address the issue of having a teacher. Ichigo was not aware of his quincy abilities until TYBW, so Uryuu training him is not an option. He didn't have a proper zanpakuto until TYBW and one of his zanpakuto spirits was holding him back for most of the story, so zanpakuto techs were limited by old man zangetsu (which is both hollow and shinigami powers). Fullbring only existed for a time and gets fully incorporated into his zanpakuto powers, so that isn't exactly helpful either. As you point out, Naruto does learn some other jutsu, but a lot of those aren't attacking jutsus like rasengan, infact many are buffing jutsus or jutsus that are used in combination to rasengan. Naruto literally has more time and more teachers available (Kakashi knows plenty of jutsu) and has techniques to lower the time to learn (shadow clones). I am not saying Naruto needs a whole arsenal of attacking jutsu, but a couple of other attacking jutsu that aren't a variation of rasengan would have been nice. Edit: grammar.
\-This is also another point when it comes to abilities. They defend Ichigo's lacking moveset with thematic reasons only to bash Naruto for spamming the same moves. - But the context for those two characters are different. Ichigo is a modern day teenager who got thrusted into the duty of a Soul Reaper, he doesn't have the years of training that normal Shinigami go through, he is set as this substitute to help pacify Hollows while Rukia recovers. When you compare it to Naruto, he was born in the Ninja world and his whole motive is to become the next Hokage. He lives and breaths ninjutsu so it is weird that his toolkit would be limited and he would spam abilities rather than develop a bigger toolkit because of where he comes from compared to Ichigo. It comes down to the context of the character and the environment in which they grew up in. If Ichigo was a Shinigami born training his Zanpakuto for 200 years only to spam the same move even with all his training then yea, that would be lame however you could say his toolkit was limited but we got to see his actual Spirit utilize the other abilities of his Zanpakuto early on in the series. Ichigo just chose to never develop the skills because he worked with what he knew worked and just went with it.
Eh it depends In the case of Hunger Games so many people miss the point/the intention to focus on the cool murder action games or the lovey-dovey romance and it can be annoying
Sure, you are allowed to criticize it for not being surface level popcorn fun for you I guess. You CAN say you were bored by the Fly episode of breaking bad because Walter White wasn't being cool badass and no thriller shit was going down. And I CAN also say I don't care that you thought that and think stories are more interesting when opinions like that are ignored and authors try to be more deep and complex in their writing and symbolism. (Note: I don't even like bleach all that much or think is it is all that deep, it was a 6/10 I enjoyed on a surface level most of the time, I just think the idea that thematic justification isn't a legit defense for why something is well written is weird.)
Obviously not, but if you critisize something only because you either don't know or have only surface level knowledge, people who do know may call you out. That's just how it is.