So I finished my Bleach rewatch marathon my goats...my shonen...
Yeah…I haven't really explored the vast repertoire of the genre, but I declare it my favorite shonen. There are certainly tighter stories with smoother progression but this one is for me. This has been one of my favourite rewatches to date simply because I had forgotten so much about the events of the story, I had completely missed crucial characterization and general overarching themes. Most importantly, after being aware of the finale revelations, everything fit into place. The insane foreshadowing that will absolutely go over your head is one of the most overtalked characteristics of Kubo's writing. BUT IT'S TRUE! I could never be Kubo because if I had these plot points from the start and I had to keep my mouth shut for 15 years I would have exploded. He's too strong. Man of patience. And yanno you need to be a bit of man of patience to watch Bleach too. Sometimes it's mind numbingly slow, sometimes the excitement will take twice as much time to reach you than the average modern hype show. I've learnt to appreciate this long running shonen pacing regardless. There isn't a minmaxing tendency to make be kept fully engaged in every single moment. I'm allowed to find some episodes lackluster, frustrating, bad etc. Somehow they don't seem to diminish my love for overall story. Maybe it's because I'm watching it with company but in all those moments when you can tell we are hitting some mind numbing mixed canon/filler episode we were having a discussion over the show. Maybe this is how communities were build back then idk. There is something very personal about how those shows are made. In my attempts to watch modern shonen they have this aura of being made to consumed while you're alone in the dark and the lights are flashing on your face.
Anyway so what did impress me this time around? Obviously it is a hype moments and aura show, with stunning designs, serious tone, atmospheric music and often some of the most cinematic moments you can find in anime, but I am more surprised at how good the writing can be and more specifically…I was rizzed by words. Maybe it's cause at this point I'm catching a lot of the japanese too but this show certainly has a way with words. There is this plague of overexplaining things in shonen (and Bleach will be guilt of this at certain points) but in this show so much is conveyed with such a few words. So much care has been put into the language, from the poetic dialogue, to the naming schemes, to the VAs' inflections. Bleach is generally very theatric and emotional but it also remains subtle. ….I know that Bleach musical exists…now we need Bleach takarazuka…
A special mention to muh boi Ichigo. You will often watch a series (it happens all the time with shonen) and be like "maaaan that's a good show but eh I don't think much of the main character." Well Bleach is not that. You will care about Ichigo. I'm not going to claim that he is the most complex written character or anything like that but he's THE main character on his own show which is more rare than it sounds. They hit that sweet spot by making the protagonist mature enough to not be annoying but no one can ever be mature enough in this situation resulting to constant mental strife. Cool and inspiring exterior accompanied by fearful and insecure interior. He encapsulates so well the "you are your own worst enemy" (a theme that appears in various ways throughout the series). A big chunk of Bleach is about introspection and one of my favourite aspects of the show is how this happens after a major events because of his delayed emotional responses due to usually existing under a fight or flight state. The world does revolve around him for plot reasons but the way that the world revolves around him through the connections he made and the way he affected people in a closed circle of gratitude is what I cherish the most.
Side note Bleach is genre radical. Shonen, magical girl show, isekai, reverse isekai (add this to your isekai to make it good), highschool comedy, coming of age story, royal courtyard opera, psychological drama, lil bit of denpa, JRPG….there i something for everyone
I could go on and on about it but anyway right now I feel like…
On the Naruto vs Bleach front. This has been a blast lmao. I'm watching these with my bf and we are on the opposite sides of which is the best one. Years ago we used to argue so much about media but eventually our tastes somewhat aligned (like if you keep watching Gundam it's just kino...not much to disagree about). The gloves are off now and we are so back. The shonen effect. My goat against your goat. Structured debate and argumentation.
I'm not going to attempt to present a cohesive comparison between the two cause my thoughts are scattered all over the place in the course of the past few months. I will say that those two shows are almost completely opposite to each other. Which is why, even though I have my preferences, I think both have a lot of things to offer. Naruto is more ambitious with it's plot that attempts to say a lot about society which results in epic highs and lows, while Bleach is a more "normal" psychological story and doesn't bite more than it can chew. Bleach is certainly more cinematic while Naruto's great moments are more centered around sakuga. Bleach's fights have more to do with an internal psychological state while Naruto's are more focused on dorky (affectionate) combat tactics. And somewhere here I'm gonna stop the comparisons cause im gonna spiral. But I want to say that there is a lot of heart in both stories. Naruto is about familial and community bonds and escaping your shared perpetuating trauma, and Bleach is about the people you met much later in life and changed your world forever.