One thing I noticed, as I've had 24 hours to process it, is how little happened in this week's chapter of Bleach. Since I recently caught up I was able to read from Ulquiorra's death to last week's chapter in one shebang, so it all kind of was like one cohesive whole.
I can kind of see why as I've come back to this fandom I've seen so many people leaving it. I'm curious if maybe reading Bleach once a month might be more beneficial than once a week, but I also find that my attachment to the characters and my questions about this arc encourage me to read weekly instead.
I'm not exactly sure why the pace has grown so slow. It's actually kind of amazing how little has happened in the manga since I went on my manga/anime hiatus in 2009. I'm really hoping that for the manga's sake this is the last arc. I'm curious if maybe it'd flow better as an OVA or something where things could progress faster.
Then again, in watching the anime for the first time, I noticed that there's a kind of slow down in pacing as the arrancares show up and so forth. Like I admit that I skipped the Bount arc, but the first two arcs were prety entertaining translated into anime and while the post-Bount anime isn't bad or boring, it does kind of lack the purpose and drive of the first two arcs. Then again, now that Orihime has been taken maybe some of that drive will amp up or something.
That said, I'm probably not going to drop Bleach again unless I drop manga and anime again. These characters are so dear to me that I'll see them through. I just might have to be more strategic about it.