Bleach has so much potential to be an awesome shounen manga. It has such a great cast, a very relatable protagonist like Ichigo and an amazing ship like IchiRuki. The Fullbring arc and the last arc had promising start, but then they went down hill when Kubo introduced boring antagonists. I stopped reading at the beginning of the last arc to wait for the end of the manga, but then 686 came out and Kubo ruined Bleach for me. But I think I still have to reread it and give it another ending.
Hi anon, thank you for the ask. Sorry this is going to be long because you gave me the opportunity to address some of the fundamental issues with Kubo’s writing.
Yes, we all can agree Kubo has many (not all, but many) great characters, a great premise of three worlds occupied by different beings, a phenomenal clean art style that took the manga world by storm, an interesting launch pad story and probably the only well known shounen that weaved romance, angst and melancholy so heavily into its main premise. It definitely seemed like a shounen that will break the mould and create its appeal with the older audience as well, because it tug on the reader’s heartstrings. The general consensus is that shounen manga are usually terrible at writing well developed romance and compelling relationships between adults but bleach started out as a black sheep in this regard and definitely had the potential to create a new milestone; its refreshing take on shounen genre is what made it popular in first place.
But it wasn’t enough to keep the series running without evolving it further. I think the problem with Kubo as an author (I am not referring to the person he is beyond his pen name, just the author), as pointed by thousands of others in shounen circles over years, is that he is too egoistic. Hey everyone should be a little egoistic, I am not judging him for that, but it shouldn’t come to the point that it compromises the very work that made you famous in first place. Let’s start with art: He doesn’t want to rely on assistant artists to the point that he would rather leave his backgrounds empty than take help. I have no problem with Kubo keeping everything in his hands, but then at least draw the panels completely if you won’t take help. Don’t make readers compromise. I have had a Kubo apologizer tell me they actually like the empty backgrounds because they are quite “refreshing”. Such is the extent of denial that runs in our fandom. Incidentally when I probed this person further, they also happen to be someone who has never purchased any of the bleach volumes or spent a single penny on bleach, EVER. Must be nice to praise Kubo when you aren’t even part of the paying customer base he scapegoated or even support his work financially. Bleach has suffered greatly in quality due to Kubo’s short sighted choices instead of doing what the manga actually needed. Majority of the manga in later chapters look like unfinished panels because there is very little environmental detail to understand the world where the panels exist. Too many close ups try to take Reader’s mind away from it but you really can’t after some time. To begin with, manga has more difficult job of conveying “action” than anime does and to leave backgrounds and environment out of it literally removes majority of the impact. I have lost count of how many panels are literally random blob of ink in later chapters where I cannot even understand the meaning of the panel no matter how long I look at it, because there is probably none. And this isn’t to say Kubo can’t draw action properly, just look any of the earlier battles and the energy each page conveys to the reader. Something went wrong along the line.
As for the story and character development: Kubo would rather let his manga go down the drain along with his characters than work with ghost writers who can do the draft work for the story HE WANTS to write but can focus on the art instead of doing the actual story work. It would still be his story because he would still be in control of the over all direction. If he was feeling pressed for time that would have been a better alternative than writing an unimaginative story arc after arc and even making his art suffer for it. This would have also given him time to think more deeply about each character and what kind of depth, development he wants to give them. For crying out aloud, even the main villain Aizen is one dimensional and doesn’t have a back story. TBTP arc shows him when he already turned evil and is already a VC. How did he get into gotei 13 or the academy? We got to see this development for even side characters like Kira and Momoi, why not Aizen? How was his life like before he decided to become shinigami? Did he have a family or relatives or friends? What motivated him to turn evil? What are his powers (bankai, soul form etc)? Anything at all on his past before gotei??! We all know kubo always wanted to draw cool shit and that he is really very good at, I will give him that. The manga was simply a medium to deliver that cool art, story was never his primary focus. Which we evidently saw as well that developing story in a compelling way is not his strong point and he should have been more open to assistance when he needed it. Looking back, it is equally as unfortunate for Kubo as it is for anyone else that he was literally sitting on a project that would have given him lifelong income and work to do. There are so many spin offs that could have originated from the original work and each would have sold well due to the already established fandom that bleach sadly failed to retain.
Lastly the editors are there for a reason. And WSJ is doing just fine on editing part with other famous mega hit mangas. Instead of taking guidance from them, he often spoke against them and didn’t get along with them. It is editors’ job to criticize the work and bring the best out in a mangaka, they are not hired to suck up to the mangaka. The editor is obligated to provide criticism as part of his job because if he fails to do it , a possibly faulty work reaches the fan and then they will be the one to see all these loopholes and criticize them, which looks bad on both mangaka and editor’s part. Given the stressful environment most mangaka work in, they are not always in a good state of mind to see the obvious issues with their stories and this is why they rely on the editor to give them perspective from an unbiased source. But Kubo couldn’t make that connection with his editors and his work suffered as a result. In fact I think the very reason for the fallout in the end with WSJ and kubo might have been this shit ending. I can’t imagine WSJ giving such a literary disaster a green light in their right minds so they just decided to pull the plug on bleach instead. Because this ending would still not be popular even if Kubo got more time to wrap up the series, so there really was no point in giving him anymore space when more manga are waiting for the spot in pipeline. Poor development over time turned his diamond into dust.
I personally stick to the anime because SP did a great job with adding extra content of daily lives, filler arcs etc that at least gave us more opportunities to understand these characters and see them interact with each other. The gags in fillers are also top notch. When I feel nostalgic I go back and watch specific parts like Ichigo vs Byakuya, Ichigo saving Rukia, most of SS arc really, Ichigo vs Grimmjow in human world or just the filler episodes of daily lives with no conflicts going on. I don’t think I would go back and read the manga though, no, because every panel is bound to just leave me angrier and upset again, and I am really over that phase now. But do whatever helps you cope, anon! Alternate endings are definitely popular. If you want to write one of your own, I am sure the fandom will appreciate and support it. All the best!
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