Bleach

ayase said:
ilmaestro said:
ayase said:
ilmaestro said:
ayase said:
Doesn't mean you can't laugh at their shortcomings though, right?
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Doesn't mean you can't, does mean you look a bit weird for doing it.
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Nah, I don't think so. We're British, we laugh at the shortcomings of everything, it's not like we mean anything by it. Everything has it's flaws, and if they can be made the subject of amusement that's not complaining, that's just 'avin' a larf!
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You can pick out its shortcomings <i>as kids entertainment</i>, but that's not what people do. "Stating the obvious" about how kids series are devised is just being boring, imo.
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I'm guessing you're not a fan of observational comedy then?
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Massively. I don't think any running-down of Bleach for featuring Hitsugaya more after it became clear that he was a popuar character falls under that heading, though.

Jayme said:
There are those obsessed with Star Wars, a franchise based on kids films, and many of them are quite old. There's the argument that if its for kids, it doesn't have to be good but then what's the difference between an episode of Spongebob Squarepants and Batman: The Animated Series? You can still have intelligent plot and characters, even if its for kids or teenagers. Most things are.

Your particularly arguing about shonen stories, and while there are tropes there's also a distance between Bleach, One Piece and Fullmetal Alchemist when they are all technically targeted at the same audience. You can have good and bad stuff, and sometimes being a nitpick is what makes the good stuff just that much better.
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Yep, and it's fine to point out poor character design, weak characterization, confusing plotting etc, as long as you have some sort of argument with actual substance to back you up.

Merely pointing out the use of genre standards, or general moaning that the series "takes things too far" etc, isn't enough. It's just boring, and essentially complaining about the fact that it's a kids show, rather than complaining that it's a <i>bad</i> kids show.
 
ilmaestro said:
Will-O'-The-Wisp said:
I know it's typical of most Shonen manga, but like I said, for the 3rd time Kubo takes it too far ¬¬
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And that's so subjective as to be total nonsense. How many percentage points less far would have have to take it for it to be okay? Where is "the line"?

Btw, spoilers for the end of the whole series:

Ichigo wins.

Hope that isn't one cliche too many for you.
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Stop hammering on about how what I say is subjective, it's a forum. The whole "your opinion amounts to ********" thing is ridiculous, there's no point in anyone ever arguing if people hide behind the "it's just your opninion" wall, it just destroys any chance of interesting discussion.

Secondly, we don't need any "fine line" to dictate when somethings outside the boundries and focuses on fanservice rather than a plot - it's common ******* sense.

A lot of the parts in Bleach are clearly made purely to appease to the fans (Matsumoto bath scene, I could name more examples but I'd end up spoiling it).

And lastly, You're using the "it's okay, because other series do it and therefore it's no reason to not like it" argument, when you haven't even caught up! Someone read the entire series from beginning up untill the point now and try telling me that the story is Kubo's number 1 concern
 
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@ayase: Well, okay. That doesn't really fall under "observational humor" either, since it's merely observational (and at times ranges from simply not being very insightful, to being extremely subjective - something that observational humor isn't, by design). And, again, is mostly not actually about Bleach itself.

The silliest thing is, there are actually things that are clearly wrong with Bleach, so if people actually wanted a discussion about its shortcomings, they could have one. But people are more concerned with moaning for the sake of being one of the cool guys who moans about Bleach (I'm still not sure what exactly the series did ahead of, for example, Naruto to become the new de facto standard for this), or being "funny".

Will-O'-The-Wisp said:
And lastly, You're using the "it's okay, because other series do it and therefore it's no reason to not like it" argument, when you haven't even caught up! Someone read the entire series from beginning up untill the point now and try telling me that the story is Kubo's number 1 concern
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Yes, I apologize for being a chapter behind. A chapter that gets leaked before the magazine even really goes on sale. I guess this must be the key chapter that validates all the arguments?

Will-O'-The-Wisp said:
ilmaestro said:
Will-O'-The-Wisp said:
I know it's typical of most Shonen manga, but like I said, for the 3rd time Kubo takes it too far ¬¬
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And that's so subjective as to be total nonsense. How many percentage points less far would have have to take it for it to be okay? Where is "the line"?

Btw, spoilers for the end of the whole series:

Ichigo wins.

Hope that isn't one cliche too many for you.
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Stop hammering on about how what I say is subjective, it's a forum. The whole "your opinion amounts to ********" thing is ridiculous, there's no point in anyone ever arguing if people hide behind the "it's just your opninion" wall, it just destroys any chance of interesting discussion.
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You're not arguing. You present no argument. You lay down ridiculously subjective opinion backed up by the statement that it's "common sense". If you were actually making a proper argument about the things that are wrong with Bleach, I would probably agree with you on a lot of things (although, for the record, you won't often find me complaining about bath scenes featuring hot women...).

Everyone's opinion is valid, only when backed up by something more than "lulz bleach is teh suck".
 
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ilmaestro said:
Yes, I apologize for being a chapter behind. A chapter that gets leaked before the magazine even really goes on sale. I guess this must be the key chapter that validates all the arguments?
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I never realised you were only a chapter behind, last I remember you had awhile to go, but meh, that's fair enough.

ilmaestro said:
You're not arguing. You present no argument. You lay down ridiculously subjective opinion backed up by the statement that it's "common sense". If you were actually making a proper argument about the things that are wrong with Bleach, I would probably agree with you on a lot of things (although, for the record, you won't often
find me complaining about bath scenes featuring hot women...).
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You say you're fine and dandy with someone posting their reasons for being against Bleach, yet this all built up from you getting defensive over a picture, not against something I said. But whatever, I'll give you what you want, so here's exactly what I think is wrong with Bleach and why:

The constant "save the girl and escape alive" routine,

The "I'll explain what my Zanpaktó abilities are to the enemy after getting in a small minute hit in for cool factor" when it could quite easily be done by another character and NOT revealed to the enemy (examples: Shunsui, Shinji, maybe Barragan),

The power up that saves everyone from death. This has been used so much that it's rare that we'll ever get surprised by anything in Bleach making the plot extremely predictable. If Ichigo fights Aizen and is on the verge of death, it's not hard to guess his Hollow or whatnot will come to save the day.

Inconsitancies. There have been loads of these throughout Bleach, especially with Zanpaktó's. The first one that comes to mind is the with Aizen, letting the bad guy provoke the good guy and fall for it, but seem perfectly fine afterwards when the enemy tries it again, despite the damage (examples: always Aizen). I've yet to see this one overused in any other series, if even used once.

The main one: Kubo likes to drag things out, shows us very little per chapter and constructs each one poorly. In each chapter we sometimes have, but don't, need a small recap from the last chapter (In Bleach's case there's usually always one taking up 3, maybe 4 pages if there's a title page), show/reveal something new unless it's a fight, explanation and something to keep us interested and lead onto the next chapter.

In the case of Kubo, if someone develops the usual SSJ power up, we would get one chapter showing us what the power up was about with a no more than a couple of sword swings.

On top of all this, we have a lot of unecessary reflection chapters going back on what already happened. I'm not saying characters can't reminsce and that it had to be 100% action or some sort of secret revealed every chapter, but they really just give out the idea the Kubo's trying to milk as much out of an arc as possible.

Your arguments seem to be against the Hitsugaya hate bandwagon, which I'm gonna assure you I didn't just "jump on". I've already said, a movie was made around the series most popular character!! And then said character is plot-armoured when he/she's in more trouble then she/he can handle and survives or pulls through. The Hitsugaya vs Halibel fight pisses me right off, as I couldn't see how Ice-boy managed to have the upper hand against the 3rd Espada, yet almost die against the substitute 6th Espada. It's been said it was due to the match-up of abilities, yet I don't feel that's a good enough to reason to bridge the gap between Espada 3 and sub Espada 6.

You can run back and say it happens in 99% Shonen etc, but I really can't see all of the above happening in 99% of the other Shonen manga. And anyways, you asked for my reasons there they are. Despite any of this, I love Bleach. It's one of my favourite manga series, always has been. But that doesn't mean I'm afraid to point out reocurring problems
 
I'd agree with you on:

Multiple rescue arcs. (Although I thought that, in the context of two such similar premises, he did a surprisingly good job of providing variety)

*Massive* overuse of the "bad guy makes a face like he's in trouble, turns out he wasn't injured at all" thing. (I'm not 100% sure this is what you mean by "inconsistencies, especially with Zanpakuto", though, but it sounds like the situation you're describing with Aizen)

All the other points are not in any way unique to Bleach, imo, so I still find it very boring to go on about them as if Kubo invented them - frankly, it's giving him too much credit.

Also, if anything, the worst chapter over the last few months was the last one I read (from the 2010 volume 5-6 issue of Jump) where <i>too much happened too quickly</i>. Whereas in direct comparison Naruto had a great chapter of starting off an epic fight, with not much actually happening but a tremendous amount of awesome atmosphere.

edit: you added in the Hitsugaya stuff after I posted. I'll respond to that in a separate post in a bit, as I think it's more interesting on its own than the other stuff.
 
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Old but still as funny as ever.

"That's enough, Kishi."
 
Defending Bleach in these times is always a losing argument, maestro, but you do put in the effort for Kubo's name, can't wait until he trolls you too!
 
Note to others: Maes does not do sarcasm, and if he argued like this on EuroFaggots - using the same 'No, ur wong!' defensive Bankai - he'd be gang-raped by even more angry older men who have wives dying from cancer... Actually, he'd be gang-raped just for liking animay 'cause they don't do that outside of clubs in those parts.

He probably has ass-burgers, like myself. That's everyone's excuse for acting a bit weird/dumb. (Only someone weird would wear a OP ****, FFS!)

On topic: Without even reading any of Bleach beyond the start of the 'Let's go to hell and rescue another bitch (at least this one has tits - titfuck time!!!11!!)' arc, I know it gets ****. I have a nose for these things, and without even going further than I have I know Bleach will turn into slow-paced, plot no justu heavy and repetitive ****.

Naruto will always be better than Bleach for its superior story-telling and steady, realistic character development.
 
So when did you stop reading Naruto? When Sasuke beats Naruto at the end of part one? Sounds like it to me.

One Piece solos both.
 
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Yeah if you looked up the literary term 'Deus Ex Machina' Kubo's picture would be there lol. He's a kop out, never killing major characters and basically abandoned Renji etc there's a million reasons it annoys me but I do still enjoy reading it. His artwork is amazing, just a shame he takes up so many pages with it rather than dialogue or fighting.

Regarding 25th Dec issue
what did everybody think? I thought it was a really good issue/chapter apart from another members bankai being exposed as a waste of time. Although it was pretty cool especially the end and how Aizen destroyed Tosen, what a way to end it, with Ichigo bursting on the scene. Hands up if you think it'll be another 10 issues before they actually fight. Remember there's still Yammy...because everyone cares about that fight...I am however really interested to see what's happened to Ishida. Can't wait to see Gin fight either.

Anyone have any interestign theories on Kenpachi's swords name, read a good few on the imdb boards about his 2nd in command being it. The examples they used showed it really is a possibility.
 
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LukasROAR said:
Regarding 25th Dec issue
what did everybody think? I thought it was a really good issue/chapter apart from another members bankai being exposed as a waste of time. Although it was pretty cool especially the end and how Aizen destroyed Tosen, what a way to end it, with Ichigo bursting on the scene. Hands up if you think it'll be another 10 issues before they actually fight. Remember there's still Yammy...because everyone cares about that fight...I am however really interested to see what's happened to Ishida. Can't wait to see Gin fight either.
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This is the chapter I thought was quite poor, actually.

Shinji/Aizen fight developed too quickly, Tousen was killed too quickly (and his Resurrection looked ******), Ichigo appeared too quickly, far too much stuff happened for one chapter.

And I'm not convinced that that was Shinji's bankai.

Yamii does, indeed, suck, and is probably the weakest part of the current stage of this arc.
 
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Lupus said:
So when did you stop reading Naruto? When Sasuke beats Naruto at the end of part one? Sounds like it to me.
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That would be the last point where I could seriously praise Naruto for anything.

I on-holded it around the time Kishimoto had stopped fantasizing over Sasuke and had Naruto become one with his inner toad. It started to bore me. The fact that Naruto and Sasuke will both live and go gay for each other at the end made me lose interest in it. I kind of wish Endo wrote the story for Naruto at this stage...


I only collect it and Bleach because it'd be a bitch to sell 30+ volumes of both. It's easier for a lazy person just to keep buying £3-4 volumes and hope that, one day, they stop coming out.
 
Aion said:
I only collect it and Bleach because it'd be a bitch to sell 30+ volumes of both. It's easier for a lazy person just to keep buying £3-4 volumes and hope that, one day, they stop coming out.
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Best laugh I've had all day. That's almost Jack Dee caliber material.
 
ilmaestro said:
LukasROAR said:
Regarding 25th Dec issue
what did everybody think? I thought it was a really good issue/chapter apart from another members bankai being exposed as a waste of time. Although it was pretty cool especially the end and how Aizen destroyed Tosen, what a way to end it, with Ichigo bursting on the scene. Hands up if you think it'll be another 10 issues before they actually fight. Remember there's still Yammy...because everyone cares about that fight...I am however really interested to see what's happened to Ishida. Can't wait to see Gin fight either.
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This is the chapter I thought was quite poor, actually.

Shinji/Aizen fight developed too quickly, Tousen was killed too quickly (and his Resurrection looked ******), Ichigo appeared too quickly, far too much stuff happened for one chapter.

And I'm not convinced that that was Shinji's bankai.

Yamii does, indeed, suck, and is probably the weakest part of the current stage of this arc.
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Lol i 100% agree with all your reasons, but for me at least the story was moving on and hopefully finally getting somewhere. Before that chapter i would have put money on Ichigo to be out of the main story for at least 5 issues while he trains or rests his abilities DBZ style.

What was Kubo thinking with Yammy though...

I just miss Chad and Renji actually doing some fighting. I understand Chad being a bit weak in comparison but Renji was just left whilst all other captains and 2nd in commands magically got moved up a grade in strength. It's like Tien and Yam-Cha in DBZ, two of my favourite characters who kinda just got forgotton about or left to sit and watch :(

How many of you feel this battle between Ichigo and Aizen will be the end of Bleach or will Kubo milk it further?
 
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