Bleach

I heard a lot of good reviews for the anime Bleach so when I started watching it I was pretty much biased. But I didn't watch all the episodes because my opinion soon changed. The first episodes are very interesting. We follow the adventures of Kurosaki Ichigo who became a Shinigami after Kuchiki Rukia had to give him her powers. From now on they will fight the Hollows, the lost souls, together. It's quite a simple story and it worked very well at the beginning. The fights between Ichigo and the Hollows were very well done: the animation is a very good quality and the watcher can only be fascinated by the fights. However, after ten episodes or so the story becomes boring: the characters don't evolve a lot, everything moves very slowly. We can't wait to see what happens next but it never comes. They try as much as possible to preserve the suspense but it bores the viewer quickly.

The second part of the story takes place in the Soul Society where Rukia came from. The anime becomes far more interesting because a lot more characters appear: the other Shinigamis. It's interesting to notice the different personalities of those characters, they are more complex than they seem to be and their appearances really help the anime get better. The story becomes more interesting too.

Rukia is put in jail because she helped Ichigo. Ichigo, of course, feels guilty about it and decides to help her. That's an interesting point to consider: should one help another even if one had to face the consequences afterwards? Is it Ichigo's fault or should Rukia only blame herself? The anime really has more depth than before thanks to this aspect, however, there are still some nice fights that are really impressive to watch.

The relationships between the characters have an important place in the anime, especially between Ichigo and Rukia: both hated each other in the beginning but their feelings slowly change and it's great to see that. Girl fans would be happy to feel a hint of love between those two! Bleach also shows us the importance of the family for someone: Ichigo now has tremendous powers but doesn't forget his father and his sisters. He also has more responsibility, more than any other 15 year old. How can he bear it? Can he still live as he used to? All these questions are subtly asked in the anime, giving him more depth than it first seemed.

The principal faults of the anime is how slow the story moves. The viewer will need a lot of patience because the main story is often cut by less important stories that are told only to make an episode last longer. That is really a shame because Bleach lost a lot of viewers because of it, including myself. All of the very good moments are sometimes not enough to stop the viewer from thinking that he is wasting his time.