The whole idea of Bleach is hard to swallow. There is a real world but there are monsters and super guys that fight them - that's what we need for our shounen story, maincharacter becoming some fighter and batteling mosters. Then we have two new world for monsters and those fighters - shinigami has SS and hollows has HM. There's still Hell that was see
once and only
once. There is mentioning about some other level with King or something and Royal Guards that used to be captains so this it heaven I guess. This itself has problems t be sew togheter because it is introduced in so many diffrent timelines of the story.
Wait, there is also a space between worlds - between SS and Real world, and there is diffrent space between HM and Real world - it was black y'know.
Then we get organisations in those worlds. We don't know much about Heaven and nothing about Hell except that there are lots of Komamuras there and they use their bankais to stab Hollows and bring them into Hell - I was going to ask WTF is Komammaru, but I found the anwser.
Komammaru is Hell's guardian kin!
In HM there were diffrent kinds of Hollows and for some reason there are lizard like hollows that came from... lizard's dead souls that had regreats? Anyway, there are diffrent levels of Hollows and they were just walking by and eating and helping each other depenting on their moods and personality. Then BOOM comes Aizen about 100 years ago and impresses everybody with his illusion making power and everybody is astonished about how someone that could now kill them all (its his job) helps them concuer the world if they make him king.
Finally, we have SS that has the most fucked thing like a training, survival for psychoes and kids (because in japan kids are worse than psychos - fear the power of cute girls) who might become shinigami and join diffrent squads. All squads have diffrent ideology because SS is so schizophrenic that they couldn't live by one true or ideology. There are people that likes fighting, and people that likes helping in cleaning stuff. There is more of people that are into fighting thing because of the survival thing that's outside the walls - so there are people that love killing, that are afraid of themself killing people or it makes them depressed or something but all of them need fighting so they can kill the hollows, right?
There is also squads that like to cast spells and make sparkles. There is squad for people that likes to dress in tight suits (unless you're a girl then by the rule of ridicullous woman's armor they wear nearly nothing - visable strings) and crouch in the darkness.
There were somehow choosen 46 dudes that told them what to do. There is a room full of people that have stupid heads but didn't do anything YET... or at least there used to be a room like that.
As for story itself there was SS arc and there is SS arc2 called HM arc. It's basicly repeating everything again plus showing off some more characters that were introduced in SS.
Cool Ganjiu, Kukkaku and Hanatarou are replaced by evil hollows that for some reason are insane enough to not be evil. Instead of one gatekeeper that showed us how Ichigo grew stronger we have two of them for Ishiada and Chad. Chad dosn't go long on his awesome expansion of killing cannon fodders (I used to be much more Chad's fan with his "Mu" because fillers and eventually making him what he is). It's more 1-1 now as if there weren't enough cannon fodders in the land of hollows.
Hotheaded halfboss:Renji is now Grimjaw, and cold boss:Byakuya is now Uluqoria(always sp?). Cat turining woman Yoruichi is now Nel that we suppose to give a shit because she has very annoying way of speaking and somehow is strong and is healing and is the one thing that bring us few jokes in Bleach. Grimjaw flashbacks at the end and strickes with nothing he can do and the whole fight could be presented in the same side of powerups like that one but they have bankais now.
There was a short between savign the dimesial arc, but it was more of fanservice - pick the best characters and make them fight without much character development but letting people know more about the story at least.
Bleach used to have quite good jokes like in Zombie Powder. Ichigo trowing table (with sign "prepered for this kind of joke") and main character of ZP had his cape trapped and was running backwards after the bus. Now it's only things like Renji being angry at some annoying guy and Ishida being angry at other annoying guy or Hitsugaya or Soifong being angry at their annoying VC but we somehow forgive Matsumoto because she has boobies.
Ichigo's bankai suppose to grand him speed that at his best to stop maximum power Byakuya's bankai. The other technique suppose to destroy his morale and it did because he became slow enough for B to finish him and save by his hollow.
Ichigo's 10second mask thing isn't something that applies to all Vaizards so it's just him that sucks donkey's balls.
It's just that if someone is faster than Ichigo's bankai and Ichigo needs to use his mask, that pretty much means that most captain wouldn't even see their ass being handed to people at this level - e.g. all espada. 7th espada was the fastest espada so faster than GJ that Ichigo couldn't keep up with when bankai only.
If Kubo follow through then this war thing would really be hell for SS. Vaizard and Urahara&co would be their only salavation.
All espada says they are best at something yet they are best at being stupid.
Even 11arrancar could cut Hitsugaya into pieces twice more and twice faster if they weren't chit chatting about Aizen's secrets.
Some people find Hitsugaya brilliant because he though that Gin was the bad guy. If Kubo didn't make Aizen the bad guy then Hitsugaya would be right and all cool, but he changed it and made him the biggest fool there is, even if he was the first to get to know that Aizen is alive (after Momo).
Most Bleach characters are flat, and only cooly design with their looks. We have Rangiku x Gin that was implied with 1 dream and 2 short sentences -and this is something deep for us, In Bleach.
Ichigo used to be very cool, and I used to see a part of myself in him when he was all about his mother. When he was deafeted by byakuya for the first time I felt sorry and wanted him to get better, but now he's not the same anymore and I don't care about him.
Kenshin wasn't favorite character in the manga creation group but he scored the first place in fan polls. Luffy and Naruto score higher than Ichigo in his own show.
I know that in Gantz they killed main character for a while, but if they did this in Bleach there wouldn't nobody that would be saying "when he'll come back" because there are many characters that can take his lightspot. Even if all shinigami aren't strong enought for that there are Vaizards that could get more story than "they used to be all captains and VC then got screwed over and had to wait 100 years for revange without telling anybody the truth" there is Urahara that could kill Aizen himself without using Ichigo as his weapon.
Why Yoruichi didn't return to SS in those 100 years and talk some sense to Yama-ji. Then there would be no suprise with Aizen going "I have goo eyesight, so I don't need glasses - I'm a superman"
Let me add one more ridiculous thing: Kon. That's right, our cool perverted friend. They are selled as candies. There were a box full of kons and yet our presious heroes rescued only one from that box, and the rest went to toiled. It's somehow multiply usage thing. Kon suppose to be for those moment when Rukia wasn't around to take Ichigo out of his body, but to put Ichigo back to his body he still needs that glove or something like that. Later he got a badge making Kon completly useless. Kon isn't much stronger than avrage Hollow and that's why he was canceled. For some reason this candy dosn't get digested and can be pulled out of somebody's stomach or ass - and that's the point: Kon could be shi't out of the system since he is food.
Plus Gigai is somewhat stupid, but that's what Urahara made, and it comes useful somehow. He used it to trick us and Yammy, but for some time there was flying man in the sky for normal people to see. Gigai is for extreme moments.
This mechanism from "Man in Black" that makes people with weak reiatsu forget stuff is naive.
Urahara placing Hyogaku in Rukia is the biggest random thing in Bleach ever. How the f' did he picked her? Twin sister of future captain wife. She being a baby makes her 100 years old and for at least 50 being a baby Oo' That's impossible to survive that long as a baby.