this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2025
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Anime

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Let me preface by saying: I tried posting this on /r/bleach, but it got removed. Apparently, critical takes aren’t welcome over there.

Anyway...

The second image with the scene with Ichigo looking all flirty at Uryu just made me see the dialog all in a totally different light. And the last image with the scene on the bottom (with Orihime looking all hopeful after being dressed up) made me write what I was thinking. This is me reading in between the lines.

Other than that, the dialog from the anime is all the same.

Ichigo's saying, "I-I mean... Uryu's secondary," and then blushing while talking about Uryu? Like what the hell is that? Lot of gay vibes from that one. Also, Uryu blushing over Ichigo and even says he doesn't care about Ichigo, meanwhile he tells Ichigo, "Be careful, you idiot," before Ichigo goes to Hueco Mundo?

The filler the animators added, showing Orihime 'rushing to Ichigo's arms,' somehow just made it seem worse. Ichigo looks like he's being given a grenade. Not a sweetheart. I don't know why the animators even added this. Hasn't there been enough filler? Seriously.

And yeah. people say that because Ichigo protected Orihime and that somehow shows love. He's protected many people in the series; may as well get a marriage ring for them too. I mean, you never see Ichigo interact with Orihime outside of chaotic situations. Also, the girl never challenged Ichigo on anything. She's just there to orbit him.

As my brother said, Orihime was a fart in the wind; she literally had no agency aside from being reduced to some girl with huge tits, following Ichigo around, hoping he would notice her. But the guy never noticed her. That, or it gave the message that he never was into chicks. It was so one sided.

When it comes to Rangiku and Yoruichi showing off the goods, Ichigo looked more horrified than turned on. Not exactly what you'd expect from a straight teenaged guy. Even Goku, dumb as a bag of bricks, never reacted like that. He didn’t freak out or get all weirded out. It’s like Ichigo didn’t know what to do with women at all, like the idea just didn’t click with him. The dude gave off zero interest.

The epilogue showing Ichigo and Orihime as married? Sad. They were literally shoved together. Orihime is looking like everything is fine, while pretending to play house. Ichigo looked like he left his soul in Hueco Mundo, that's not how a hero is supposed to go out. He didn't even look happy being married. No smile of endearment directed at his 'supposed wife', nothing. No convincing warmth (even Goku and Chichi had this covered). Seems like it was a marriage to uphold appearances really.

Kubo would have been better off just have Ichigo make a dramatic swing at a hollow with his huge kitchen knife for a Zanpaktou as the epilogue. Would have been so much cleaner of an ending. Instead of that marriage and child crap; where Ichigo looks like a man who had given up on living.

And outside of being a soul reaper, the dude has no identity. Take that away, and who is he? I mean, he was a soul reaper, but he wasn't the one making the decisions as the main protagonist. He was aimless and just gaining more power for the sake of it. He never questioned anything. Just tunnel vision. Other characters were pulling him and there and he just followed like a machine for the sake of the plot; like he was a mere plot device. And all he could really say was, I'll stop this person or that person, and "I will protect insert subject here."

Goku, dumb as he is, had more direction and demonstrated better capability in decision making. Meanwhile, it's like Ichigo had no will of his own to make his own decisions. Like he was held hostage by the script; which he was in the end.

Ichigo was a soul reaper. The only soul he ended up reaping in the end, was his own.

So, this is my criticism of Kubo's script. And the anime hasn't made it any better.

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[–] Goodeye8@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Bleach is a name I haven't heard in a long time. I used to watch it like almost 20 years ago and I stopped when I realized it was all flash and no substance. Things didn't happen because they made sense, things happened because they looked cool. I don't know if the storytelling has improved since the Arrancar arc but I stopped watching around that and as such my opinion is based on that.

I'm not dissing on the gay Ichigo theory (IMO it would've at least made it a bit more interesting) but Occam's razor would state that it's more likely that Kubo simply didn't bother with the interpersonal relations which is why they're very open to interpretation. It's also why Ichigo and many other characters have little to no identity, because the story actually isn't even about them. They exists solely to set up cool looking set pieces.

[–] dreaperxz@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

All valid points you bring up.

No, the story telling hasn't improved in the slightest. And the TYBW arc is perhaps the worst in canon. It's even more flash and no substance than ever before. And as I said in the original post, Ichigo's been reduced to a cog in the machine. So, you definitely haven't missed a thing. I've seen the recent anime, and the pacing is awful too.

Because Kubo didn't bother with interpersonal relations, this is people (like me) are coming to these conclusions (like Ichigo and Uryu being a better match); especially after Kubo had enough of rinsing and recycling the same idea over and over, leading to a epilogue where he just shoved Ichigo and Orihime together.

But yeah. Because of how Kubo handled interpersonal relations, it's not to hard to see Icihgo as being gay, since he seems to have more chemistry with Uryu than he ever did Orihime; along with him looking horrified when any girl showed him some skin, or him not grabbing a hint when a female character was into him. Meanwhile, in that scene, with Ichigo talking to Uryu, it looked almost like subtle flirting that Ichigo himself wasn't even aware of. And which gave me a creative idea for dialog.

It's not surprising people are writing gay fics about Ichigo on AO3. And a lot of them are not even using canon in the slightest. Because I assume canon is just too much of a mess to pick up from. So, those writers are generally making their own AU with the characters in it.

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Thing that made me stop watching this crap was when after tens of episodes with moderately boring duels, the actually interesting intrigue of Gin failed to kill Aizen. The "main boss needs to be killed by protagonist" trope was incredibly crudely hamfisted there. And then power reset and everything from the start.

Bleach was only anime i ever seen where filler arcs were better than normal ones.

[–] dreaperxz@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Actually makes a ton of sense; it was rinse and repeat. Ichigo had next to no development; especially after the Soul Society Arc.

The filler was better throughout. Except maybe the Bount Arc. But I didn't really think it was that awful. Unlike the TYBW arc that's been animated recently. Ichigo's just not even there; even when he's in any scenes. Except for when he looks like he's low-key checking out Uryu (which gave me a creative dialog idea). That's about it.

[–] anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

He gotta get married or they can't create Lemon Juice the exciting new anime that follows Nigo, son of Ichigo, on his adventures.

[–] dreaperxz@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Huh... Sounds so exciting. But wasn't it Kazui, who came out of nowhere?

[–] anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ah, I haven't watched bleach since they ran around in Hueco Mundo. I just pulled the classic trope "Let's create a kid to continue earning money from the franchise" out of my ass.

[–] dreaperxz@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Ain't that the sad truth? The art was on point (for the main characters). The character development? No. But hey. It's about money, right?

No wonder Kubo wrapped up the story abruptly. He was running on fumes and shoved Ichigo and Orihime together as a packaged deal. So much for that. No chemistry for that pairing to even make sense. Now, Ichigo and Uryu? Makes more sense. But Kubo would never do something creative like that. Because as you mentioned, the classic, boring trope came first.

And it wasn't even a good trope. Makes me think of the TV shows and movies today; recycling the same crap because it's safe and makes money. Western producers don't take risks like they used to. And Kubo's Bleach universe? It mirrors that.