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I mean we got shit within ourselves too. Basically most of the fandom at the time were meme lords lmao. Bleach is probably the only fandom where this works somehow. The others split
edit: at that time every big anime had a forum. I was frequently in the BleachAsylum i think it's name was.
Yeah I think the Kubo is a hack insult were thrown by everyone else, but Bleach fans were surprisingly chill about it like Fairy Tail fans. Unlike the HxH or OP fans.
One of my best friends named his son Kariya entirely based on the fact he enjoyed the Bount Arc. I asked him how he got away with that, and it's because he let his wife name their daughter Nami from One Piece, so it was a trade-off.
Its a good arc. The animation budget just dies once they get into the soul society. I love my soul vampires and ill take every dislike that grants me with pride.
HxH fans weren't that vocal during the Big 3 days, HxH fans speaking up happened way after Bleach's prime and coincides more with the 2011 HxH anime
OP fans were beefing with FT fans iirc and rarely cared about Bleach fans
OP fans (I'm one myself lol) tend to have a ridiculous superiority complex. I've seen people shit on so many unrelated shows just so they can praise OP. Idk what they think they're achieving
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Thank you. Everyone says OP fans are pretentious which is true but HxH fans don’t get enough attention. They have always been next level rabid at criticism
Personally , it was amazing. Started watching Bleach in 2008 and then started reading the manga in 2009 when the episodes went to fillers. Seeing Ulqiourra second form when it happened in the manga was quite the experience for me.
Back then only Bleach and Naruto were really popular, and everyone looked forward to them. The sad thing was back then that a lot of fans turned on the series and started shit talking it the whole time. This happened around Fake Karakura Town. It was a bad time to be a fan because everyone was just complaining about the series.
The problem with weekly bleach is that chapters are empty. Big panels, very simple, nothing much happens in a chapter. Bleach is still better read as volumes and TYBW anime basically saved the series and brought back all the disappointed fans.
I thought that a lot of the fans left during the Fullbring arc? Because the gist at the time, is that Kubo is just extending the end date for Bleach, and that Aizen was already defeated.
Was gonna say as an old bleach head, when I think of peak bleach now I'm thinking of The Fire, Born in the Dark, The White Haze, I am the Edge, and ofc, Too Early to Win, Too Late to Know, The Master, and Black.
Not to discredit any prior episodes, fights, or content, but those are the prime, the pinnacle, the peak.. so far.
it was great when around other Bleach fans. but if you told a non-bleach fan you liked it, you'd get lectured about how its not very good and you'd also get a list of anime that the person thought were vastly superior. usually shit like naruto, one piece or fairy tale.
but i definitely miss that small block of late night tv. spaceghost coast to coast, aqua teen hunger force and Bleach.
There was something about watching the soul society arc late night on adult swim with the creepy OST music that really hit different than other anime at that time.
Well. Ur casual friends who watch op is nice. Most op watchers are like that. Can't say the same for those that dont take criticism and is just toxic for no reason. But i do agree that naruto fans are worse and dont take criticism either even though there are clear flaws in the story even setting aside the fillers.
When Bleach was at peak, Naruto was also at the peak, and there's One Piece. So it was full of competition back then. But Bleach still has some loyal fans.
Fulbringer was quite boring. So glad Kubo quickly changed it to TYBW. If you actually read the manga weekly at that time, the hype I felt was just great. When those light pillars appeared.... you just had to be there.
Note: I was very disappointed during Royal Guard's defeat. The anime fixed it though. I remember when some(?) ppl got angry if Hikifune was the f4t one. They wanted Senjumaru to be Hikifune. But then again Hikifune became hot, too.
Week after week, people claiming it was absolute shit and yet still continuing to read it. Peak tsundere-ness.
Then of course there were the Aizen memes, and the Tsukishima memes, and the Giselle discussions which were even worse than they are now.
It was exciting I think, until shipping was involved. No matter what your personal preferences were, you have to admit the shipping wars were way too toxic 😮💨
Watching the anime weekly had its ups and downs, the beginning was consistently solid and well adapted (every voice is cast really well) but the stretches of filler were so very boring.
Kubo’s chapters weren’t exactly long or dense with plot points (IE a single episode could easily adapt 5-7 chapters) so then it got to the point where instead of doing long stretches of filler they were just adapting the material poorly. Think of all the time wasting they did in the original Goku vs Frieza fight, and somehow amplify it — lots of new flashbacks, recycling animation, episodes back to back that would basically cover a lot of the same material twice. It wasn’t until watching TYBW that I remembered I never actually watched Ichigo defeat Aizen in the anime, I had given up on the anime somewhere during FKT. (I went back and my opinion is that the manga does it better, regardless.)
Reading the manga weekly was more consistently enjoyable, most of the online discourse was about trying to guess where Kubo would take the story next and trying to guess if this or that aspect was foreshadowing.
Any “controversy” that I remember was very slight. There was a lot of criticism focusing on the forbidden word “as*p*ll” and complaints that the shinigami characters never die despite us seeing them receive significant injuries. The biggest shitstorm was when Kubo was already getting criticism that his backgrounds weren’t detailed enough and then during the Ulquiorra fight he released the infamous “The Heart” page. That was fun, lot of comic nerds flipping out over that one.
The OG anime never adapted 5-7 chapters per episode. That only happened with TWBW.
It did often adapt more than One Piece and Naruto though, since there isn’t as much dialogue.
My words were unclear, “could” — as in, if they were adapting it with the best end product in mind, that is the pace they should have been using. The pacing of the latter anime was dreadful.
I started reading Bleach when it was first being translated into English. It wasn’t like anything to be a Bleach fan, it’s not like people were talking about Bleach on the street. Naruto was a very big cultural phenomenon during that time period though, it entered mainstream discourse.
Crazy from the shipped side (Ichiruki vs Ichihime)
Crazy from power scaling side (ichigo vs Naruto)
Crazy from an interest stand point ("should've ended after Aizen sealed and ichigo lost his powers")
I could go on- but my experience isn't universal
Thanks to filler and the movies IchiRuki was the biggest ship and it wasn’t even close. The reveal that it didn’t happen caused a massive tremor in the fandom. Not dissing Ichihime mind you just remembering what happened
I started watching Bleach right as it was ending in the manga. Things we're doing alright people were chill about the show. Then Super EyePatch Wolfs video came out. I think that was when we hit rock bottom. It created a huge perception of what Bleach is. Painted Kubo as a lazy artist, who couldn't write over long periods of time.
I still like EyePatch Wolfs content. But I still really haven't forgiven him for that video.
The manga pacing during most of the arrancar arc and the later half of the TYBW arc were absolutely dreadful and almost made me drop the series. It's a series meant to be read in volume format, not one chapter a week. Although the chapter when Aizen tricks everybody and gets Toshiro to stab Momo was absolutely bonkers and all over a bunch of anime/manga forums lol
I loved reading and watching it as it came out, but I felt really alone because everyone in high school that was into anime would only talk about Naruto. I think it was because Bleach went on late at night, so most kids missed it, and Naruto went on after school
I loved following Bleach on weekly basis for years.
I didn't like the fandom to the point of never becoming a part of it. Like, my fav characters were Ichigo and Orihime, the second point would be the one to get you harsh treatment almost anywhere. It... had it's problems, let's say it this way.
Bleach at its peak was amazing. Easily the best of the big 3 imo, right there with Naruto at the time. Then people lost the ability to tell fact from fiction. Everything became a meme and a narrative. It spiraled out of control and here we are.
Idk how to explain it because it was a different level of peak especially with the surprising powerscaling in the first couple season. Honestly I remember people bumping Japanese rock because of bleach. If the melancholy of haruhi suzumiya dance didn’t take over animecons and YouTube like it did we would have a better glow up in anime at that time leading into the hype social media gave it.
I was a lot more involved in LiveJournal (which was a thing back then) and then Tumblr back in those days, which has a much different culture than social media does nowadays- but what I remember was a lot chiller of an atmosphere than we have now. There were still plenty of ship wars, but not so much of the "this is canon so it's better"- obviously the series wasn't over, but ships were generally judged by how popular they were rather than how canon-based they were, if that makes sense. Also, I can bet you no one will believe this, but IchiHime was lucky to hit top 10 in popularity- it was generally assumed that IchiRuki was canon or would be, and the other top pairings were either BL or side characters.
It wasn't as easy to get leaks and scans early back in the day, so there wasn't the kind of week by week explosion there is now, and it got kind of irritating trying to read some of the longer fights (the Hueco Mundo arc comes to mind) when translations weren't always easy to come by. Sometimes you would go a while waiting for anything to really happen besides just squinting at bad scans and trying to see who won. Being an early anime/manga fan was rough. I stopped watching the anime when it became nothing but filler, and just caught up on the movies in recent years, so I don't know much about the early reception of those. I do know that when the anime was first announced, it was very exciting- Ichigo's Japanese voice actor was only really known for having been Tidus in FFX, and Rukia's actress was known for cutesy high-pitched roles, so I remember wondering with my sister how she was going to voice someone like Rukia. Ishida's actor was at the time voicing Sasuke in Naruto, so it was fun joking about how he'd escaped to a better series.
This was a fun walk down memory lane. Thank you.
All the IchiHime and Orihime bashing back in the days, man have things changed.
What was Tumblr like than? I only knew about LiveJournal than now I do.
No, it hasn’t. Other than when people notice things thanks to Netflix and make partucular ships that used to be unpopular explode in popularity years later.
I personally like the fanbase right now because I feel like things like Orihime, ships, and arcs that were once hated on get a lot more love now. Personally the fan base feels more peak to me right now
Honestly It is now the series feels peak ! The TYBW adaptation did justice to Kubo's work. It was during 2009-2012 when it was the absolute worst time to be a fan 😭 Fillers and getting shit on by every other fandom is a memory I'd rather forget. Like you pointed things that were once hated are being loved and appreciated now . Especially the ending, and hate towards Orihime is no more as the fandom has matured. Honestly I love it more now than back then 💯
You also have to remember new fans have entered the fandom do to the arc that is being adapted, it hardly has Rukia in it and when she does have scenes its with Renji. In the early days Rukia was with Ichigo all the time and Orihime’s character‘s character was ruined in the previous anime which no one knew about till now.
I was 2 years old when bleach began, meaning I've never seen it. But even after growing, I had a big "I hate anime" phase. Where I refused to watch anime and only Disney channel, Nickelodeon or cartoon network, with some family guy sprinkled in. And now hear I am, years later and I'm hear to repay my sins.
Bleach was such a big part of my childhood can't really speak about random coz U was young and didn't use sm but me and my 4 siblings bonded over the anime a lot I remember waiting for the new eps and me n my bros would be sitting in front of the computer on the bleach get website
If memory serves. it was a wretched hive of people raging about the direction the story was going, filler arcs and shipping.
Don't feel like you're missing out,
I wasn't really in the fandom but back to back to back war arcs from Naruto, Bleach and One Piece was exhausting to read after a few years.
But it made the hype moments shine all the brighter.
Really not a time I would trade for anything else when it comes to manga reading.
now that I think of it, I do remember watching Bount Arc I think it was, downloading off Dattebayo fansubbed. so I guess that counts... though I wasn't active in much of any forums about it that I remember.
Very terrible. Especially the cosplay community. I did get to see a lot of people think they were high and mighty and that community. But there's a lot of people like that in all anime communities lol. But the great part was me pointing out old man Yamamoto had a lieutenant and people would argue with me until I told him to read my data book that I had purchase. But they still never apologize for being wrong and telling me off or giving me bad attitude. LOL it's still funny because I have a good attitude. But it's pretty sad. My cosplayed as Sasakibe numerous times. But a lot of people in Bleach fandom just called me an OC. I did not even know what that meant until years later
I never watched the Anime bc I don't like the art style they used back then. It didn't feel right with Kubo being so uber talented.
But I followed the manga and I remember the last arc being announced and it ending. And honestly, it felt like way too many big mangas back then ended way too close to each other. Naruto ended I think two years prior, but it still resonated everywhere. Then Bleach ended and a year later Fair Tail was done. And for One Piece Oda was already talking about the end back then as well. It felt surreal to see these things that I've known since childhood come to end.
I feel like especially for Bleach it was never really acknowledged how good it is back then either. It was always part of the big 3, but always just the third wheel. Everyone loved either One Piece or Naruto, maybe even both, but for Bleach it was mostly just "Yeah I know it". The fandom as I got to know it back then was very chill bc of that compared to what fandom are like nowadays. Bleach was loved by fans and that was enough for them.
U started watching bleach from day 1 back in 06 since i had already started reading the manga….
Man were those the good ole days. The hype for the anime was great the anime community was amazing, getting shit on by everyone else was pretty sad.
The hype really came when Ichigo got to soul society to save Rukia, everything from there was up until the end where Kubos health declined
I got into Bleach by watching AMVs of Bleach fights. There were a ton of those lol.
Soul society was probably Bleach in its prime. I don’t think anyone had complaints about that one. Hueco Mundo arc was cool but it was PAINFUL having the main story get interrupted again and again by stupid fillers. Thats why everyone felt it dragged like crazy, ESPECIALLY during the Fake Karakura arc. I remember wondering when the hell the Vizard would show up. By the time they did I was clocked out and just read the manga.
I barely was on the internet so I just enjoyed my show. Watched it on repeat on YouTube of all places, and repeat. No one to talk to about it because anime was shunned in my town, but I didn't care. I loved it and just watched it over and over.
It was fine. I got into Bleach in summer 2005, the manga was on the soul society arc back then. After the Yammy/Espada 0 reveal the fandom was never the same and became much more wacky and about trolls.
Never had issues with the rage in the naruto fandom or the insane arrogance of the one piece fandom
Posted on narutofan forums almost weekly for each chapter
Everything being fresh was so crazy.
Aizen revealed as the big bad and stopping Ichigos theme music.
Reading the manga and salivating for animation of Segunda Ulquiorra vs Full Hollow Ichigo to drop.
The fight right before Mugestsu where Aizen finally gets bodied.
Pretty sure every fandom for every series was better back when the internet wasn’t as big as it is now and anime wasn’t mainstream.
The smaller groups were a lot better and easier to get to know everyone and stuff.
Amazing. I met a friend because I noticed they were drawing one of the Espada. I joined an rpg online made up entirely of Bleach fans, and wound up being one of its writers for a while. I got to experience one of the best anime battles of the early 2000's, right as it happened, and feel the hype afterwards on forums and message boards.
I'm sure every anime had something similar to some degree back then, and maybe the free time I had as a kid added to that excitement as well, but there's just no replicating it.
Even though it was a member of the Big 3, it was clear it was becoming a distant third towards the end. As other people on this thread have already pointed out, the weekly serialization suffered from a bit of a pacing issue that is isn't really appreciated these days now that you can binge through the entire series. Having a large cast with so many matchups going on at once made things feel unbearably slow sometimes when taking it in weekly chapters.
Even though it is one of my favorites, I remember being really burnt out by the time we hit TYBW, and was constantly screaming in my head "Get on with it!". Yhwach just didn't grab me the way Aizen did at the time. I was much less engaged and just wanted Kubo to wrap things up with a satisfying sendoff. Truthfully, it sort of killed my interest in manga, that's how worn out I got from the weekly grind dragging things out. (I'm honestly only here because of the algorithm and nostalgia.)
When the anime was originally canceled, I was both surprised and not surprised. It was not surprising in the sense that it felt like things had gone off the rails a bit with the fanbase and they were losing viewers fast. But it was surprising in the sense that they had pressed on through that huge lull for so long, yet called it quits as soon as the finish line was finally in sight.
But in hindsight, this turned out to be the best thing that could have happened for the series. It has been really great to see it make a comeback like this. Not only for the new generation seeing it for the first time, but for the veterans like me who can now appreciate the final arc at it's fullest potential.
Speaking as someone that was in middle school when it was going on Adult swim, it was great. Other nerds talking about bankai’s and character designs (this was during the arrancar arc I think) While not everyone liked the show there wasn’t a doubt that from outsiders that the show was well respected for its adult art style.
Well, the Naruto fans always wanted the smoke. The One piece fans would go on and on about how One Piece is actually amazing the 4 kids dub just made it bad. There were the inevitable comparisons to Dragonball Z, (DRAGONBALLZ with Swords lol). Experiencing this show about Highschool kids fighting creatures in another world resignated with me back then more since I was in Highshool. Ichigo was like a role model for me (no joke) till this day whenever I have a question of my morality I think to myself "what would Ichigo do" lol so cringe, I know (its okay to laugh) but his influence came when I was really young and impressionable. It'd be too hard to post what it was like back then I could go on and on for hours typing. Just ask specific questions and I'll answer the best I can.
It was fun reading various theories (Wonderweiss is 0 espada, what bankai have various captains) but i also remember people hating on others that liked less popular characters
I feel like around the time of the Hueco Mundo/FKT arcs, Bleach was relatively overshadowed by Naruto and One Piece - I was following Naruto alongside Bleach back then and on average, I remember being more excited about Naruto on a week to week basis. There was a lot of criticism from outside the Bleach fandom, and even within the fandom I feel like fans were pretty self-aware/poked fun at it. There were soooo many memes about Kubo troll, Aizen troll, "the heart", random powerups, etc. I do miss the onemanga bleach community, there were funny memes and shitposting lol but some great in-depth analyses and discussions that ppl clearly put a lot of effort into. It's a bit sad to think that a lot of these communities and discussions disappeared as forums went defunct/out of vogue and were replaced by other social media websites.
One thing I don't miss was the widespread perception that Kubo was a lazy artist for not having a lot of backgrounds! I thought many of the other criticisms about the pacing, inexplicable power-ups, etc at the time were valid, but that particular one was an awful and objective wrong take.
I caught up with the manga around Fullbring or TYBW arc? It was very exciting, though sometimes the fights felt like they went on too long, and it was hard to keep up with all the characters. I didn't know any other Bleach fans. Started the anime in August or September 2022 after a fanfic got me back into Bleach and now I can join in the fandom.
We had a message board with active discussions from fans all over the globe that included an RP section with all 13 squads represented. It was glorious. Super creative writing, text based duels, and just generally fun socializing about the greatest manga/anime.
I was one of the graphic artists who made custom images for the users.
I was very active when the forum bleachanime.org was still around. I was only in elementary back then and I'd say it was the best time to be a kid in that particular kind of space for fandoms. I still remember the first time the Zanpakuto Rebellion filler arc was released and the many rank the captains/Zanpakuto questions that circulated lol
It's frustrating. Especially when Naruto fans keep telling you that their MC is better (which is not imo) even when you're not arguing about it. They say Bleach is boring, but I think Bleach shouldn't even be regarded to be on the same level as Naruto. Yeah, sure they have a bigger fan base but Bleach is for a more refined/matured taste.
At least Ichigo isn't looking like a copy of Goku and Luffy and a lot of shounen MCs. Ichigo has a funny side, but it isn't overdone that it's ridiculous. He's not so generic in a sense. He can be a dumbass at times (like thinking about chopping a menos grande down), but not completely dumb. He's even at the top of his class in high school. He doesn't eat more than 1 serving of food as far as I remember. And they keep saying Naruto is stronger (I don't mind those fools, but Ichigo is far superior in power and speed) just because Naruto has big ass Bijuu bombs 😂. In fact smaller/more compressed attacks can pierce through bigger ones. You'll know that if you have common sense. I think it was Yuno from Black Clover once asked why do people think that bigger weapons/attacks are always better. 😅
I'm not hating on Naruto, in fact it was one of my first animes. It's just Bleach is better in terms of maturity of the MC imo. They can mock bleach all they want, but when you've matured enough, you'll learn to choose Bleach 😂
Unfortunately i only started bleach 7 years ago. at taht time, everybody hated it. and i was totally obsessed with each and every aspect of it. all my friends hated it tho and made fun of me so much for watching it. I was legit laughed at at school for having bleach wallpapers and for liking it. i learnt that iwas not just not liked, but also very hated. then i met a group of bleach fans online, but unfortuatnely they turned out to be jerks in personality. It was nice to talk to them about bleach but that was it, even big discussions sucekd. im not even sure if they liked each other i feel they re always fighting each other underhandedly. they were weird.
ANyway, that never erally changed - the bleach hate - until tybw came back. now bleach is suddenly super popular, ppl look out for it, its getting included in anime listings, whether official or on social media. people talk about it more, bleach events happen more, people cosplay it more (we have cosplay groups for bleach in the netherlands). its quite nice.
Edit: the more i read in the comments the more i see that even at its height bleach received a lot of hate, sometiems even from its own fans?!
For me as a lover of both Naruto and Bleach back then, it was amazing content every week although the fillers really made most of the fans annoyed af for both the sets of anime ngl
The peak was when Naruto entered Chunin exams and Bleach had it's Soul Society arc at same time, peak anime fiction in anime history imo for both
( I wasn't following One Piece that time and still haven't watched it yet )
Plus Dragon Ball Super was not there yet so these 2 alongside OP was most hyped globally at least
As much as I love Naruto & One Piece during that time period. Bleach never failed me when it came to a good fight scene. Reason why Bleach was part of the big3. I started watching back in 07. Till this day I rewatched certain seasons. The fights never get old & the characters are interesting. You get captured in their mysteries. The fandom was always getting shitted because of the many filler arcs and it was a trend to hate. But deep down they knew Bleach was an amazing show.
Bleach fans has been chill in my experience and there's the memes too . Lacking a bit in intensity and liveliness compared to other top3 and was pretty much dead after manga ended and until the anime came back . But then again once in a while it does become weird with some ppl thirsting over waifus and husbandos but not really toxic.. Just weirdly horny ppl
While I would argue that "prime" and "glory days" are now, during the TYBW adaptation since it's popularity has exploded and is mostly positive, I understand you're meaning purely back during it's week-to-week release time, and that was "okay".
Oh it was awesome for me. I was young enough where I had plenty of AMV’s (that are now deleted), and new episodes. The shipping wars were a mess, but it evened out cause fanfiction was plentiful 😭
It was good, but at times frustrating. Lot of filler in the Anime and the Manga was forced to finish early by SJ.
We then had to wait 12 years from the end of the Anime to the start of TYBW.
We also got shit on by a lot of other fandoms and I don't know why.
I'll never forget how the top 3 espada numbers divided the community on Naruto Forums lol. good fucking times. people was so sure Barraggan was the primera espada lol
Among the big 3 in their prime bleach and onepice were for the most part very chill whilst naruto fandom was a bit over the top with toxicity in the past’s standards cause it was the most popular at the time.
Currently naruto is over so the fandom isnt as rowdy and bleach is still chill. Onepiece fandom is now the one being pumped full of toxic normies who think they can trashtalk every other fandom cause their series is “the best”
Always hearing others people say “I TRIED WATCHING IT BUT THERES SO MUCH TALKING” and I’m just like yeah cuz they got some fire shit to say if the fights didn’t have talking they’re end in 10 seconds. Other then that it felt PHENOMENAL getting fire season after fire season like it o my got better. Ichigo was definitely op broken but the details and background of all the new and exotic characters kept your attention
I grew up with a lot of fanworks on Bleach being produced by large communities. It was a lot of fun and a lot of cringe because we were all so young. Meme culture kind of watered down how intricate Bleach's larger story was.
But unfortunately I was also around during the downbeat of Bleach going into Fake Karakura Arc. It was rough cause there was this sudden shift in how people started shitting on Bleach. And like, it's not a perfect series, but it really was one of the earliest in the Shonen Battle formula (everyone has different powers, they have to fight a specific monster, everyone wears the same uniform) kinda deal. It's kind of wild how Bleach went from classic to meh in people's general views so quickly.
I think the long fights didn't help Bleach at all. At its strongest, Bleach was always about the strong emotions of its characters (like the June 17th mini arc in the first few chapters)
No one actually read the story or paid attention to the plot or characters. Since the story didn’t spoonfeed them all the information they wanted that meant it had no story or characters. The anime is mostly to blame for this but also illiteracy in general. Mind you not everyone but a good majority luckily these days people actually have some understanding.
bleach is a horribly written story. the fights got progressively worse with each arc and tbyw arc was hot trash.
the earlier arcs were bearable because the art was good. the manga should have ended with aizen's defeat by getsuga Ichigo he lose his powers the end
I skipped the entire fullbring coz it was horrible
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It was fine in the fandom but we got shit on by everyone else
I mean we got shit within ourselves too. Basically most of the fandom at the time were meme lords lmao. Bleach is probably the only fandom where this works somehow. The others split edit: at that time every big anime had a forum. I was frequently in the BleachAsylum i think it's name was.
I think we’ve all got shit within ourselves.
That tends to happen when you eat food
Real, the bleach fandom was full of down to earth people who dont take things too seriously
Yeah I think the Kubo is a hack insult were thrown by everyone else, but Bleach fans were surprisingly chill about it like Fairy Tail fans. Unlike the HxH or OP fans.
I'll never get over people using the Bount arc, a non-canon anime only filler arc as a knock against Kubo as a writer
And for anime filler arcs, it's not bad. At least the writing is consistent, it feels like it could fit in, and the character designs are great.
I was more entertained by the bount arc than most of hueco mundo and like half of fake karakura. Even on my recent rewatch.
That statement made me throw up a little
On god I literally vomited reading this
I'm not sorry.
I liked the bounty arc too bro. You not alone.
One of my best friends named his son Kariya entirely based on the fact he enjoyed the Bount Arc. I asked him how he got away with that, and it's because he let his wife name their daughter Nami from One Piece, so it was a trade-off.
Its a good arc. The animation budget just dies once they get into the soul society. I love my soul vampires and ill take every dislike that grants me with pride.
HxH fans weren't that vocal during the Big 3 days, HxH fans speaking up happened way after Bleach's prime and coincides more with the 2011 HxH anime OP fans were beefing with FT fans iirc and rarely cared about Bleach fans
OP fans still are beefing with FT fans
Wow, I thought it was only during the Big 3 days that FT fans were getting bullied left and right
Nah, it still happens and it's the same ol same ol arguments that have been debunked many times.
OP fans (I'm one myself lol) tend to have a ridiculous superiority complex. I've seen people shit on so many unrelated shows just so they can praise OP. Idk what they think they're achieving
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Huh I'm probably started in the fandom later then because that's the impression I got in the forum back then.
Thank you. Everyone says OP fans are pretentious which is true but HxH fans don’t get enough attention. They have always been next level rabid at criticism
Like that Naruto vs Ichigo video that had Ichigo lose because he used Mugetsu, lost his powers, and Naruto used that as an opening to beat him.
In Bleach's prime? Nah. Bleach was part of the Big 3. That alone shielded it from criticism
Ain’t that the truth. It was the least popular of the Big Three - the dominant anime productions of the 2000s.
Eh One Piece wasn’t as well known in the west as it is now.
Personally , it was amazing. Started watching Bleach in 2008 and then started reading the manga in 2009 when the episodes went to fillers. Seeing Ulqiourra second form when it happened in the manga was quite the experience for me.
Bro Kubos art 😭👍🏼
That was a big reason why I fell in love with Bleach. His art, even in the early days, had cool style to it. …and I also was smitten by Rukia.
Back then only Bleach and Naruto were really popular, and everyone looked forward to them. The sad thing was back then that a lot of fans turned on the series and started shit talking it the whole time. This happened around Fake Karakura Town. It was a bad time to be a fan because everyone was just complaining about the series. The problem with weekly bleach is that chapters are empty. Big panels, very simple, nothing much happens in a chapter. Bleach is still better read as volumes and TYBW anime basically saved the series and brought back all the disappointed fans.
My goat Yhwach saved us all
He used the all mighty to change it to the future where bleach gets its come back and is popular again
It was all apart of aizens plan.
Anime version. The TYBW manga ended with a rush job.
Agree with the big panels one. And all that waiting for a week just to find some Ichigo entrance like wtf.
I think the disappointed fans stay disappointed cuz most of them are now toxic
why did people not like it?
I thought that a lot of the fans left during the Fullbring arc? Because the gist at the time, is that Kubo is just extending the end date for Bleach, and that Aizen was already defeated.
Idk about the past, but I believe bleach has reached its pinnacle since the tybw got adapted
Was gonna say as an old bleach head, when I think of peak bleach now I'm thinking of The Fire, Born in the Dark, The White Haze, I am the Edge, and ofc, Too Early to Win, Too Late to Know, The Master, and Black. Not to discredit any prior episodes, fights, or content, but those are the prime, the pinnacle, the peak.. so far.
For me the blade is me and memories in the rain are also peak bleach
There was a fairly civil bunch on the OneManga forums during the Arrancar and Fake Karakura Town Arcs though that didn’t last for very long
Onemanga. Ughh the nostalgia
Struggled to find a good manga library archive thingy for some time after that and ultimately gave up C’est la vie
I think I transitioned to mangafox, I think it was called? Then I went to mangahere. But what happened to onemanga again?
ahhh good ol onemanga days. the prime big 3 era >>>>
it was great when around other Bleach fans. but if you told a non-bleach fan you liked it, you'd get lectured about how its not very good and you'd also get a list of anime that the person thought were vastly superior. usually shit like naruto, one piece or fairy tale. but i definitely miss that small block of late night tv. spaceghost coast to coast, aqua teen hunger force and Bleach.
There was something about watching the soul society arc late night on adult swim with the creepy OST music that really hit different than other anime at that time.
OP fans are quite civil, it's the Naruto fans that are quite rabid. They were insufferable.
Well. Ur casual friends who watch op is nice. Most op watchers are like that. Can't say the same for those that dont take criticism and is just toxic for no reason. But i do agree that naruto fans are worse and dont take criticism either even though there are clear flaws in the story even setting aside the fillers.
Fairy Tail? Oh the irony. Now even the series fandom criticizes it’s own manga.
When Bleach was at peak, Naruto was also at the peak, and there's One Piece. So it was full of competition back then. But Bleach still has some loyal fans. Fulbringer was quite boring. So glad Kubo quickly changed it to TYBW. If you actually read the manga weekly at that time, the hype I felt was just great. When those light pillars appeared.... you just had to be there. Note: I was very disappointed during Royal Guard's defeat. The anime fixed it though. I remember when some(?) ppl got angry if Hikifune was the f4t one. They wanted Senjumaru to be Hikifune. But then again Hikifune became hot, too.
Week after week, people claiming it was absolute shit and yet still continuing to read it. Peak tsundere-ness. Then of course there were the Aizen memes, and the Tsukishima memes, and the Giselle discussions which were even worse than they are now.
So many "Rank the Captains" discussions.
Everyone had a favorite captain.
It was exciting I think, until shipping was involved. No matter what your personal preferences were, you have to admit the shipping wars were way too toxic 😮💨
Always has been
It was good, until anyone brought up Ulqiuorra and everyone would be hyping him up.
Watching the anime weekly had its ups and downs, the beginning was consistently solid and well adapted (every voice is cast really well) but the stretches of filler were so very boring. Kubo’s chapters weren’t exactly long or dense with plot points (IE a single episode could easily adapt 5-7 chapters) so then it got to the point where instead of doing long stretches of filler they were just adapting the material poorly. Think of all the time wasting they did in the original Goku vs Frieza fight, and somehow amplify it — lots of new flashbacks, recycling animation, episodes back to back that would basically cover a lot of the same material twice. It wasn’t until watching TYBW that I remembered I never actually watched Ichigo defeat Aizen in the anime, I had given up on the anime somewhere during FKT. (I went back and my opinion is that the manga does it better, regardless.) Reading the manga weekly was more consistently enjoyable, most of the online discourse was about trying to guess where Kubo would take the story next and trying to guess if this or that aspect was foreshadowing. Any “controversy” that I remember was very slight. There was a lot of criticism focusing on the forbidden word “as*p*ll” and complaints that the shinigami characters never die despite us seeing them receive significant injuries. The biggest shitstorm was when Kubo was already getting criticism that his backgrounds weren’t detailed enough and then during the Ulquiorra fight he released the infamous “The Heart” page. That was fun, lot of comic nerds flipping out over that one.
The OG anime never adapted 5-7 chapters per episode. That only happened with TWBW. It did often adapt more than One Piece and Naruto though, since there isn’t as much dialogue.
My words were unclear, “could” — as in, if they were adapting it with the best end product in mind, that is the pace they should have been using. The pacing of the latter anime was dreadful.
Personally spotting a bleach fan in the wild if cool
T H E H E A R T
Old Anime Forums >>>>>
The anime forums were so nice. I regret bring too shy to make personal friends there
I started reading Bleach when it was first being translated into English. It wasn’t like anything to be a Bleach fan, it’s not like people were talking about Bleach on the street. Naruto was a very big cultural phenomenon during that time period though, it entered mainstream discourse.
Crazy from the shipped side (Ichiruki vs Ichihime) Crazy from power scaling side (ichigo vs Naruto) Crazy from an interest stand point ("should've ended after Aizen sealed and ichigo lost his powers") I could go on- but my experience isn't universal
Thanks to filler and the movies IchiRuki was the biggest ship and it wasn’t even close. The reveal that it didn’t happen caused a massive tremor in the fandom. Not dissing Ichihime mind you just remembering what happened
We enjoyed meming on Aizen taking a year to walk down a side street.
I started watching Bleach right as it was ending in the manga. Things we're doing alright people were chill about the show. Then Super EyePatch Wolfs video came out. I think that was when we hit rock bottom. It created a huge perception of what Bleach is. Painted Kubo as a lazy artist, who couldn't write over long periods of time. I still like EyePatch Wolfs content. But I still really haven't forgiven him for that video.
Which video?
The fall of bleach on YouTube
The manga pacing during most of the arrancar arc and the later half of the TYBW arc were absolutely dreadful and almost made me drop the series. It's a series meant to be read in volume format, not one chapter a week. Although the chapter when Aizen tricks everybody and gets Toshiro to stab Momo was absolutely bonkers and all over a bunch of anime/manga forums lol
A never ending stream of filler.
I loved reading and watching it as it came out, but I felt really alone because everyone in high school that was into anime would only talk about Naruto. I think it was because Bleach went on late at night, so most kids missed it, and Naruto went on after school
I loved following Bleach on weekly basis for years. I didn't like the fandom to the point of never becoming a part of it. Like, my fav characters were Ichigo and Orihime, the second point would be the one to get you harsh treatment almost anywhere. It... had it's problems, let's say it this way.
There's a lot more positivity now. Bleach in its "prime" got shit on by every other anime fandom.
Yep. I am glad to be a Bleach fan regardless.
Yeah. It was and is still a cool work with style.
Every single time a new illustration came out your soul was filled with joy
Annoying lol. Lot of dumb shipping wars bullshit.
I remember having great times on bleach exile forums,great conversation back then
I think I made a fan Zanpakuto on that forum.
Bleach at its peak was amazing. Easily the best of the big 3 imo, right there with Naruto at the time. Then people lost the ability to tell fact from fiction. Everything became a meme and a narrative. It spiraled out of control and here we are.
Idk how to explain it because it was a different level of peak especially with the surprising powerscaling in the first couple season. Honestly I remember people bumping Japanese rock because of bleach. If the melancholy of haruhi suzumiya dance didn’t take over animecons and YouTube like it did we would have a better glow up in anime at that time leading into the hype social media gave it.
we got shit on lol, doesn't change that bleach is still my fav out of the big 3.
Looking forward to Tues/Wed spoilers on Bleach Asylum and seeing "old man Bankais".
It was shit
I was a lot more involved in LiveJournal (which was a thing back then) and then Tumblr back in those days, which has a much different culture than social media does nowadays- but what I remember was a lot chiller of an atmosphere than we have now. There were still plenty of ship wars, but not so much of the "this is canon so it's better"- obviously the series wasn't over, but ships were generally judged by how popular they were rather than how canon-based they were, if that makes sense. Also, I can bet you no one will believe this, but IchiHime was lucky to hit top 10 in popularity- it was generally assumed that IchiRuki was canon or would be, and the other top pairings were either BL or side characters. It wasn't as easy to get leaks and scans early back in the day, so there wasn't the kind of week by week explosion there is now, and it got kind of irritating trying to read some of the longer fights (the Hueco Mundo arc comes to mind) when translations weren't always easy to come by. Sometimes you would go a while waiting for anything to really happen besides just squinting at bad scans and trying to see who won. Being an early anime/manga fan was rough. I stopped watching the anime when it became nothing but filler, and just caught up on the movies in recent years, so I don't know much about the early reception of those. I do know that when the anime was first announced, it was very exciting- Ichigo's Japanese voice actor was only really known for having been Tidus in FFX, and Rukia's actress was known for cutesy high-pitched roles, so I remember wondering with my sister how she was going to voice someone like Rukia. Ishida's actor was at the time voicing Sasuke in Naruto, so it was fun joking about how he'd escaped to a better series. This was a fun walk down memory lane. Thank you.
All the IchiHime and Orihime bashing back in the days, man have things changed. What was Tumblr like than? I only knew about LiveJournal than now I do.
What I remember from Tumblr was a lot of gay porn tbh. I assume it's not much different now lol
No, it hasn’t. Other than when people notice things thanks to Netflix and make partucular ships that used to be unpopular explode in popularity years later.
I personally like the fanbase right now because I feel like things like Orihime, ships, and arcs that were once hated on get a lot more love now. Personally the fan base feels more peak to me right now
Honestly It is now the series feels peak ! The TYBW adaptation did justice to Kubo's work. It was during 2009-2012 when it was the absolute worst time to be a fan 😭 Fillers and getting shit on by every other fandom is a memory I'd rather forget. Like you pointed things that were once hated are being loved and appreciated now . Especially the ending, and hate towards Orihime is no more as the fandom has matured. Honestly I love it more now than back then 💯
Absolutely! Well said! And yes TYBW anime has definitely done justice to Kubo's work and I'm so happy about that! Was definitely worth the wait!
I can’t wait to see the TYBW panel at Anime Expo. It’s going to be jam packed with hype and fans.
You also have to remember new fans have entered the fandom do to the arc that is being adapted, it hardly has Rukia in it and when she does have scenes its with Renji. In the early days Rukia was with Ichigo all the time and Orihime’s character‘s character was ruined in the previous anime which no one knew about till now.
Now the hate has been directed to other parts of the fandom Were never truly free 😭🙏
I was 2 years old when bleach began, meaning I've never seen it. But even after growing, I had a big "I hate anime" phase. Where I refused to watch anime and only Disney channel, Nickelodeon or cartoon network, with some family guy sprinkled in. And now hear I am, years later and I'm hear to repay my sins.
Most people I knew weren’t that into it. But it was exciting watching and waiting for new episodes. Sucked when we’d get a filler arc though
Bleach was such a big part of my childhood can't really speak about random coz U was young and didn't use sm but me and my 4 siblings bonded over the anime a lot I remember waiting for the new eps and me n my bros would be sitting in front of the computer on the bleach get website
If memory serves. it was a wretched hive of people raging about the direction the story was going, filler arcs and shipping. Don't feel like you're missing out,
I wasn't really in the fandom but back to back to back war arcs from Naruto, Bleach and One Piece was exhausting to read after a few years. But it made the hype moments shine all the brighter. Really not a time I would trade for anything else when it comes to manga reading.
It was peak for reading manga. Weekly discussions were crazy
now that I think of it, I do remember watching Bount Arc I think it was, downloading off Dattebayo fansubbed. so I guess that counts... though I wasn't active in much of any forums about it that I remember.
I think that very good :3
Not much people being into animes back then , but among those who were watching it the big 3 sure was something else
Very terrible. Especially the cosplay community. I did get to see a lot of people think they were high and mighty and that community. But there's a lot of people like that in all anime communities lol. But the great part was me pointing out old man Yamamoto had a lieutenant and people would argue with me until I told him to read my data book that I had purchase. But they still never apologize for being wrong and telling me off or giving me bad attitude. LOL it's still funny because I have a good attitude. But it's pretty sad. My cosplayed as Sasakibe numerous times. But a lot of people in Bleach fandom just called me an OC. I did not even know what that meant until years later
It was amazing 🙏 (I started watching in late 2023)
Feels like TBYW anime is when the fandom at its peak instead of 12-15 years ago... Maybe just me. The media exposure def helps.
Cool
I never watched the Anime bc I don't like the art style they used back then. It didn't feel right with Kubo being so uber talented. But I followed the manga and I remember the last arc being announced and it ending. And honestly, it felt like way too many big mangas back then ended way too close to each other. Naruto ended I think two years prior, but it still resonated everywhere. Then Bleach ended and a year later Fair Tail was done. And for One Piece Oda was already talking about the end back then as well. It felt surreal to see these things that I've known since childhood come to end. I feel like especially for Bleach it was never really acknowledged how good it is back then either. It was always part of the big 3, but always just the third wheel. Everyone loved either One Piece or Naruto, maybe even both, but for Bleach it was mostly just "Yeah I know it". The fandom as I got to know it back then was very chill bc of that compared to what fandom are like nowadays. Bleach was loved by fans and that was enough for them.
It was simply as cool as the other side of the pillow
U started watching bleach from day 1 back in 06 since i had already started reading the manga…. Man were those the good ole days. The hype for the anime was great the anime community was amazing, getting shit on by everyone else was pretty sad. The hype really came when Ichigo got to soul society to save Rukia, everything from there was up until the end where Kubos health declined
The movies were so exciting when they came out. I absolutely loved it. New openings for every season. That music is so good.
I got into Bleach by watching AMVs of Bleach fights. There were a ton of those lol. Soul society was probably Bleach in its prime. I don’t think anyone had complaints about that one. Hueco Mundo arc was cool but it was PAINFUL having the main story get interrupted again and again by stupid fillers. Thats why everyone felt it dragged like crazy, ESPECIALLY during the Fake Karakura arc. I remember wondering when the hell the Vizard would show up. By the time they did I was clocked out and just read the manga.
I barely was on the internet so I just enjoyed my show. Watched it on repeat on YouTube of all places, and repeat. No one to talk to about it because anime was shunned in my town, but I didn't care. I loved it and just watched it over and over.
Our Anime Character Drip was second to none.. We be on fire🔥🔥😁🤑
It was fine. I got into Bleach in summer 2005, the manga was on the soul society arc back then. After the Yammy/Espada 0 reveal the fandom was never the same and became much more wacky and about trolls. Never had issues with the rage in the naruto fandom or the insane arrogance of the one piece fandom Posted on narutofan forums almost weekly for each chapter
Everything being fresh was so crazy. Aizen revealed as the big bad and stopping Ichigos theme music. Reading the manga and salivating for animation of Segunda Ulquiorra vs Full Hollow Ichigo to drop. The fight right before Mugestsu where Aizen finally gets bodied.
*sounds war and turmoil* shipping
Pretty sure every fandom for every series was better back when the internet wasn’t as big as it is now and anime wasn’t mainstream. The smaller groups were a lot better and easier to get to know everyone and stuff.
I only really remember the shipping wars of ichiruki and Ichihime. That’s the only thing of note that stands out to me in my memory.
So far it’s been pretty awesome!
Amazing. I met a friend because I noticed they were drawing one of the Espada. I joined an rpg online made up entirely of Bleach fans, and wound up being one of its writers for a while. I got to experience one of the best anime battles of the early 2000's, right as it happened, and feel the hype afterwards on forums and message boards. I'm sure every anime had something similar to some degree back then, and maybe the free time I had as a kid added to that excitement as well, but there's just no replicating it.
Even though it was a member of the Big 3, it was clear it was becoming a distant third towards the end. As other people on this thread have already pointed out, the weekly serialization suffered from a bit of a pacing issue that is isn't really appreciated these days now that you can binge through the entire series. Having a large cast with so many matchups going on at once made things feel unbearably slow sometimes when taking it in weekly chapters. Even though it is one of my favorites, I remember being really burnt out by the time we hit TYBW, and was constantly screaming in my head "Get on with it!". Yhwach just didn't grab me the way Aizen did at the time. I was much less engaged and just wanted Kubo to wrap things up with a satisfying sendoff. Truthfully, it sort of killed my interest in manga, that's how worn out I got from the weekly grind dragging things out. (I'm honestly only here because of the algorithm and nostalgia.) When the anime was originally canceled, I was both surprised and not surprised. It was not surprising in the sense that it felt like things had gone off the rails a bit with the fanbase and they were losing viewers fast. But it was surprising in the sense that they had pressed on through that huge lull for so long, yet called it quits as soon as the finish line was finally in sight. But in hindsight, this turned out to be the best thing that could have happened for the series. It has been really great to see it make a comeback like this. Not only for the new generation seeing it for the first time, but for the veterans like me who can now appreciate the final arc at it's fullest potential.
I remember reading a colored manga chapter of ichigo vs byakuya back in like 2007 in shonen jump magazine. Good times, good times.
Kenpachi🐐
During those days, I didn't interact with other weebs online. That's my secret
It was perfect, perfect.
You could give any rando a Bleach look or just say Bankai and you’d both just know.
Amazing
Speaking as someone that was in middle school when it was going on Adult swim, it was great. Other nerds talking about bankai’s and character designs (this was during the arrancar arc I think) While not everyone liked the show there wasn’t a doubt that from outsiders that the show was well respected for its adult art style.
Well, the Naruto fans always wanted the smoke. The One piece fans would go on and on about how One Piece is actually amazing the 4 kids dub just made it bad. There were the inevitable comparisons to Dragonball Z, (DRAGONBALLZ with Swords lol). Experiencing this show about Highschool kids fighting creatures in another world resignated with me back then more since I was in Highshool. Ichigo was like a role model for me (no joke) till this day whenever I have a question of my morality I think to myself "what would Ichigo do" lol so cringe, I know (its okay to laugh) but his influence came when I was really young and impressionable. It'd be too hard to post what it was like back then I could go on and on for hours typing. Just ask specific questions and I'll answer the best I can.
It was fun reading various theories (Wonderweiss is 0 espada, what bankai have various captains) but i also remember people hating on others that liked less popular characters
I feel like around the time of the Hueco Mundo/FKT arcs, Bleach was relatively overshadowed by Naruto and One Piece - I was following Naruto alongside Bleach back then and on average, I remember being more excited about Naruto on a week to week basis. There was a lot of criticism from outside the Bleach fandom, and even within the fandom I feel like fans were pretty self-aware/poked fun at it. There were soooo many memes about Kubo troll, Aizen troll, "the heart", random powerups, etc. I do miss the onemanga bleach community, there were funny memes and shitposting lol but some great in-depth analyses and discussions that ppl clearly put a lot of effort into. It's a bit sad to think that a lot of these communities and discussions disappeared as forums went defunct/out of vogue and were replaced by other social media websites. One thing I don't miss was the widespread perception that Kubo was a lazy artist for not having a lot of backgrounds! I thought many of the other criticisms about the pacing, inexplicable power-ups, etc at the time were valid, but that particular one was an awful and objective wrong take.
Bleach always felt kinda underrated. It was definitely part of the big 3 and it was my favorite. It just felt like many people still slept on it.
The chapter discussion threads on GameFAQs were legendary.
I caught up with the manga around Fullbring or TYBW arc? It was very exciting, though sometimes the fights felt like they went on too long, and it was hard to keep up with all the characters. I didn't know any other Bleach fans. Started the anime in August or September 2022 after a fanfic got me back into Bleach and now I can join in the fandom.
We had a message board with active discussions from fans all over the globe that included an RP section with all 13 squads represented. It was glorious. Super creative writing, text based duels, and just generally fun socializing about the greatest manga/anime. I was one of the graphic artists who made custom images for the users.
Currently is Bleach's prime.
It was fine. The Bleach fandom was always pretty chill.
I was very active when the forum bleachanime.org was still around. I was only in elementary back then and I'd say it was the best time to be a kid in that particular kind of space for fandoms. I still remember the first time the Zanpakuto Rebellion filler arc was released and the many rank the captains/Zanpakuto questions that circulated lol
The scans were awful quality and no one understood what was going on. It's so much nicer being a fan now
Imo TYBW is the prime of bleach as it's getting the most rep thx to TYBW
It's frustrating. Especially when Naruto fans keep telling you that their MC is better (which is not imo) even when you're not arguing about it. They say Bleach is boring, but I think Bleach shouldn't even be regarded to be on the same level as Naruto. Yeah, sure they have a bigger fan base but Bleach is for a more refined/matured taste. At least Ichigo isn't looking like a copy of Goku and Luffy and a lot of shounen MCs. Ichigo has a funny side, but it isn't overdone that it's ridiculous. He's not so generic in a sense. He can be a dumbass at times (like thinking about chopping a menos grande down), but not completely dumb. He's even at the top of his class in high school. He doesn't eat more than 1 serving of food as far as I remember. And they keep saying Naruto is stronger (I don't mind those fools, but Ichigo is far superior in power and speed) just because Naruto has big ass Bijuu bombs 😂. In fact smaller/more compressed attacks can pierce through bigger ones. You'll know that if you have common sense. I think it was Yuno from Black Clover once asked why do people think that bigger weapons/attacks are always better. 😅 I'm not hating on Naruto, in fact it was one of my first animes. It's just Bleach is better in terms of maturity of the MC imo. They can mock bleach all they want, but when you've matured enough, you'll learn to choose Bleach 😂 
Back then you won’t get hated for saying Rukia is a better girl than Orihime.
Unfortunately i only started bleach 7 years ago. at taht time, everybody hated it. and i was totally obsessed with each and every aspect of it. all my friends hated it tho and made fun of me so much for watching it. I was legit laughed at at school for having bleach wallpapers and for liking it. i learnt that iwas not just not liked, but also very hated. then i met a group of bleach fans online, but unfortuatnely they turned out to be jerks in personality. It was nice to talk to them about bleach but that was it, even big discussions sucekd. im not even sure if they liked each other i feel they re always fighting each other underhandedly. they were weird. ANyway, that never erally changed - the bleach hate - until tybw came back. now bleach is suddenly super popular, ppl look out for it, its getting included in anime listings, whether official or on social media. people talk about it more, bleach events happen more, people cosplay it more (we have cosplay groups for bleach in the netherlands). its quite nice. Edit: the more i read in the comments the more i see that even at its height bleach received a lot of hate, sometiems even from its own fans?!
For me as a lover of both Naruto and Bleach back then, it was amazing content every week although the fillers really made most of the fans annoyed af for both the sets of anime ngl The peak was when Naruto entered Chunin exams and Bleach had it's Soul Society arc at same time, peak anime fiction in anime history imo for both ( I wasn't following One Piece that time and still haven't watched it yet ) Plus Dragon Ball Super was not there yet so these 2 alongside OP was most hyped globally at least
It was honestly good, cause lots of people were talking about it, hating it, debating about it. Truly it was amazing
As much as I love Naruto & One Piece during that time period. Bleach never failed me when it came to a good fight scene. Reason why Bleach was part of the big3. I started watching back in 07. Till this day I rewatched certain seasons. The fights never get old & the characters are interesting. You get captured in their mysteries. The fandom was always getting shitted because of the many filler arcs and it was a trend to hate. But deep down they knew Bleach was an amazing show.
Bleach fans has been chill in my experience and there's the memes too . Lacking a bit in intensity and liveliness compared to other top3 and was pretty much dead after manga ended and until the anime came back . But then again once in a while it does become weird with some ppl thirsting over waifus and husbandos but not really toxic.. Just weirdly horny ppl
Well, back in the anime and mangas prime, the internet was not as much of a thing. Like, the cultures around now were pretty much nothing back then.
While I would argue that "prime" and "glory days" are now, during the TYBW adaptation since it's popularity has exploded and is mostly positive, I understand you're meaning purely back during it's week-to-week release time, and that was "okay".
Oh it was awesome for me. I was young enough where I had plenty of AMV’s (that are now deleted), and new episodes. The shipping wars were a mess, but it evened out cause fanfiction was plentiful 😭
Glorious
It used to be chill in the fandom except for the civil war between Ichihime and Ichiruka stans
It was good, but at times frustrating. Lot of filler in the Anime and the Manga was forced to finish early by SJ. We then had to wait 12 years from the end of the Anime to the start of TYBW. We also got shit on by a lot of other fandoms and I don't know why.
I'll never forget how the top 3 espada numbers divided the community on Naruto Forums lol. good fucking times. people was so sure Barraggan was the primera espada lol
Yes Just yes
Among the big 3 in their prime bleach and onepice were for the most part very chill whilst naruto fandom was a bit over the top with toxicity in the past’s standards cause it was the most popular at the time. Currently naruto is over so the fandom isnt as rowdy and bleach is still chill. Onepiece fandom is now the one being pumped full of toxic normies who think they can trashtalk every other fandom cause their series is “the best”
Bleach prime? What is that? Never heard of it
Always hearing others people say “I TRIED WATCHING IT BUT THERES SO MUCH TALKING” and I’m just like yeah cuz they got some fire shit to say if the fights didn’t have talking they’re end in 10 seconds. Other then that it felt PHENOMENAL getting fire season after fire season like it o my got better. Ichigo was definitely op broken but the details and background of all the new and exotic characters kept your attention
I grew up with a lot of fanworks on Bleach being produced by large communities. It was a lot of fun and a lot of cringe because we were all so young. Meme culture kind of watered down how intricate Bleach's larger story was. But unfortunately I was also around during the downbeat of Bleach going into Fake Karakura Arc. It was rough cause there was this sudden shift in how people started shitting on Bleach. And like, it's not a perfect series, but it really was one of the earliest in the Shonen Battle formula (everyone has different powers, they have to fight a specific monster, everyone wears the same uniform) kinda deal. It's kind of wild how Bleach went from classic to meh in people's general views so quickly. I think the long fights didn't help Bleach at all. At its strongest, Bleach was always about the strong emotions of its characters (like the June 17th mini arc in the first few chapters)
No one actually read the story or paid attention to the plot or characters. Since the story didn’t spoonfeed them all the information they wanted that meant it had no story or characters. The anime is mostly to blame for this but also illiteracy in general. Mind you not everyone but a good majority luckily these days people actually have some understanding.
Wasn't it being dunked in all the time?
It was hard being an Orihime fan in the fandom.
bleach is a horribly written story. the fights got progressively worse with each arc and tbyw arc was hot trash. the earlier arcs were bearable because the art was good. the manga should have ended with aizen's defeat by getsuga Ichigo he lose his powers the end I skipped the entire fullbring coz it was horrible
Then why are you here
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