An anime is generally based on a manga, andBleachis no different. It began as a famous manga story by Tite Kubo that ran from August 2001 to August 2016, with 698 chapters in 74 volumes. Studio Pierrot turned it into an anime series that ran from October 2004 to March 2012 and had 366 episodes.
Then it came back in 2022 withBleach: A Thousand-Year Blood War, which has had26 episodes so far. While the anime does a great job of making the book come to life,there are still some things that it lacks. In these arcs, the manga is better than the anime.
10The Thousand Year Blood War Arc
A lot of people were looking forward toBleach’s return in 2022 with the Thousand Year Blood War story. Fans of the original anime series were happy to see it come back, but so far it hasn’t lived up to the manga. The manga is only partly done, so there is still a lot to look forward to in the future.
The main problemswith the manga adaptation are censorship, fights that last too long, and the inclusion of new minor bad guys who don’t add anything to the story. As things keep getting better and the arc gets closer to the end, viewers will have to hope that the show ends on a strong note.
9Soul Society: The Rescue Arc
This story arc is said to be one of the best in the whole series, but the anime left out some parts of the manga. Now that viewers know more about Soul Society, they get to see the captains and even the captains' leader at work, though he doesn’t go all out.
A lot is going on in this arc, from Ichigo’s fights with vice captains and captains to Aizen’s deception. In the anime, the pace felt rushed, and it didn’t give fans the full experience of the book.
8Arrancar: Downfall Arc
The last episode of theArrancararc lives up to the book pretty well, but the many filler episodes are the main problem. Without a doubt, fillers are a bad thing that an anime of this length has to have.
Bleachsometimes does a good job with side arcs, like theBount arc, which tries to build a story and characters. However, the fluff episodes that show up amid the main storylines do nothing but pass the time. There should not be random fillers, because this is the end of an arc that lasted over 200 shows. It takes away from the experience of watching.
7The Lost Substitute Shinigami Arc
To be fair, this arc doesn’t really do anything wrong. Even though there isn’t anything specificallywrong with it in the anime, it just feels lackluster since it comes after the Arrancar stories. Following the loss of Aizen, theArrancar story arc seemed dull, since it had been going on for a long time.
For some reason, this is the last arc in the anime, which is a shame. Compared to the manga, which starts the epic Thousand Year Blood War story at the end of this arc, the anime ending was very dull.
6Soul Society: The Sneak Entry Arc
One could say that this arc sets the stage forBleachto become the show it is today. The audience’s first look at the Soul Society is right here. But the anime changes some things and cuts out some manga pages. However, even after all of that, it still does a great job.
The story doesn’t change because of these alterations, but many fans still agree that the comics are better overall. Tellingly, Tite Kubo didn’t get involved with making the anime until after the Soul Society story arc.
5Arrancar vs. Shinigami Arc
Before the fight between Ichigo and the Soul Society versus Aizen and his Espadas, this story arc sets the scene. TheArrancarstories, on the other hand, are never as good as the manga. The main problems in this arc are the long fights, bad joke delivery, and extra episodes that are just there to pass time.
The filler episodes are dull and lack any interesting story beats. When unnecessary fillers are thrown into the center of these exciting shows, it’s easy to get annoyed.
4Agent of the Shinigami Arc
This is the first part of theBleachstory. The anime does a good job of setting up the story, but the main problem with this arc is that it affects shows that came before it.
A lot of changes were made to the earlier parts of the anime. Later, mangaka Tite Kubo had to go back and look over the plot from the beginning of the Arrancar arc. He thought they didn’t understand the characters' personalities well enough, so they weren’t being portrayed correctly. He said that he thought changing so many things would make the story fall apart in the end. Fans are glad that Kubo stepped in at the right time to make sure that didn’t happen.
3Arrancar: The Hueco Mundo Sneak Entry Arc
A big problem for anime that airs at the same time as the manga is that the show can’t go too far ahead of the manga, because then they’d run out of material to use. Making the anime move more slowly is one way to deal with this. While this approach works, it’s time to stop because it’s getting old.
ThoughBleachused this in other arcs of the show, this storyline was probably the worst example of it. It moves slowly and has a small filler plot in the middle. All together, it might be annoying to watch.
2The Past Arc
This arc is the shortest one inBleach. Even so, this arc is very important to how the story develops. The anime tries to keep it short, but this time it’s too short. The onscreen adaptation falls short with this story arc that tells the tale of the visored, and finally explains what’s going on with Urahara Kisuke.
In the anime, it’s too short, and doesn’t make a lasting impact. It sometimes seems like it was done quickly as an afterthought, because the goal was to get back to work as soon as possible.
1Arrancar: The Fierce Fight Arc
Like the previous Arrancar arcs, this one had its share of problems. The last showdown between Ichigo and Grimmjow is the arc’s high point, but the story drags at points to build suspense. Unfortunately, this method of pacing has the reverse impact. It gets boring after a while, so when it finishes (thankfully), viewers are relieved because the tale can move on.
It is not meant to diminish thequality of the animewhen it is said that the manga did a better job of executing the tale. The main benefit of manga over animation for a long-running series likeBleachis that, unlike anime, there are no fillers in the manga. Pace can be purposefully managed, without worrying about running out of content.
