Despite all the hate that has been directed towards the series, I still follow Bleach. Naruto, on the other hand, transformed itself into a torture tool after Naruto spent 3 (or was it 5?) episodes trying to summon a big frog. The US Army should adopt my brilliant idea: Take all the terrorists, chain them to chairs, sit them in front of a projection screen, and make them watch all the 195 episodes available at the time of writing, fulfilling only their essential needs such as food and water. Any psychological barrier against torture built by years of training in the Middle East or whereever will crumble, the truth will be out, and justice will be dealt. In the terrorist cells all over the world, word gets around about this new form of torture, striking great fear the in the members, and finally dissolving all resolve to kill. Peace will reign. Of course, my ideas are never taking seriously, and that is why crime and terrorism are still problems.

I have not posted about Bleach before. It isn’t a very interesting series to begin with, not to mention that it’s long at the 91st episode, and as a result draggy. And it is currently in a filler arc. We all hate filler arcs. While it might be immensely popular among the generally less informed anime-watching population of Singapore, which accounts for the overwhelming number of Bleach character entries for cosplay events, the elite (as I would like to term them, and this group does not include me) hold it with much less regard, to the point of hating it, often labelling anyone who might give the faintest impression that they watch Bleach as “Bleach whores” and “anime noobs”, which are light insults compared to the possibilities. The elite can generally be identified by an amazing obsession with Haruhi.

Now to the point: why am I writing this post? Bleach 91 is the first episode to actually get me agitated; the rest were either too boring for me to say anything about them, or just your average episode, not paintfully bad, but not dumbfoundingly good. Ichigo gets his bankai back after getting kicked around by Kariya and having a little chat with old man Zangetsu. They start fighting. I thought: this is getting good, it’s been such a fricking long time since they put up a decent fight scene, and this episode might be among the best. After exchanging not more than 10 blows, Ishida that son of a bitch shows up, and the fighting ends. On to why Ishida is a son of a bitch.

Normally, when an anime has inevitably set itself on the path of fillers, what the viewers want are two things: Make the fillers just as good as the main arc, and end them as soon as you can. When Bleach started out on fillers, they didn’t look like it would turn into one of those meaningless Naruto ones when they send Naruto and friends to a random place to do shit, have several death encouters, and eventually return as victors unscathed. Essentially, you could have skipped a whole bunch of episodes without missing anything important, saving yourself from the pain and from wasting time. The Bounto actually tied in with the a good portion of the story, and from what I know of the main arc yet to be covered by the anime, nothing has been spoilt yet. Like Rukia’s bankai. But the situation got worse as the episodes dragged by. So, at episode 91, we’re all rejoicing as the end of the fillers appear to be in sight — Ichigo screws them up with his badass bankai, they all die, and we’re ON TO THE MAIN ARC! But no no no no. Ishida, that retard who is so insistent on regaining his power and not hurting his pride as a Quincy, comes along, interrupts Ichigo who is just about to beat the shit out of Kariya, and OPENS THE DAMN GATE TO SOUL SOCIETY. This has got to be the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot, and then chopping off both legs.

So here we have a 6 (or more?) genocidal Bounto flying towards the centre of Soul Society. One should note that the Bounto can absorb spirit particles, which happens to be what everything in Soul Society is made of, to heal themselves. This just translates to more filler episodes. A swear word or two at this juncture would seem appropriate. I refuse to make any predictions about what is going to happen next, because it would take up unnecessary brain processing power. Let it end, I say, let it end. I really don’t want to stop watching Bleach because of crappy fillers. It really is a stupid reason.