Quote Originally Posted by Rodin View Post
I recently (well, within the last couple years) saw a Youtube video that analyzed the plummeting popularity of Bleach. It first discussed the Soul Society arc and the themes it incorporated that made it popular. Then the Hueco Mundo arc comes along...and it's the exact same story with the exact same themes. The only thing that changed was the Damsel getting swapped and the Arrancar replacing the Shinigami. Except the Arrancar were nowhere near as interesting - the Soul Society arc had at least half a dozen different factions struggling against one another, while the Arrancar arc...didn't. So the popularity dropped, and as the plot became less relevant it dropped further and further until the time of the Fullbring arc where only the die-hard fans were left.

All of this is why Bleach is a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine. If someone tells me its terrible, I can't really argue against it. But damn if it didn't keep coming out with really cool moments whenever the story paused for an action sequence.
Definitely - to be clear, I'm criticizing Bleach out of love, both for what it was and what it could be again. And with an eye towards the moment in time in the overall anime zeitgeist it occupied, when the iconic NBOP trio (Naruto - Bleach - One Piece) of the early-mid 'oughts were still in their growing pains of incorporating more complex plotting, characterization, and technical prowess into the Shonen genre as a whole.

This was something the other two managed to pull off, but Bleach fell behind on, which led into its sales slipping.

Perhaps the key difference is that both Naruto and One Piece took a much-needed break (both for their creators, as well as the characters in the story via timeskips.) Bleach didn't do either of these, so not only did Kubo start to burn out, there wasn't nearly as much narrative room to let the characters do some needed off-screen growth. The end of the Aizen arc would have been a perfect time for it.