[Anime Review] BLEACH: Packed with everything that tickles the chuunibyou heart

A sword-fighting action series that spans both the living world and the afterlife.

The protagonist, Ichigo Kurosaki, is a tough, delinquent high school student with strong spiritual awareness.

One day, while being attacked by an evil spirit called a Hollow, he meets a petite woman named Rukia who calls herself a Soul Reaper.
Then, after various events, Ichigo ends up absorbing Rukia's Soul Reaper powers and is forced to take on the job of a substitute Soul Reaper while still living in the world of the living.

Even though they are called Soul Reapers, the Soul Reapers in "BLEACH" are a bit different from what we know; they are a large organization that operates in structured squads.

Their job is to purify Hollows that disturb the living world and send lost souls to the spirit world, maintaining a balance in the number of souls between the two realms.

The Soul Reapers are clad in |Shihakusho| (black kimono) and carry |Zanpakuto| (swords that look very similar to Japanese katanas), and their appearance is personally quite appealing.

Furthermore, rather than being gods, the Soul Reapers feel more like samurai, and the story is full of charming, human-like characters.

With the addition of an irregular like Ichigo Kurosaki, the order of the spirit world is thrown into chaos, long-hidden conspiracies are brought to light, and the story, where the past and present, and the living and spirit worlds intertwine as various foreshadowed plot points are resolved, is very interesting.

And above all, the coolness of the characters and the techniques they use is wonderful.
It really stimulates the chuunibyou heart.

To begin with, the kimono and sword look is personally perfect, but the fact that there are stages to releasing the sword's power and mechanisms that boost combat ability is just too awesome.

Furthermore, the Soul Reapers also use spiritual arts similar to qigong called |Hado| and |Bakudo|, which are fully chuunibyou and wonderful.

Each has numbers from one to ninety-nine, and basically, they recite an incantation before unleashing a technique, saying things like "Hado #31, Shakkaho!"
Of course, there are also techniques like "incantation abandonment" to use skills without chanting, as well as "double chanting" and "post-incantation."

It is just too cool.

In the organization the Soul Reapers belong to, the Gotei 13, there are captains and lieutenants of each squad who are incredibly strong and have very distinct personalities, making everyone worth rooting for...
Everyone is so cool.

Besides the Gotei 13, attractive characters appear one after another, and the development where mystery calls to mystery continues.

By the way, my top pick is Kisuke Urahara.
A mysterious person with an aura that suggests he is no ordinary individual.

Anyway, since there are so many episodes, it might drag in the middle.
I think it's fine to skip the anime-original arcs.

*This video contains spoilers

If you found this helpful, please click the like button!

If you like the anime "BLEACH", will you like these too?

I have summarized my evaluation criteria and personal preferences here.