Paw Wow

I was going to wait until after finishing the round of 3-episode for the spring anime, but the group I had been following finally released Bleach ep.366, the last episode for the anime. I couldn't wait.

Over the course of two days during the long weekend, I started from ep.342 (yes, for the 4th time) and marathoned to the end... and haven't really been able to watch any anime since. XD　This also happened a few times during the Arrancar saga whenever the canon arc paused/ended to make way for the filler arcs.

Ever since learning the news of the anime coming to an end in March, I longed and dreaded to reach the last episode. As expected, I got a bit melancholy with Ichigo's last line 「またな」. But I was hopeful at the same time that it's not 「じゃあな」, so we might still see the current and final arc getting animated, kinda like how they did Inuyasha Kanketsuhen. XD

Looking back, Bleach reached its 10th year anniversary last year, and the anime aired for roughly seven and half years. I don't remember exactly when I started following the manga, but it wasn't too long after the serialization began, and I was quite thrilled at the news of the anime adaptation and eagerly anticipated it.

While the earlier chapters were kinda rushed due to airing schedule and we were given the infamous Bound filler arc which fit really badly with the anime canon, the later filler arcs were all announced as 大人の事情 and not meant to be part of the anime canon, which was good.

I try to skip over the filler arcs when buying the DVD, but I had to get box 5 and 12 because the last few episodes contain canon stuff... orz　But I do plan to buy the zanpakutou filler arcs, and probably the last part of the Invading Army arc since ep.342 will likely be treated as a part of it.

I really like Kubo-sensei's storyboards and choreography, and it translated quite nicely to the anime, especially during battle scenes. Granted, the animation quality and style varied a lot over the years, but that's the norm for super long shows like this, and I hugely enjoyed the anime overall.

This is where I learned the voices of many seiyuu, including the majority of the main cast, and started paying attention to certain ones. This is also where I first encountered several artists whose music I've come to enjoy (UVERworld, SunSet Swish, Aqua Timez, SID).

アニメBLEACHのおかげで色んな出会いができました、本当に感謝します～　また会おう！