#[ I don't think a warning should be necessary as Bleach is a very political series ]

[midnightactual]

Anonymous wrote in:

You know the soul society hasn't changed at all there still corrupt as ever. Most of all there enemies are a person are group they fucked over. I always felt it would more interesting arc for ichigo to go against the organization he is so quick to defend for some reason. Who knows it might even bring some sort of character development form aside from him wanting to say ill protect my friends which is the most basic protag thing ever.

There’s a criticism of Harry Potter that floats around, and I can't speak to its applicability regarding that series since I've never read or watched it... but damn if it doesn't apply to Bleach. Hot take, I’m sure, but rather than bang on about it, let me just rewrite it a little by changing some terms and you can see what you think for yourself:

It very neatly describes the way liberals see the world and political struggle.

Lots of people complain about the anti-climactic ending, but I really don't think it could [be] any other way. I'd like to imagine that there's some alternate universe where [Kubo] actually believed in something and [Ichigo] was actually built up as the anti-[Aizen] he was only hinted as being in the beginning of the [manga]. Where [he] opposes all the many injustices of the [spirit] world and determines to change their frequently backwards, insular, contradictory society for the better, and forms his own faction antithetical to the [Espada] by adopting new methods, breaking the rules, and embracing change and the progression of history. While [Aizen] clings to an idyllic [imagining] of the past and the greatest extent of his dreams is to become the self-appointed god of [an] eternally stagnant Neverland, [Ichigo] has embraced the possibility of a shining future and so can overcome the self-imposed limits [Aizen] could never cross, and [Aizen] is ultimately defeated by this.

But that would require [an Ichigo] that believed in something, and since [Kubo] is a liberal centrist [misanthrope who] doesn't really believe in anything, [Ichigo] can't believe in anything. [Ichigo] lives in a world [fraught] with conflict and injustice, a stratified class society, slavery of sentient [artificial souls], the absurd charade the [spirit] world puts up to enforce their own self-segregation, a corrupted and bureaucracy-choked government, rampant racism, so on and so forth. But [Ichigo] is little more than a passive observer for most of it, only the [slavery] really bothers him (and then, really only racism against [mod souls]). In fact, when [Rukia] stands up against the slavery of [mod souls], she's treated as some kind of ridiculous Soapbox Sadie. For opposing chattel slavery. In the end, the biggest force for change is [Aizen] and [Ichigo] and friends only ever fight for the preservation and reproduction of the status quo. The very height of [Ichigo's] dreams is to join the [Gotei 13], a sort of [spirit] FBI and the ultimate defenders of the [spirit] status quo. [Aizen] and the [Espada] are the big instigators of change and [Ichigo] never quite gets to [Aizen's] level. [Ichigo] doesn't even beat [Aizen], [Aizen] accidentally [imprisons] himself because he violated some obscure technicality that causes one of [Kisuke's Kidō spells] to [activate on] him.

And this is really the struggle of liberals, they live in a world fraught with conflict, but aren't particularly bothered by any of it except those [bits] that threaten multicultural pluralism. They see change, and the force behind that change, as a wholly negative phenomenon. Even then, they can only act within the legal and ideological framework of their society. So, for instance, instead of organizing insurrectionary and disruptive activity against Trump and the far-right, all they can do is bang their drum about what a racist bigot he is and hope they can catch him violating some technicality that will allow them to have him impeached or at least destroy his political clout. It won't work, it will never work, but that's the limit of liberalism just as it was the limit of [Bleach].

Bleach had a lot of conceptual problems, but Kubo’s general hatred of any kind of human relationships, generalized misogyny and racism and anti-LGBTQ attitude, and his unwillingness to imagine revolutionary activity against literal cosmic injustice were probably the biggest problems with it—and the last really screwed the plot and the character arcs, because it meant the series could never end as anything other than a reaffirmation of the status quo to which all the characters had to bend the knee.