So last week we heard the news that Bleach is entering its final manga arc. My relationship with this franchise has been rocky too say the least, and my reaction to this news has been mixed.I have to admit that my initial reaction was something along the lines of "HELL YES!!!!" Then there may or may not have been a large amount of whooping, air punching, and abysmal happy dancing. I was overjoyed. Unfortunately my love for Ichigo and the gang was ultimately drained by the constant and crappy anime filler. All that kept me watching and reading (though now it seems to be mostly reading), was the fact that when Bleach is good, it really is quite awesome. However, when the Arrancar saga cane to an end, that would have been an ideal place for the manga to say farewell since the entire story had been revolving around and building up to that final battle. To me, continuing on after that, is like if Oda decided to continue One Piece after Luffy becomes Pirate King, or, you know, if Tolkein had decided to write a fourth, fifth or sixth Lord of the Rings book after the One Ring was destroyed, documenting the Hobbits' journey back home in painstaking detail."...and then Frodo disappeared behind a bush to have a quiet poo. While dropping his trousers, the young hobbit couldn't help but think that this was so much easier when he had the ring; he used to be able to slip it on and disappear, free to empty his bowels in peace, without the horrified yells of "Mr. Frodo! Have some self-respect, I can see your ding dong!" from the ever-present Sam." Some things really should quit while they're ahead. And for me, the substitute shinigami stuff was about as necessary as Frodo having a crap in the woods. It was nowhere near as good as the previous content and it felt stretched out, like it was purely being done for the money. None of this was helped by the fact that all the fullbring stuff was simultaneously a big red undo button for Ichigo losing his powers and yet another way for Kubo to pull some random power up out of nowhere and expect us to accept it without question. Anyway, I digress. Because of my lack of enthusiasm towards the last arc, I was genuinely happy at the announcement that Bleach would have one more arc then no more, after all better late than never, and better somewhere in the possibly near future than when I'm old, grey and senile, wondering who the hell this Ichimo guy is and why he's got that funny mask on.However, after my initial happiness subsided a little, I couldn't help but become more than a little skeptical. Now I admit that I'm torn between two veins of thought. Firstly, while the manga may be entering its final arc, is it really an arc or is it a saga. Potentially, Kubo could drag out this "final" storyline for the best part of a decade, after all, the Arrancar plotline lasted for about nine years. And given the fact that a couple of months ago, Kubo himself had said that he wanted to continue Bleach for another decade, this wouldn't surprise me. My second train of thought is to wonder if this is even going to prove to be true. Who's to say that Kubo won't reach the end of this upcoming arc and then say... oh go on... just one more. Call me a complete cynic, but I can't help but feel that this arc, that incidentally has just started this week, will not actually be the last, and that if popular enough, Kubo will just continue to milk the franchise for all its worth. I hope I'm wrong, and that the series goes out on a high, but at the moment, I can see it curling up with a whimper, a shadow of its former glory.
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