Warning: major SPOILERS for Bleach: The Thousand-Year Blood WarWhile Bleach is one of the most successful manga of all time, its ending left a lot to be desired, with many fans disappointed at what felt like a rushed conclusion. The new anime series Bleach: The Thousand-Year Blood War finally adapts the last story arc from the manga, and thus has a chance to fix the series' disappointing ending.
The final story arc from the Bleach manga, called The Thousand-Year Blood War, introduces the Quincy as its main villains. While the Quincy already appeared in the story (in the form of Uryu Ishida and his family), they were supposed to be almost extinct, but The Thousand-Year Blood War opens with the revelation that they had been hiding for centuries, planning their revenge on the Shinigami. While the setup of the story and its first half are both exciting, however, things start getting confusing very quickly. There are also a lot of characters' powers and abilities that are either not shown or not explained in the manga.
The Quincy's backstory has a lot of inconsistencies, especially when it's about Yhwach. Supposedly, he built his empire one thousand years before the current events in the Bleach story. After being defeated in their war against the Shinigami, the Quincy hid in a mysterious "shadow dimension" right in the middle of the Seiretei, but this is never expanded in the series. How did they spend this millennium? Why have none of them aged (both Bazz B and Jugram have the same appearance from one thousand years before)? The anime should absolutely expand this part of the Quincy's story. Yhwach's special power, The Almighty, also raises a lot of questions. With it, he can see everything that occurs from the present to the far future, and alter that future into whatever outcome he desires. If that was not complex enough, he also has another little-explained ability: any power which he "knows" will become his ally, and thus unable to harm or defeat him.
What Can The New Bleach Anime Improve From The Manga?
In the manga, Yhwach's abilities seem overpowered simply because he is the final villain, and thus has to overcome everyone, including the most powerful characters in the series such as Kenpachi Zaraki, Genryusai Yamamoto, and Ichibe Yosube. However, when Ichigo faces him in the final battle, Yhwach is defeated way too easily considering how overpowered he was until then. Even the Soul King. The anime should absolutely explain who this fundamental character is, what is his relationship with Yhwach (who is supposed to be his son, but this is only mentioned once in the manga), and with the Shinigami of the Soul Society.
Bleach: The Thousand-Year Blood War should stay as faithful to the source material as possible, but this does not mean that it cannot expand some plot points that remained barely fleshed out in the manga. Bleach creator Tite Kubo was suffering from stress (allegedly caused by pressures from his publisher) and very poor health at the time, so he decided to rush the ending of his masterpiece. The return of the anime ten years later can thus be the chance that Bleach fans have been waiting to see a proper conclusion for their favorite story.
