First let's start at the beginning where things make sense. The premise of the series focuses on the fate of the soul after death. We all know good people go to Heaven(orin this case Soul Society), bad people go to Hell(mentioned, but irrelevant except for a non-canon movie) or linger as a ghost to resolve unfinished business, but Bleach adds a fourth fate, becoming a Hollow. Hollows are ghosts that have lost their humanity and have become hollow, both figuratively and literally, each Hollow has a hole, usually in their chest, representing their emptiness which they fill by devouring souls of both living and dead. Hollows are often the result of ghosts that finally let it sink in that while they linger to deal with unfinished business, they can't interact with the world and therefore can not resolve unfinished business and this disconnect forces the transformation. Sometimes those who are bound for Hell become Hollows to avoid Hell, but the worst part of Hollow nature is that when they feed on other souls, the trauma of being a Hollow's victim automatically causes one to become a Hollow themself. Obviously, the world will be nothing but Hollows if they aren't kept in check, enter the Soul Reapers, elite warriors from Soul Society who return to the world of the living to help ghosts crossover before they become Hollows and to destroy Hollows that are already here. The key tool for both of these is the Zanpakto, standard issue katana that are used in konso ritual by touching a ghost's forehead with the pommel to peacefully send them to the other side, and the blade is used to "cleanse" Hollows by destroying the outer shell and releasing the human soul to peacefully going to the other side. All of this is unseen by the living usually, but there are exceptions, among them the Kurosaki family, in particular Ichigo. He's a pretty average teenager who likes to help both the living and the dead, and one night he gets in over his head when he witnesses a Soul Reaper named Rukia fighting a Hollow and tries to help, but only manages to get Rukia hurt in the process and in a move of desperation, she grants him Soul Reaper powers to finish the fight by letting him skewer himself with her Zanpakto. It works, but Ichigo somehow gets all of Rukia's powers and has to be her substitute until she can get her power back. The series then proceeds to introduce the main cast of ghost busters and is very promising. Ichigo saves his friends Orohime and Chad from Hollows, Chad in particular has some impressive foreshadowing because in his first moments oncreen a steel girder drops on him and the steel girder bends around him, while Chad himself his unharmed, WTF?! That is definitely not normal! Anyway, after saving his friends from different Hollows on separate occasions, it occurs to Rukia that when Ichigo is acting as a Soul Reaper, his body appears to be dead, so she gets a substitute soul to handle his body so nobody gets suspicious. The substitute soul ends up being a modsoul, a soul that has been modified to have superior combat abilities and use the bodies of the recently deceased to aid in the war on Hollows, but after managing to create them, Soul Society decided it was unethical to desecrate bodies by forcing them into posthumous combat and the modsouls were ordered destroyed. In the canon series, this is apparently the very last one, given superhuman leg strength to jump and kick, and just managed to avoid destruction having accidentally ended up in the stock of Kisuke Uruhara, a candy shop owner who provides supplies to Soul Reapers on the down low, which is generally easy to keep secret considering the only ones who can even interact with his secret wares are the intended recipients. The modsoul comes in the form of candy from a pez dispenser and he is a pervert who is also afraid of being destroyed like his brethren and holds all life as very precious. Ichigo takes pity on him, names him Kon, and decides that when he's not using Kon to take care of his body, he'll put him in a stuffed lion plushie which actually comes to life. Poor Kon, he's so grateful to have a body that even though he realizes it's a joke, he still prefers it to being destroyed. Next comes Grand Fisher, the Hollow that killed Ichigo's mother, revealing that he's been connected to all of this for longer than he realized and appears to be potentially the series main adversary, but that fizzles out, more on that later. Now the team gets it's final member, Uryu Ishida, the last of the Quincy. The Quincy are living humans who developed powers to hunt Hollows in response to losing their families to Hollow attacks, primarily they use bows and arrows that exist only in the spirit world. The problem is that Quincy powers utterly destroy Hollows instead of cleansing their souls as Soul Reapers do, so the two factions went to war. Uryu's grandfather came up with a compromise, Quincy could trap and weaken Hollows, then allow Soul Reapers to finish the job. Unfortunately, one day the Soul Reapers never showed up and let Ishida die, leaving Uryu vengeful and untrusting, to the point where he challenges Ichigo. Surprisingly, rather than making this challenge direct combat, he summons Hollows and makes a contest of who can kill more. Ichigo's power ends up drawing more Hollows than Uryu intended and Orohime and Chad develop their own unique powers to help, apparently because Ichigo's powers triggered them. Chad's arm becomes a force of destruction he calls "brazo del diablo" and Orohime gets the kun kun rikku, a group of fairies that can reject what she doesn't want, three can reject that which will be by creating a triangular shield, two can reject that which was by creating a field of restoration, and one rejects that which currently is, a potentially powerful attack which can tear an enemy in half, though the last one really only works once against a Hollow during the invasion, though her defensive abilities become key to the plot later on. Ichigo and Uryu have to work tgether to stop the Hollow invasion and everything seems to be settled except for Rukia still not having her powers, which will soon be remedied...and the series takes it's first left turn. Yeah, that's right, so far I've only touched on the stuff that actually makes sense, we haven't even gotten to the REALLY wierd parts yet.
The second story arc is wierd for two reasons, one is something that confuses you right away, and then later makes sense, the other you overlook until it's over and then you go WTF?! The first reason is the Zanpakto releases, we discover that a Soul Reaper's Zanpakto can transform twice. The first release is called Shikai and simply changes the form of the sword to something unique to each Soul Reaper, sometimes a different weapon such as a spear or mace, and sometimes a more subtle change that allows for a special power, such as control of ice or fire. The second release is Bankai, which can be just about anything including manifesting as a distinct entity. Both are supposed to be rare, but just as soon as we learn about them, we see Soul Reapers release them in rather large numbers suggesting they may not be so rare after all. It happens so fast, it's not until after that I realized all of those released Zanpakto belonged to the 13 Captains and their lieutenants and seated officers, and while it's easy to get shikai and bankai mixed up, only three characters who are below the rank of captain actually achieve bankai and the others are all shikai, and their probaly aren't any other released Zanpakto besides the ones revealed in this arc. Now for confusion number two, Soul Society is supposed to be where good people go, and yet the Soul Reapers are antagonists and four are particularly questionable as to how they made ever made it into Soul Society in the first place. Rukia is considered a criminal for bringing Ichigo into the world of the dead in the first place and the gang has to fight through the Soul Reapers to get her back before she is executed for her crimes. Ichigo crosses paths with Kenpachi Zaraki, a bloodthirsty warrior who is the only captain who achieved his rank by killing his predecessor, and considering how much he likes fighting and killing, I really wonder what sort of circumstances caused the powers that be to decide it was a good idea to let him into heaven. Then there's Mayuri Kurotsuchi, the amoral captain of squad 12 who sees everyone as specimens and test subjects and as if his general ambivalence wasn't enough, Uryu finds out he was responsible for his grandfather's demise, not just allowing Hollows to kill him, but actually captured Ishida and dissected him because he was curious what made a Quincy tick, seriously he is one sick bastard, and yet, still not number one. Gin Ichimaru is...just plain creepy. It seems all to obvious he is a bad guy, although nobody seems to see it. Number one bad guy though is Sosuke Aizen. Aizen at first appears to be the only one keeping calm when Soul Society is invaded and may be our heroes best ally, and then he appears tob be impaled on a wall and everyone goes crazy trying to figure out who killed him. Then comes the big reveal, Aizen's Bankai has the power of perfect, all-encompassing illusion over anyone who has seen his shikai, and the whole murder scene was faked, and he has been manipulating Soul Society since the beginning of the series so he can get the Hogyoku from Rukia who unknowningly has possessed the item of immense power inside her body all along. After retrieving the item he and Gin and Kaname Tossen, another Captain who he roped in for no other reason than that he was blind and immune to Aizen's power and was given the choice to cooperate or die, all make a dramatic exit escorted by Hollows. The next question I have to ask is, why is everybody concerned about the deaths of Rukia and Aizen when THEY'RE ALREADY DEAD? They keep using terminology referring to these characters as "dead" or "alive" even thought they are already dead, because that'swhat Soul Society is. Maybe that's just a translation error, but then they mention families which sometimes suggest individuals are actually born into Soul Society, but that's most during non-canon filler.
Now the Hogyoku allows for the boundaries between Soul Reaper and Hollow to be broken down so that one can get both sets of powers, which is a promising subject, which both delivers and disappoints. The better end is in regards to Hollows getting Soul Reaper powers, known as Arrancar. An Arrancar is a Hollow who regains their humanity and seals their Hollow form into a Zanpakto which allows them to take on a human form and wield a sword which means they can now fight Soul Reapers on more equal footing, except that they still have Hollow powers, which supposedly makes them more powerful. However the only Hollow power any Arrancar exhibits without releasing their Zanpakto is cero, which I argue can easily be countered by Hado 31 Shakaho, which is a spell Soul Reapers can use which at least superficially has the same effect. Even when the Arrancar release their Zanpakto, which is called Resurrecion, and trade their swords for the most advantageous aspects of their Hollow anatomy, the most that they achieve is still not much better than Bankai. Still, the fact that we got back to the Soul Reaper vs Hollow dynamic was worth introducing Arrancar. The confusing part has to do with my favorite Arrancar, Nel, who actually becomes an ally. Nel is so cool, I'm going to forgive that she manages to become a good guy, but her backstory says that she used to be an elite Espada years ago... wait a minute, didn't Aizen just get the Hogyoku? If the Hogyoku is the key to making Arrancar, then where the hell did Nel and the other former espada come from? Apparently, Arrancar can sometimes happen by themselves, but Aizen's are superior. Still, even at their worst, the Arrancar are still far more interesting than their counterparts, the Visored. The Visored are eight Soul Reapers who were subject to Aizen's experiments with the Hogyoku one hundred years earlier before Kisuke hid it in Rukia and now they have Hollow powers. That sounds so cool...until you realize all they do is put on masks(which are also marks of Hollows along with the hole) and his makes them faster and stronger than everybody else...zzz...sorry I got so bored I fell asleep writing that. The only reason they actually exist for the purpose of the greater story is that ichigo becomes the ninth Visored...which doesn't mean much more than that he is now on equal footing with the Arrancar, he looks badass, but really doesn't add anything new. Ultimately, the whole story arc leads to a battle of the gods between Aizen who is neither Hollow, nor Soul Reaper, niether Arrancar, nor Visored, but something new and transcendant, and of course Ichigo with his new ultimate power...zzz...sorry, fell asleep again.
Honestly, for all my complaints, Bleach really is one of the best anime ever shown, it is visually impressive, usually the storyline is satisfactory, an awesome soundtrack especially "Number One" which has several iterations but always deliver on accompanying the most badass moments and the voice cast kicked ass even when the script was subpar. this weekend the final arc begins on Toonami, make sure you watch. Ichigo lost his Soul Reaper powers, but someone claims they can get his powers back.
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