Oh Bleach, how I loved you.
My feeling towards Bleach (exactly like for Crash Bandicoot) reminds me of my first love. When I felt in love for the first time it was amazing, I felt happy, I had a reason to live. And then she said no and it was followed by years of pain and suffering that I managed to survive by hoping she would change her opinion of me and we would be happy again. She did not.
How does this apply to Bleach? Well, when I first started reading Bleach it was my favorite manga. Okay sure, it was one of my first mangas, so I didn't had much to chose, but the point maintains, I completely loved it. The art was amazing, the story was awesome and the battles, OH don't get me started on the battles.
The story is good but simple, Ichigo was a boy who could see ghosts and one day he finds a Shinigami (God of Death), Shinigamis in Bleach basically go around the world defeating Hollows, which are essentially corrupted ghosts. By some twist of fate Rukia, the Shinigami, is forced to give her powers to Ichigo and it's now up to him to fight the Hollows.
This is the plot for the first arc, although it will get complicated later on and with various plot holes, it is all you need to know before jumping to the manga.
The first arc is simple enough, it is made to introduce Ichigo and all the main cast. They are mostly interesting, although I don't remember seeing the main cast at all in the last chaps. And I mean at all! Not even Ichigo (Well, to be fair, he finally appeared in the last chap).
Soul Society was next, and it got me hooked, it is when the story actually kicks in, the characters were many, but they were all so amazing, there were few you couldn't like, the battles reached is peak and the art was better. This is the golden arc of Bleach.
Then it was Hueco Mundo, and although I felt it was most of the same, I was okay with that, because it was still the Bleach I knew... and then it came the final battle of that Arc and... it was followed by years of suffering and pain.
The characters became basically peaces of meat that fight, the story got boring, the plot holes started appearing, and it stretched more than it should.
Now when a normal manga gets stretched more than it should, it generally add bad and horrible plots.
Well, Bleach avoids this by stretching the chapters in a way that the advance you get in 18 pages is a guy raising a sword or fall in the ground. That is not bad... it's flat out insulting the fans.
It recovered a bit after the end of the arc, but it felt on the ground again afterwards.
The only things good now are the art, which is actually one of my favorite art styles and sometimes he still gets a good battle.
I'm giving it a 7, because if it was the first arcs I would give it a 10, and I don't really want to rank this lower than I rank Naruto, but if the ending is not at least acceptable, it will probably fall into a 6.
The only reason I still read this is because I still have hope it will recover, but chances are that, just like with my first love, it will not happen.