[Anime] Bleach

Lets get this thread up again.

So I was watching Bleach last year. Started OK and got steadily better. I was enjoying immensely the Soul Society arc, limped through Bounto arc, and then just had to take a break once the Arrancar filler started up. I stopped watching for about 8 months.

It helped. Just have to keep taking breaks every so often through this filler.

That said, a spoiler-light rant about the Kasumi-Ooji filler:

Spoiler:

What the HELL was with the cut to this filler?! Ichigo just has a dramatic victory, the whole team is still quite possibly fucked, deep in enemy territory, and they just cut away to normal life, do their little arc (which was decent filler, but still), and then cut right back. All the way mocking the business executives in their "end of the episode" cute scenes.

And then they do it again! When the filler character says "I'll see you again Ichigo" I'm like yeah fucking right. But they do show up again! In the same arc! While Ichigo and team is still behind enemy lines and deep in shit! These are the worst, most flowbreaking, poorly handled filler transitions I've ever seen.

Also, about Chad/Sado's upgrade and my thoughts on him in general:

Spoiler:

Thank god he got that second arm. I hope it makes his fights more interesting to watch. At first I thought Chad had a pretty cool backstory, but he's become such a boring one-liner one-dimensional character, and his fights were the worst. Just straight punching and blasting at the guy, until he wins by brute endurance. OR he just gets insta-pwned. Plus, his only contribution to dialogue, dry straight-man humour, Ishida Uryu can do better anyway!

Manga question:

Spoiler:

My friend who reads the manga said Uryu has a big crush on Inoue Otohime. Like, a giant obvious one. Is that true? I mean in the anime there's like no hint that he's particularily interested at all. If it's true, maybe I need to read the manga to not miss things...is there enough difference to make reading the manga worth it if I'm enjoying the story?

It also strengthens my belief that if there is a romantic resolution (which is an IF in shonen), then Inoue's getting shafted.

For you guys talking about the soundtrack, get the movie soundtracks, they're basically show OSTs and have some of the better music.

Also, fun-fact: I found an online store selling some series 1 bleach figurines for $0.00. No shit. I even tried joke ordering 100 and it still cost $0.00. But I didn't get them. Because a) I didn't want to be on the hook, b) there's still shipping cost, and c) these figures were fantastically ugly.

Jam it back in, in the dark.