The Vampiric Souls

Having your favorite manga adapted into an anime is always an exciting time. However, with adaptations comes the occasional filler with it becoming especially bad in long-running series. Bleach is also a victim with its filler sometimes derailing the plot. At times though the anime will try its best to integrate the filler into the plot. So let’s see how well they did in the Bount arc.

There isn’t really much to say about the arc. The Bount are an artificial species that were created by accident during an experiment on eternal life being done in Soul Society. This species has the unique ability to absorb souls from living creatures which in conjunction with their life long spans led to creation of vampires in human folklore. Due to their unique nature the Bounts were persecuted by humans and hunted to near extinction by the Shinigami. Seeking revenge the leader of the Bounts Jin Kariya leads his species in a war Soul Society in hopes of taking them out and securing their place in the world. It’s now up to Ichigo and his friends to stop them before their plans can come to fruition.

The Bount arc is regarded as one of the worst arcs in the anime. On paper, the arc has a lot of things going for it. However, ultimately it falls flat on its butt and fails to execute things properly. For one thing, the power system of the Bounts feels like they're just copying the Shinigami. There’s no problem with this in theory, however in practice it feels like the writers were struggling to find a way to make the Bounts threatening and just decided to copy the Zanpakuto with only a few differences. Then, there’s the fact that these characters that were hyped up and shown to be strong are effortlessly taken care of once they reach Soul Society. While this is a cool way of showing how strong the Captains are, it does take away a bit from the threat that the Bount are supposed to be.

In the end, I don’t think this arc does enough to warrant watching it. You won’t really miss much from not watching it and just skipping ahead. Avid Bleach fans will likely consider the arc fun to watch, however, for those not interested in sitting through boring filler then I definitely recommend skipping this arc.

Logan Floyd-Mcgee | Writer
POP-COOLEDTURED SPECIALIST
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