Bleach is a Japanese television series made by Tite Kubo, produced by Pierrot, and directed by Noriyuki Abe. The anime was released in late 2004 and ended in 2012, having produced over 300 episodes. Bleach is one of the most well-known anime to ever exist and is a part of ¨The Big 3¨, being popular enough to feature on the cover of Shonen Jump. The story follows our main character Ichigo Kurosaki, a 15-year-old high school boy with a confident and never-giving-up personality. After obtaining soul reaper powers in a dire situation from another soul reaper named Rukia Kuchiki, he now protects Karakura Town (his hometown) from evil spirits and hollows with his newly found powers, as well as sending lost souls to the afterlife peacefully. With Ichigo’s new soul reaper powers, he was deemed a substitute soul reaper, meaning he now had duties to fulfill directly sent from the soul society. The soul society is an otherworldly place created by the Soul King, where lost souls rest, and where soul reapers reside.
After Rukia transferred soul reaper powers to Ichigo she was sentenced to death for transgression in the human world and was sent to the soul society for execution. This is where Ichigo takes action and eventually meets two exiled soul reapers, Kisuke Urahara and Yoruichi Shihoin. They help Ichigo and 3 of his friends from high school make it to the Soul Society, Orihime Inoue, Uryu Ishida, and Chad. As Rukia is being jailed waiting for her execution, Ichigo is making his way towards where she resides by fighting through captains of the Gotei 13 and lieutenants of the Gotei 13, which is a group of well-trained swordsmen that protect the soul society. On this journey, Ichigo is taught the name of his Zanpakuto and obtains his Shikai to fight off enemies that stand in the way of his mission.
Later after Ichigo and his friends finally manage to save Rukia, It’s revealed that the ex-captain of the Gotei 13 Sosuke Aizen, framed Rukia for the crime. 
It is then shown that Aizen has been illegally experimenting on soul reapers and hollows, trying to also figure out how he could conquer the soul society by using ¨The Hogyoku¨. The Hogyoku is a blueish-purple orb composed of a unique substance thought to be capable of disintegrating boundaries between soul reapers and hollows, allowing one race to attain the powers of the other.
Aizen also plans to fuse with the Hogyoku to obtain higher power. After faking his death and his reappearance it caused a breakout, giving him the perfect timing to escape from soul society to hueco mundo, a different world full of sand and dark black skies where hollows stay. Aizen then later Kidnaps Orihime, as she is required to create ¨The Oken¨. A legendary power that will allow Aizen to kill the soul king, finally having the ability to rule the soul society.
When Ichigo heard about Orihime being kidnapped he took action again of course and trained his vizard mask, which is a small form of hollow energy, he obtained this during the Rukia rescue mission. When training he had the help of other vizards, who were victims of Aizen’s experiment. After mastering his vizard he made his way to Hueco Mundo with Chad and Uryu, but in the way of their rescue mission, they had to make it past the Espada. The Espada are 10 Arrancars with exemplary strength of the same level as captains of the Gotei 13. These Espada serve as Aizen’s commanders and each has a faction of weaker Arrancars, also following Aizen as his right and left-hand men were Gin Ichimaru and Kaname Tosen both being ex-soul reapers. These two both possessed captain-level skills and were a big help with Aizen’s plan to obtain the oken.
After Ichigo and his friends can save Orihime, Aizen reveals that her kidnapping was a distraction from his actual desires. The reason for kidnapping Orihime was so he could take Karakura Town, as its spiritual pressure was what was needed to create the oken. After Aizen fused with the Hogyoku he reached a certain power level that nobody could even come close to, A power level so high nobody was even able to feel his spiritual pressure. After being so close to taking away Karakura Town Ichigo appears and wastes no time trying to take down Aizen once and for all. Before trying to fight Aizen he was trained by his inner zanpakuto to learn the final Getsuga Tensho, which was used as a last resort to take down Aizen. The final Getsuga Tensho is a sacrificial move that gets rid of all of Ichigos soul reaper powers, hints at the term ¨final¨. After Ichigo successfully uses his final Getsuga Tensho, Aizen is sealed and rejected by the Hogyoku, and the soul reapers defeat the Espada. Bleach doesn’t end there but that is what the main plot of the story was regarding bleach by itself and not including the TYBW arc.
Overall 10/10 anime
