The Fall of Bleach: 4 Years Later

Summary by Krater

The creator re-examines their previous video about the decline of Bleach, admitting that their statistical arguments regarding Oricon manga sales and Weekly Shonen Jump table of contents rankings were flawed and relied on internet misinformation, while still maintaining that the later story arcs suffered from pacing and narrative issues.

From the video

Answers: Did Bleach actually fall in popularity and was its decline the reason it ended?

• Bleach manga sales trends
• Weekly Shonen Jump popularity rankings
• Naruto manga sales
• One Piece manga sales
• Soul Society arc storytelling
• Arrancar arc pacing
• Fullbring arc reception
• Thousand-Year Blood War arc analysis
• Dragon Ball Z comparison
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure comparison
• Hajime no Ippo storytelling

What it concludes

• The idea that Weekly Shonen Jump's table of contents reflects strict reader popularity surveys is a widely circulated piece of misinformation without definitive evidence.
• Bleach's Oricon sales peaked at volume 37 before experiencing a steady decline, yet overall sales figures do not support the claim that it suffered a catastrophic collapse in popularity.
• The rumors that Bleach was abruptly cancelled or forced to end due to poor rankings were false and stemmed from internet speculation and mistranslated interviews.
• Bleach's Oricon sales figures showed a top placement of 800,000 copies sold at its peak before dropping to over 440,000 copies for its final volumes.
• The Oricon sales data and Japanese manga sales charts demonstrate that Bleach's decline was gradual rather than the sudden drop depicted in the original video.
• The Bleach anime adaptation ceased production and was pulled off the air after the Fullbring arc due to declining TV ratings and high levels of filler content.