Its the Clash of the Titans! (about which practically nobody on the blogosphere is interested in anymore).This post could be classified as tl;dr and as such, there’s a quick summary of my point at the end.

Naruto. A shounen that has existed in animated form for at least 6 years, garnering interest due to its unique take on ninjas, colourful and varied world, and odd yet likeable characters.

Bleach. A shounen that has existed in animated form for around 3 and a half years, garnering interest due to its interesting characters, beautiful, vivid colours and its engaing tales of souls and swords eternally retold.

Each of these anime, though not as excellent as what the best of the media form has to offer, are good in their own right, each bringing something unique to the table. For a while they were beloved by many fans, but then something came along and severely decreased those numbers.

Fillers.

As anime fans know, for long running series fillers are usually used to give time to the mangaka to move far ahead enough of the anime so that the show has enough material to continue on. This is all well and good, but the fact of the matter is, the writers of the show may be able to make the manga move, but most of the time they cannot write a good storyline to save their lives. The same can be said for both Naruto and Bleach; everyone remembers at the very least liking Naruto (and if you didn’t, you were’nt far from hearing about how good it was from its fans which seem to to be EVERYWHERE) until around episode 140, where the team behind the show decided to go on a filler arc. Perfectly reasonable.

What’s not reasonable is that it lasted for almost 2 years. 2 years of crappy plots and almost no character developement (I believe its the case that as fillers, they shouldn’t introduce too many new elements into the main storyline). I remember that there were around 3-4 episodes based on The Curry of Life. Seriously. Becoming known as the longest and greatest FILLER HELL ever, the anime lost most of its fans somewhere amid that shitstorm, and only persistent fans of the show (such as me) or FANS in general attempted to weather it in the hopes that we may be rewarded with either better filler or return to the plot. Remember, this took 2 years. What came, however, seemed to be not at all worth it. Naruto Shippuden was eventually, after a gruesome wait, announced and many believed it would be a rebirth of the animated franchise. Instead, we got good animation, a good storyline and horribly, HORRIBLY slow pacing. You know that there’s a problem with a show if the pacing seems to completely cripple the narrative. There’s no tension and a LOT of people standiing around staring each other down; at one point half of a supposed action-packed hour special meant the characters looking at each other for ten minutes. However, it was bearable as, at times, you got gems like this:

The entire episode was the one of the best fights I’ve ever seen from the series.

Alas, within two episodes, pacing was not the only problem; take this quote from Novastorm, one of the few blogs which was still covering the show, as an example of episode 28:

“I cannot believe how stupid this episode is. It’s so stupid it’s not even laughable. Gai’s team spends 20 minutes on figuring out that they are actually getting tired, as well as figure out that in order to defeat their duplicates, they need to become stronger than them. This is the kind of thing that’s plain embarrassing. And what’s more, they actually all get pinned down at the same time, and all manage to ‘get stronger’ (wtf is this?) at the same time and defeat their clones. Wow, way to go from episode 26 to 28. Hopefully Kakashi’s and Naruto’s fight will actually have some substance, and no filler-esque stupidity.”

Apparently, the series, by episode 26, had only covered 28 chapters of the manga; now THAT is slow.

So, a year later, the series has most likely lost a large portion of its original, avid following in exchange for the new wave of anime fans (or FANS, take your pick) who defend it to the last (hell, I may be one of them, not exactly defending the series but hoping for something better).

Now, moving on to the case of Bleach. The first 55 or so episodes of the show were great; engaging narrative, very good developement of characters and consistently good animation and style. And then came the Bounto arc. Now, I wasn’t aware that it was filler at the time, as I was not reading the manga and couldn’t really tell due to my, well, lack of common sense or intuitiveness. It could either be this or my naivety but I enjoyed  it. It wasn’t nearly as good as the Soul Society arc but it wasn’t anywhere near as horrible as Naruto’s FILLER HELL; the studio at least had the good sense to create a more in depth storyline than spicy food. Not many agree with me though. After getting out of this, though, the anime followed the storyline of the manga, and though still not completely up to its former glory, it still had good fights and great moments (and a much higher animation budget).

Up to the end of the Hueco Mundo arc (or rather, abrupt stop in the middle of the arc), it was clear which was the better series by that point. However, it was then announced there would be yet another filler arc for each series (when I found out, I almost let out a melodramatical “NOOOOOOOO!”; instead, I just thought “Crap.”) and at that point I thought “Screw it, I’ll at least read the manga so I’ll have something too look forward to”. And here we get to the main point of this article (took a while, right?).

At this point in the new filler arcs, I have actually changed my mind about which is the better series(at the moment, not in general); despite Naruto’s horrible track record and Bleach’s better one, that which is being done well by one is being handled badly by the other. I am going to compare them in 3 categories: Plot, Animation, and New Characters and Villains (These just seemed to be the most prominent things in both series which could be easily compared to each other).

Plot:

Bleach

At the moment, the plot of the Bleach filler is shallow, boring predictable. Princess Lurichiyo is heiress to the Kasumi Ouji family, but too young to fully take up the mantel yet. As such, a scheming adviser, Kumoi, wishes to take control by kidnapping (and most likely killing her and having a puppet ruler in her place. Fearing for her life, her bodyguards Enryuu and Kenryuu take her to the real world, but they are followed by assassins. Ichigo and the gang protect them, while at the same time Lurichiyo learns that she mustn’t be such a brat and Ichigo empathises with her lack of free will and understands her and really poor jokes occur. There’s a hint about something else happening, but nothing of it has materialised yet. On the Soul Society side of things, the new Captain Amagai Shuusuke has arrived, and all we know is he’s a lightweight drunk and his primary sub-ordinate, Kibune is working with… *gasp* the cruel adviser, Kumoi! (Hey, they had to make up some connection somewhere; it is called the “Brand New Captain Amagai Shuusuke Arc” and they haven’t focused on that aspect much).

The whole “naive, annoying person staying with someone to change their character” is uninteresting (though Kurenai handled it well, as it was more about characters than action, but I digress); throw in a standard kidnapping and an evil, ambitious advisor and it just gets, in my opinion, stupid. There is still some potential with hints about something deeper than just the coup, but unless this comes to fruition soon, I won’t have seen the point of including the assassins at all, as by this point they’re all dead.

Naruto

Years ago, half of the 10 Guardians of the Fire Country’s Feudal Lord attempted a coup and half stood against them. The rebels failed and were killed, but the winning side lost 3 of theirs as well. Now, a group of so-called Holy Warriors have stolen and used the bodies of 4 of the guardians for an as yet unknown plot (it was suggested they wished to kill all of Konoha, but that’s way too simple… Or is it?). A monk-in-training at the Fire Temple, Sora, is holder of a terrible power (possibly known as “The Death Claw”) and as such is (you guessed it) just like Naruto, isolated from the rest of the monks. So, naturally, Naruto befirends him. Sora then finds out that Azuma is the one who killed his father Kasuma, who was one of the rebels, and then joins the Warriors. Not only that, but Danzou’s relation to this whole affair is brought to the foreground.

Though Sora’s character isn’t that unique , its more likeable than Lurichiyo’s. Besides the usual “be friends, overcome adversity, try and forget hatred” spiel thats within Naruto and Sora’s reltionship, the other side of the plot with the Guardian bodies, the Warriors and Danzou’s Plans. There’s still a lot of room for plot developement here, and for the first time in ages I actually want to know what happens next in the show.

Animation:

Long running series always succumb to dips in animation here and there, be it character designs or just during any sort of action scene (such as the use of the infamous speedline). Its a given, but you just hope that it won’t harm the series too much. However…

Bleach

Bleach normally has consistently average to good animation, but lately its just been getting ridiculous. Maybe its because its filler and they really, want to save their money for when the go back to the main story in a few months (hopefully) time, but at the very least they should keep character designs consistent.

They’re almost in disbelief that they look so bad. Its hard to not notice these things. Here are two shots of Ichigo:

In one he looks, quite frankly, badass. And in the other he looks like a giraffe. (Well, I think so anyway) Also, his sword looks like a piece of toilet paper.

Thankfully, the infrequent dips are mostly limited to character design; the fights are okay and even take a step up now and again.

Overall, its not too bad but when it does happen, you REALLY notice it.

Naruto

Naruto has been surprisingly consistent with its character design throughout the filler. Maybe they’re just getting a bigger budget than the Bleach animation team (it is a larger franchise), but I’ve noticed that the Naruto designs and animations, though not always complex and detailed, are at the very least consistently average to good. I couldn’t find any particular standout-moments where it made me want to shut  my eyes and wish it would go away.

The trade-off seems to be with the action scenes; while not exactly bad they do lack detail. But then again they’re action scenes, and as long as there aren’t speedline backgrounds everywhere, I’m happy.

Those aren’t speedlines! Its just the wind >_>.

New Characters and Villains:

Bleach

The Princess and her Bodyguards

Lurichiyo, Enryuu and Kenryuu

Lurichiyo is, at the start of the arc, your basic Ojou-sama character; bratty, whiny and selfish. But now… she’s a bit better. A tiny, tiny bit better.She’s less selfish and inconsiderate but either we haven’t gotten deep enough into the storyline for her to complete change her ways, or she’s just not going to change much at all. Enryuu and Kenryuu are two boring characters and basically a joke. Enryuu doesn’t speak (strong, silent type) and Kenryuu’s a complete pansy. Think I’m exaggerating?

His flowers stop the opponents blade from working.

Unless the opponent can blow them away.

In which case he’s useless.

Which is most cases.

Kumoi and The Assassins Creed

The adviser, Kumoi is ridiculously 2D; it really seems like all he wants to do is take over the Kasumi Ouji family. Hopefully, there’s a hidden meaning to his motives, or he’s going to end up dying just like the assassins. Who are also 2D, by the way. Their leader, Nukui, says they’re doing all this as they have always been helping the family in the shadows outside of Soul Society’s rules and a young girl isn’t fit to run the family. Though true, I thought it might’ve been something deeper and more personal, but no. Its a shame, I quite liked his character until that point. The rest of the assassins were dead as quickly as they were introduced; most of them used too much power and they were absorbed by their weapons.

Amagai Shuusuke and Kibune

This side of the story is so much more interesting and its a shame they decided to intertwine it with the other side. Make up a completely new, better villain and they woldn’t even have had to take the others out of Hueco Mundo. There’s still some poor jokes (the entire squad chase a cat) but some of them at least serve some purpose (this improved their teamwork). Shuusuke doesn’t seem all that deep as a character, but Kibune’s double-agency (is that a word?) has been revealed so maybe its more intricate than it appears.

Overall, my greatest problem with the filler is that there are some things unkown, but what’s been presented is not surprising, nor interesting. We could only be at the beginning of a Bounto-length filler arc, so it still has a chance.

Naruto

Sora

Again, not the most unique character, especially due to similarities with Naruto, but his father’s death makes for a good vengeance story. He’ll most likely change back to fight off the Warriors with Naruto, however, so as long as they don’t lay on the friendhip thing too thick, he’ll still saty a good character. He’s also a bit of an asshole which made for genuinely funny confrontations with the other ninjas, especially Tsunade ^_^.

The Warriors

The Warriors, who I thought were going to be very unimaginative villains, turn out to be quite interesting. Their abilities were surprisingly varied; for example, a woman had the ability to use all five chakra elements by sucking it out of her enemies. Their Leader’s less PURE EVIL than Komui, and he seems to believe that killing the Hokage is really the best idea; it was the same for the past rebel Guardians. They at least have a good reason for doing what they believe, even if it is completely crazy what they’re planning to do.

There’s also the use of Danzou which seems to be developing (main plot and story developement in filler!?). It did feel like he was just a background protagonist and I’m glad they’re doing something with him here.

Thoughts Summary:

Anyway, what I’m trying to get across is that at the moment, Naruto has managed to do something I would have never thought would happen: be better than Bleach. This in no way concerns the entirety of the two series (Bleach would definitely come out on top if that was the case), but Bleach’s plot seems to just be wandering around as drunk as Shuusuke after some sake. Unless they truly mesh together, it’ll continue to be uninteresting.  There’s still a chance though, if whats hidden in the shadow is something epic (I use the term very loosely here), that the filler could become both complicated and surprising. (Now I think about it, we still don’t have an explanation as to why this is happening in the middle of the Hueco Mundo arc…)

Naruto, on the other hand, continues to engage me by being, well, good (I never thought those two words would end up in the same sentence again). It seems like it may be coming to an end in the next few weeks, as all the events seem to be coming to a head. Though I do know where the manga goes from here, the anime is more interesting to me right now. I’m in no rush, and neither is the show; its taking its time to develop things but not at a ridicuolously slow pace. It shows that good filler can be done in a long shounen series and I, for one, will be anticipating the next episode.

*Part of the screenshots were grabbed from Omni over at Random Curiosity.