Depressed by a Manga?

Bleach is just depressing right now. I have been keeping up with the manga, just not blogging about it. It's on chapter 424 right now. There are a few things bugging me and I just need to vent. If you haven't read up to the current chapter, be warned that the rest of this post will be full of spoilers for you.

First, the Deicide arc was freaking annoying. It took forever for anything to happen, and most of it was just Aizen leveling up. He turned into a freaking butterfly, for goodness sake. That wasn't exactly intimidating. The whole "yay we killed Aizen ... oh wait, we didn't" routine had gotten really old. I was looking forward to the guy finally kicking the bucket. But nooooo. I'm not allowed that satisfaction. Even Ichigo's  final getsuga tenshou doesn't do it. No dying, just sealing. It's like playing an incredibly long and difficult video game, battling the final boss for ages, and then, just when he's down to 10 hp, someone comes along and says, "alright, we're done here". It makes the last 400 chapters seem like a futile endeavor.

That seal is not going to last for 20,000 years. Come on, people. Don't you remember that the guy hypnotized everyone in Soul Society? There's no way he's gonna stay locked up for that long. Besides ... why only 20,000 years?? Why not forever? Or even better ... figure out a way to kill him, dammit!

It just pisses me off that Ichigo loses his shinigami powers and doesn't even accomplish his goal. Well, I guess Karakura town is safe, but I don't see that as the final goal. As long as Aizen is alive, no one is safe. Even if he is sealed.

So now, Ichigo has no powers at all. Normal human teenager. Well, he's strong, but I don't see that as incredibly unusual. But he can't see any of the friends he made from Soul Society and he doesn't really have a purpose or any direction in life. Things continue on around him like they did before he got his powers. No one needs Ichigo.

Then there's the mountain of unanswered questions. Do Orihime and Chad still have their powers? What happened to the Visoreds? Ichigo would probably be able to see them since they're in gigais, right? I'm not gonna write them all out... suffice it to say that I'm not satisfied. It also doesn't help that I don't have any friends who keep up with Bleach, so I can't vent with them about all of this crap. (That would be why I'm writing this post.)

So when I start thinking about all of this, it brings my mood down. I had a particularly frustrating day today and ended up falling asleep in front of my computer. When I woke up from my involuntary nap, I started thinking about Bleach and got downright depressed. I'm sure that there are other factors involved here, including my incredibly high stress level as of late. I probably shouldn't be surprised that I'm affected so much by a manga. I'm always very affected by books and movies in general. Much more so when I find them engaging. Since I've spent so much time reading and watching Bleach, I guess it should be expected.

Still. It's just a manga. I should just get over it. Right?