LAPRAS. THAT... You sure you're not Ichigo in disguise? =P
Okay as for what keeps me interested... This'll be a long story... It may seem to go off on tangents but it's kinda important for my point... Just bear with me.
Well first off, I nearly gave up Bleach just before the Rurichiyo arc first aired in Japan. (Obviously I didn't know about that arc until I picked it up again, but just to give an idea, I literally gave up on episode before that. That one episode also happens to be the only one I've seen only in English and not in Japanese.) Anyway, at that point, I felt like the Hueco Mundo arc was going on FAR too long. (I think it was good timing, looking back, that the anime people decided to put a filler right there. If I'd hung in there for just one more episode, I'd have kept watching.) Honestly I'm not a huge fan of Spanish anyway. No offense to those who like/speak it. I just personally don't like the language, and that's just me. At that point in my life, I was being forced to take Spanish class at school, all while knowing my middle school friend who went to a different high school had a choice of many languages... One of which was Japanese, which she decided to take... Anyway the fact that I didn't like Spanish but it was being forced on me anyway, was part of why I didn't like the HC arc and part of why I kinda gave it up. I still kept watching on Adult Swim though, but obviously the episodes on there are very far behind. In November 2009, I realized I only had missed that last episode of the arc. Then they started just showing repeats for almost a year. I took that opportunity to go back and watch all the Japanese episodes from the last episode of season 8, to seasons 9-12, all the way through the then-current episode in season 13. I don't remember which episode I caught up to, but it was probably somewhere around the middle. When I did finally catch up, I found that I really missed Bleach, and I decided to keep following it wholeheartedly. It also made me really happy that around that time, Crunchyroll decided to finally start legally streaming it. (At that point, I already had a CR anime membership, so that made it even better.) Since then I've been following it ever since, not missing a chapter or episode. (It's true I've fallen behind a bit in the anime, but I still watch episodes whenever I can, and I'm only around 20 episodes behind. A lot less than I used to be! So I can probably catch up over the summer.) Anyway, I guess what brought me back and kept me here is... Well, a lot of things. I suppose a good part of it is the characters. That's one of the things that got me hooked in the beginning. Another thing is the plot. I dunno why, but Bleach has always pulled me in with its plot. Even the concept of the Soul Society is really intriguing to me. I dunno... I guess it's... A lot of things. There's also the cliffhangers. As much as I hate them (LOL) they do keep me wanting to continue reading the next chapter. And also, somehow... I just can't bring myself to "drop" the series again. Once I got back into it, I felt really bad about dropping it the first time, so I don't want to feel that way again.
Phew. Well that certainly was a mouthful. XD
On another note... Watching Bleach now... As it is in fact on as I type... I'm reminded how (IMO) Bleach is one of the few anime that has GOOD filler episodes. I mean, Rurichiyo is pretty funny in herself. XD (Yeah, it's the episode where Rurichiyo comes back to the World of the Living.) And come to think of it... Next week is the last episode before the Turn Back the Pendulum arc! YAY!!! I LOVE THAT ARC. It's definitely one of my absolute favorites. And... That has to say something, as neither of my two favorite characters are even in that one. I think it has something to do with the ending theme, though... I happen to really love that song, and I also happen to think it fits the TBTP arc very well.
