Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-37675682-20190727155103/@comment-5398287-20191109140758

See, here's the major underlying problem with these novels' canonicity, even with those sources: nowhere do I see Kubo saying "I consider this part of the official Bleach manga timeline" or something in that vein. I see him saying "So these were some ideas/concepts/designs I contributed to these novels" and Narita backing that up. Why is that distinction important? Because look at what else Kubo has contributed ideas/concepts/designs to - the anime, the movies, and the video games. All wholly non-canonical and oftentimes contradicting the source material of the manga; I guess you could consider them "alternate universe" stuff as Brave Souls has established the existence of with the Hōgyoku Espada and all that, but certainly not part of Kubo's storyline. That on its own is nowhere near enough to claim as proof of canonicity.

And here's the other thing that I just want to clear up here. It's not that I, the rest of the mod team, and others don't consider these novels canon because we don't like them - to us, the writing, characterizations, and events that Narita puts out feel incredibly different from those of Kubo, to the point that it feels like he barely had any influence over the process. It almost feels like he's just throwing in what he thinks would be cool rather than taking a close look at what the manga has established and building from there, then claiming that Kubo said it was okay so it's all good. I don't want to get into another back-and-forth about individual points of contention again, but the third volume is what really broke my suspensions of disbelief about this being Kubo's vision, with the backstory it provides for the setting and its depiction of those long-awaited Bankai among other things. In fact, to me it feels like Narita telling Kubo and the audience "those 686 chapters of manga are cool and all, but here's what I think Bleach should be" in a manner that just feels extremely disrespectful to the franchise, the fanbase, and common sense.

Thirdly, to provide some clarity for the divide between us and the novel supporters: some of them, like you, Timjer, actually want to help us out and put the work in on something we don't particularly care for. Which is great! But the majority do not; they would instead prefer to jab at us and complain on various websites about the lack of progress and the mean ol' moderators who don't kneel at their feet in reverence. Moreover, it feels like only Narita's light novels receive this adulation and special treatment - where's the outcry over the lack of content from the OTHER light novels, like Letters from the Other Side and Death Save the Strawberry, in the fanbase? Do they not matter as much somehow? To tell you the truth, I think it ties into my second point up there - see, the non-Narita light novels actually restrain themselves in scope and importance by focusing on things like the week that Ichigo and his friends spent in Soul Society after Aizen defected or what went down in Soul Society during the events of the Lost Agent arc with Rukia and Renji, and in doing so don't contradict anything from the manga and actually feel somewhat canonical in nature. But Narita just kinda does whatever he wants with the characters and setting, and that attracts a certain part of the fandom with their own ideas about what Bleach should be - for proof of this, look no further than the individuals who went off and started their own Bleach wiki to incorporate CFYOW's content as canonical when we wouldn't after years of blasting Kubo and his writing decisions as they wrote their own outrageous fanfiction about the setting. Of course, not everyone who likes the novels is like that (Timjer, YouAreAllWolves, Hut245), and I'm not here to berate people for just liking something, but it really says a lot about the content of Narita's writing that those who despise Kubo's Bleach love it.