User blog comment:Avolling/Fullbring - The Detested Arc?/@comment-1268838-20111216180314

I'll start out by saying that I like this arc better than the Soul Society arc. There, I said it. Now...

For the first time in a while, we have an arc that hasn't been a huge battle royale through and throughout, which is what made previous arcs iconic. So right away, there is a problem for some fans - Bleach is a series largely built around action, so seeing its sudden transition into a "slice-of-life" style is an understandably off-putting development. What a lot of people can't seem to accept is that this is a transition arc - without Ichigo having powers, it's difficult for the fast-paced storyline to persist. With the primary antagonist gone and the protagonist powerless, the direction of the story was thrown up in the air. Kubo made the decision to capitalize on Ichigo's power loss - in light of his friends' endangerment, we learn that Ichigo's desire to be normal is merely a charade. We learned that he was proud of his power because of that. With so strong of a desire, it would be underwhelming to have his powers just handed to him on a silver platter immediately; no, he had to be driven into a situation where he absolutely needed them, in light of insurmountable odds. That situation was one of betrayal and utter despair - Ichigo has never been betrayed before. I applaud Kubo because Tsukishima and Kugo accomplished what even Aizen could not - for that moment, they utterly broke Ichigo.

As for our villains' motives... I would say that it would be too preemptive to judge the entire arc on them, seeing as we just learned of them within a month ago. Kugo clearly has issues, and judging by his reactions to Ichigo's sympathy, there is more to his story than we have been told.