>>92841303Gonna be honest bro, I stopped reading around the middle of the fullbring arc. Eventually I'd just had enough of watching Kubo ruin his original premise.
By that point, Ichigo didn't seem to have a meaningful relationship with anyone. He himself had stagnated as a character (everyone had, really) and become incredibly boring, and it no longer really felt like he closely connected - or even just friends - with most of the cast, including Orihime.
I know there was one more arc after that, but I doubt you could have convinced me that Orihime was more than just another person in need of saving to him. They just didn't appear to have any real rapport or chemistry. Tatsuki, who hadn't been relevant since the first arc, seemed genuinely much closer to him.
Maybe Kubo had everything planned out ahead of time (though, considering how nonsensical the tweests got, how asspully the fights became, and how uninteresting and aimless all the characters seemed by this point, I doubt it), but he didn't portray any of this stuff convincingly. He lost his touch as a writer after SS, and everything that came about after that felt fake and forced. I remember feeling a distinct unease when Grimmjow was introduced and we went for another rescue arc, and in hindsight, I would have been right to follow my gut and drop the manga back then.
