Bleach's Unanswered Questions:

Is Kira really a dead zombie or does he retain his personality and for all intents and purposes is still alive?

What was the eventual result of Kira's fight with all the flamingos?

Why was Ukitake retained as a captain, and why did Byakuya defer to Ukitake's interference when Yoruichi was allowed to run away with Ichigo, if he was incapable of ever producing results in any fight throughout the series?  He never went Bankai, and then he dies without anyone even hurting him for seemingly no reason?  Why was this level of incompetence rewarded with a title equivalent to the likes of Kenpachi and Byakuya?

What happened to the royal guard?

How were those two zombie captains revived when Gremmy clearly said he had killed them?

Wasn't Iba supposed to accompany that dog captain and get revenge?  Why then did he never show up?  And why on Earth would a guy who never showed up to any fight in the whole series be promoted to captain class afterwards?

What is Hisagi Shuhei's bankai, in the end?

What is Ichigo's new bankai, in the end?  Does he still even have one?

Why didn't Ichigo's and Ishida's dads help in the fight against Ywach?

Why did that captain warn Ichigo's friends that he might not be able to return to Earth when Ichigo seemingly returned without any issue despite his massive powerup?

Why didn't Ywach use the bankai he stole?

Why, if Ywach can see the future, did he allow an arrow to hit him from behind as though he couldn't see it coming?

Why did Ywach absorb Gerard's and Haschwalth's powers, and then not even use them for himself, crippling his own side for no reason?

What is Shinji Hirako's bankai and how come he never used it?

What is Love Aikawa's bankai and how come he never used it?

What the hell happened to Mashiro Kuna such that she wasn't even there for the last battle?

If Ywach can see the future, why did he give the power of antithesis to Ishida, which even Haschwalth said would be a threat to Ywach?  In addition, why on Earth did he name Ishida his heir, when he knew Ishida would betray him?

What exactly was the soul king?  If the soul king was necessary for the world to exist, why was it fine after Ywach died?  Why did Aizen have such a huge grudge against a soul king which seemingly existed as nothing but an artificial pillar holding up the sky?

Where is Aizen now and in what state?  If he's back in prison why did he willingly submit to that fate after he'd finally gotten free again?

What happened to Tier Harribel?  The last we saw of her she was still imprisoned by the Quincies.  Was she liberated at some future point?

What about the remaining sternritters?

Is there a new soul king guarded by a new royal guard now?

Why didn't Tessai Tsukabishi help in the last battle?  What about Urara and Jinta?

How exactly did Byakuya and Kenpachi beat Yammy anyway?

Who is Iba's lieutenant?  Does Iba have a bankai or have standards been lowered?  (7th division)

Who is Lisa's lieutenant?  Does Lisa have a bankai or have standards been lowered?  (8th division)

Who is Rukia's lieutenant?  (13th division)

When, how and why did Ichigo reciprocate Orihime's feelings?

When, how and why did Rukia reciprocate Renji's feelings?

What did Kazui do to Ywach's power at the end, how did he do it?

Isane's a captain, so does she have a bankai or have standards been lowered?  (4th division)

Where's Kon?

What were the results of Ganju's special training?  He didn't seem any different in the little screen time he had.

Does Ichigo even care about his Shiba relatives or is he just going to ignore that link he has with soul society?

Does Yoruichi have a bankai?  If she does, what is it?

Where is Urahara Kisuke now?

If Aizen has one, what is his bankai, and why hasn't he used it yet?

Is this still all part of Aizen's plan?

Why didn't all the surviving good guys help out Ichigo against Ywach in the final fight?  Why was it just Ichigo, Renji and Aizen in the end?  There were a plethora of characters who hadn't been hurt much yet and and hadn't gone all out yet, and they just abandoned the fate of the world to Ichigo with a whoop-de-doo-da?

Why would Ichigo work as a doctor in a clinic when Inoue can heal anyone from any level of injury with magic?  What's the point of Ichigo working?  Or does he just leave it all to Inoue and loaf around the house all day?

Was the manga really canceled right before it would have reached its natural conclusion by a malicious, evil group of editors at Shonen Jump?  Or did the author just get sick of tying up loose ends and decided to spontaneously end it with a deus ex machina silver arrow?  Is there some third reason why the ending was so rushed?

If the editors did cancel it against Tite's will, why, when it was still one of the best selling manga in the world and has a huge following which would be extremely angered at Jump's betrayal of their desire to see the proper conclusion of a story they've been following for 15 years?

Why didn't Bleach get the cover and an all color chapter after being the mainstay of Shonen Jump for 15 years?  Why isn't it shown as much respect as Naruto was?

Why was the 'exciting announcement' a live action movie, which no one wanted, instead of the anime adaption of the last arc, which is what everyone wanted?

Was Byakuya really supposed to survive that initial sternritter raid or did the editors simply insist he be spared against Kubo's wishes?

More or less, all of Naruto's questions were answered and the epilogue novels and manga, if not the original manga, explained everything satisfactorily.  Bleach, on the other hand, has to have set a record for the number of unresolved issues the story ended with.  This is a worse ending than Kenichi's, which is saying a lot.

However, I do like one aspect to the ending.  Ichigo properly got with Orihime, something she deserved so much after all the love and care she's shown him.  That right there is worth a billion bonus points.  I don't really care about Renji and Rukia getting together, I never thought they had any chemistry, but at least their daughter is both gorgeous and awesome, so I guess it wasn't a bad idea after all.  Just as I was rooting for Hinata and Naruto, my wishes were granted and made canon by the author with Ichigo + Orihime.  Also, Orihime never went out of character in order to please all of Kubo's critics.  He stuck to his guns and she stayed herself to the very end, the girl I loved from start to finish.  Thank you so much for that.

It's obvious we're never getting the ending of Bleach in animated form.  Which is a shame, because the anime could have been used as an opportunity by Kubo to rewrite the ending to whatever he really wanted it to be, and all the plot holes could have been filled in as a result.  If those two steps had been taken, it could've been the greatest anime of all time.  As it stands, though, I'm content with it staying more or less where it is in my rankings.  Bleach is what it is.  It never got the respect it deserved, but it's still better than virtually anything else out there.  Hopefully Fairy Tail won't share the same fate as Bleach.

I've rewatched and reread Bleach many times, and I'll probably do so many more times into the future.  It's one of the best stories ever told, and a rushed ending can't change that.  The numerous engaging characters you can invest in across the story rivals or even exceeds Naruto's.  The world building was great.  I never felt like a situation was unrealistic or unbelievable, the plot, setting, and characterization all worked together to form an immersive whole.

The people criticizing Bleach don't know what they're talking about, just like the critics of SAO, they don't even try to understand what's going on so of course they can't figure out why it makes sense when what happens does happen.  They also keep lumping things together when they only share vague similarities and are actually original and innovative ideas.  Every time they question the author's judgment and say things should have gone a different way, that's simply because they don't properly understand the characters in the story and Kubo does, which is why things always go the way they do and not the way fans want them to go.

If Bleach had had the time to answer its remaining unsolved issues, it would've been perfect.  It may have been the best story ever told.  I never turned my back on Bleach as a fan and I never will.  I love this series wholeheartedly, and I loved the final two chapters wholeheartedly.  Even if Kubo someday regrets writing the series and apologizes for it, I'll still be its champion.  People who pretended to like Bleach in the beginning and then made lame excuses for why they stopped liking it in the future are the sort of people who cheat on their wives and get divorced.  They're just a bunch of faithless traitors whose opinions aren't even worth regarding.  If all the trolling by bitter fans eventually convinced Kubo to quit or the editors to can him, I'll never forgive them for spoiling this story I loved.  They destroyed something beautiful and great, one of the most popular manga and anime of all time, and for what?  Just because they enjoy tearing down things they themselves were never capable of producing in the first place?  Just because they feel entitled to their fanfic version of events playing out and the author should be their slave?  There's no excuse for their behavior.

They're as bad as Ryan Lochte, who tore down his host Brazil and the Rio Olympics, by saying scurrilous lies about a fictitious armed robbery when he, in fact, was the criminal and he's caught on a surveillance tape vandalizing the gas station that security guards intervened to stop.  Ryan Lochte and his teammates are all scum, and worse, they got me piling on to Rio because they tricked me into believing the exact opposite of how the events really played out.  As someone who had defended the hosting of the Olympics in Rio all this time, I was pretty sad to see something like that happen to one of our most decorated athletes.  I was ready to declare Rio a failure and everything I said in the past a mistake.  To learn that I was simply lied to flat out by this honorless disgrace and Rio had done nothing wrong to begin with, is like if I had piled on to the innocent girl in Much Ado About Nothing and driven her to suicide.  What a bitter thing this asshole made me do, and now I have to share in his bad behavior of having dissed Rio without cause right alongside him, because his slanders had me convinced.  Just give him and all three of the other swimmers the death penalty and be done with it.