"Bleach" (2004) More at IMDb Pro »TV series 2004-????

Bleach is by far better than such sword-based action anime like Blood+ or Inuyasha. Unlike most action anime in which the plot is simply battle after battle broken up by long winded speeches, Bleach breaks the mold, at least in most cases.

Early episodes of the show (minus the filler arcs)feature intense character development and touch upon human emotion/psychology. The show is entertaining up to episode 63. Past episode 63, there have been few good episodes. However, if one is willing to look, most episodes featuring Ichigo and Rukia or Captain Hitsugaya are worth watching, as they are by far the most interesting characters.

However, the reason I gave this anime only 7 out of 10 is because of the amount of filler episodes, the now repetitive storyline, and meaningless character interactions.

Also, a comparison of the English dub and sub reveals another dilemma. The English dub contains good voice dubs for most characters (except Hitsugaya, who sounds more like a man than the young boy he really is)it also excludes a lot of the somewhat annoying battle cries and exaggerated vocal tones prevalent to most anime of this nature. However, I would still recommend watching the subbed version as the voices tend to better portray the characters and most English dubs tend to change the wording of important scenes.

All I can say is, if sword action is your preferred type of anime, Bleach is most likely the best choice.