The Soul Society arc is when Bleach made a complete and irreversible transition from an episodic supernatural action series to a full-on battle shounen. It is almost universally considered the high point of the series, before what is generally considered to be a gradual decline in quality followed by an immense decline in popularity.
Soul Society is, in essence, a rescue arc: two shinigami, Renji Abarai and Byakuya Kuchiki (the latter of which is actually Rukia's brother) come to apprehend Rukia for the crime of giving her powers to a human. Though Ichigo manages to wound Renji and impress him with his vast spiritual power, he is completely outclassed by Byakuya, who swiftly cuts him down and destroys the shinigami powers Rukia gave him. Rukia is spirited away to Soul Society, and Ichigo is forced to confront his own powerlessness. Urahara offers him a chance to awaken his own Shinigami powers, and open up a portal to Soul Society in order for him to go rescue Rukia. In the meantime, Yoruichi, a new associate of Urahara's, spends time training Chad and Orihime to develop their own spiritual powers, as they decide to accompany Ichigo to save Rukia moreso for his sake than hers. Ishida also decides to go, but opts to train alone.
The arc is, on the whole, fairly good. There is a solid emotional component that was the result of the previous 50 chapters building up the bond between Ichigo and Rukia. It is entirely consistent with his character that he'd want to go save Rukia no matter what it takes, and both go through a lot of great development in this arc. Rukia in particular is a good example of why being a Damselin Distress is far from an inherently bad thing. While she physically does nothing, we get insight into her personal feelings and the guilt she carries as a result of not being able to save her liutenant. She feels that her life is not worth saving and hopes that nobody will die as a result of trying to save her.
Ichigo learns that the power he was wielding all this time was essentially just a pale imitation of what Shinigami are really capable of. Through his training with Urahara he gains his own spiritual powers and learns the true name of his zanpakutou, Zangetsu, who manifests as a mysterious middle-aged (fittingly, Ichigo calls him "ossan"). His relationship with Zangetsu is one of the most interesting parts of this entire arc; Zangetsu seems like a character with a lot of potential, serving as a wise mentor figure to Ichigo. Ichigo is driven to learn more about him , not simply because doing so is required to strengthen himself, but because he legitimately wants to know more about the person who's effectively giving his all his power. This is kind of neat because Zangetsu is a separate character, but at the same time, is just an aspect of Ichigo. In learning more about him, Ichigo learns more about himself. It's like exponential character development.
Throughout the entire arc Ichigo undergoes an absolutely monstrous amount of growth in a very short amount of time as he fights increasingly powerful and dangerous opponents, culminating in him learning how to use bankai, the supreme form of the zanpakutou, in three days, where the average shinigami needs over 100 years to be able to use it. He went from below a rank and file shinigami to being pretty much captain level in the span of little over a week or two. The highlight of this is his grudge match against Byakuya, which is still considered one of the best fights in the entire series, if not the best. Ichigo's bankai transformation was such an iconic moment that the entire chapter it was revealed in was published in full color.
Besides Ichigo, a few other characters get chances to shine; Uryuu has a really good battle against Mayuri, where he displays just how much being a Quincy means to him, and how much beating such a depraved asshole meant to him that he was willing to give up his powers permanently just for the chance to do so. We are introduced to some very entertaining characters like Ikakku and Kenpachi, who continue to be fan-favorites even now. Renji turns out to be a more complex character than we previously imagined, and his history with Rukia prompts him to eventually turn on Soul Society and help Ichigo save Rukia. Even Byakuya is eventually fleshed out a little, as we finally learn his reason for adhering so strictly to Soul Society's orders, and how conflicted he was the entire time.
The arc ends up having quite a few twists plot-wise; a sinister conspiracy is unveiled regarding Rukia's punishment and execution, and it turns out that the one behind it all was none other than Sousuke Aizen, a captain who initially seemed very kind, warm, and gentle. He turns out to be a manipulative sociopath whose powers vastly outclass anyone else. Two other captains, Gin Ichimaru and Tousen Kaname, join Aizen in his rebellion as he teleports to Hueco Mundo. This is one of the things that shows Kubo doesn't plan ahead that well; Aizen was not initially supposed to be behind it at all, but it was an idea Kubo conceptualized late into the arc and ran with.
I feel that in some ways this may have been the high point of Bleach's art as well; some
of his panels
are very striking and even on par with some manga that run on monthly magazines. A lot of his drawings of Kenpachi in particular are really good; as I suspected, Kubo enjoys drawing him a lot
. His comment about rough and tough characters seeming more three-dimensional is actually a pretty obvious statement from an artistic standpoint; with a more realistic/masculine character, the forms of the face are emphasized more, which makes the drawing look more solid.
Kubo would later adopt a more minimalist, brush-like quality to his work, which isn't necessarily bad, but I miss the rougher, more line-based style that was present in Soul Society.
You'll notice that I mentioned a lot of new characters' names; indeed, Soul Society more than doubled the cast of Bleach, what with the introduction of the 13 captains and their liutenants plus seated officers and miscellaneous Soul Society residents.
I take the time to mention that because now it's time to talk about the things that I felt Soul Society didn't do that well, or more specifically, the things it did that would later become much worse narrative problems.
The cast becoming so large did have the result of introducing a few enjoyable characters, but the vast majority of them are one-note and not that interesting beyond a superficial impression (though I will admit it is impressive that Kubo can come up with so many different, unique designs, it's a misuse of his artistic talent). There are many scenes of drama between all the captains and vice-captains and other shinigami, and all in all, it's a bit difficult to really be invested given that there's so much going on all at once and all things considered we don't end up having a good grasp of who most of them are anyway. This isn't as much of a problem here since we still have a solid emotional core in the story and the focus is still mostly on Ichigo's quest to save Rukia, but it's something that will become MUCH, MUCH worse later.
I mentioned Ichigo and Ishida's fights so far; that's because really, they're by far the most enjoyable. There are a lot of scuffles between captains and other shinigami, but only a few of them like Byakuya vs Renji or Soifon vs Yoruichi are really that interesting or gripping IMO. It's particularly disappointing that Chad ends up being fairly useless on the whole; he defeats a minor character nobody remembers and promptly gets wrecked by Shunsui (spoilers: this isn't the first time this will happen). Even Orihime, who can't really fight that well, ends up being more consistently useful.
Despite these misgivings, i would agree that the arc is, on the whole, the high point of the series. Join me next time as things take a turn for the worse. As in, the story becomes terrible.
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