Naruto seriously owns Bleach.

Before beginning, I would like to note to the almost exclusively male teenage audience that Naruto is the manga with 'the sexy technique' (or おいろけの術) [1]. It is described as "a Transformation Technique used to transform the user into a beautiful, nude woman in a very seductive posture with either mists of smoke covering her chest and groin, or in a bathing suit. Naruto uses it to distract or win over men, sometimes leading to an exaggerated nosebleed by the victim, though some men have been able to resist it". I would like the voters in this debate to seriously consider whether they have the power to resist such a technique; if not, the winner is clear already. With that in mind, my arguments will be thus: Bleach has a great number of annoying plot inconsistencies that demonstrate poor planning; the ending to the recent arc in Bleach was underwhelming, bordered on deus ex machina [2] and ruined the character Aizen; the characters in Naruto are more complex and engaging than in Bleach; and finally, that the fights in Naruto are more interesting, varied and generally bad@ss than Bleach. 1: Annoying plot holes and inconsistencies.a. The first Captain (highest ranked soul reaper) that Ichigo fights is Zaraki Kenpachi [3] whom he just barely defeats after taking severe injuries himself. Now, it's worth noting that this is before Ichigo unlocks his Bankai which is noted to increase the power of the user by at least 5 times and as much as 10 times [4]. That's right, he defeated one of the most powerful characters in the manga while at least five times weaker than later on! Nothing in the manga later on can account for such a massive power increase. Ichigo convincingly loses to the sixth most powerful espada WITH his bankai later on [5], and without Grimmjow even changing into his released form, while Kenpachi defeats the fifth most powerful espada without apparently increasing his power and later defeats the most powerful espada along with Byakuya [6]. Ichigo should be FAR more powerful than Kenpachi by that point yet he is seemingly weaker.b. Aizen forgets how to use Kyōka Suigetsu during the final battle with Ichigo. This was a MASSIVE let down for me. I was looking forward to whatever device the writers were going to use to allow Ichigo to defeat Aizen despite him having the ability to control the five senses. Was Ichigo going to have to keep his eyes closed, using only his other senses and ability to sense spiritual pressure? Was he going to somehow break through Aizen's abillity, able to distinguish between false sense data and real sense data? Well, none of that happens because Aizen never even uses his ability. He has control of his zanpakutō until the very end when it is destroyed and has used it in virtually every fight previously. Yet, inexplicably, he never uses it in the one time when he's being outclassed in power. 2: Poor ending to the recent arc.One of the most intriguing aspects of Bleach has been the main villain Aizen. He is a constant terror and incredibly powerful adversary; able to control the five senses and more powerful than all the captains. However, all this is horribly mishandled in the final battle between him and Ichigo. For a start, the fact that Ichigo is even on Aizen's level is just explained with a generic shōnen power up sequence [7] where he travels inside himself and faces his zanpakutō in battle and his inner demons which is lame and generic, as well as being a conveinient plot device bordering on a Deux ex machina. Secondly, the writers turn Aizen into a freakish looking monster of the week, with no special powers except to blow stuff up and regenerate [8], with is completely antithetical to what made Aizen a great villian in the first place. All in all, the recent finale was a botched job and a severe disappointment. 3: Characters in Naruto and Bleach.Character development in Naruto > character development in Bleach. Why? We need only look at the two protagonists. Ichigo...well, what exactly has changed with Ichigo except repeated power-ups? Has his personality changed? Has he become more mature, has he developed in any way from the slightly emoish kid at the beginning? I can't think that he has. Naruto, on the other hand, has changed from the beginning of the series as a childish prankster [9] to a mature teenager who has experienced the loss of his close mentor and had to challenge the facts of the real world - for instance, Pein's revelation that the hidden leaf villiage was responsible for keeping war going in the hidden rain villiage, leading to the death of many innocent people [10], and subsenquently blurring the naive border between good and evil. Sasuke is another example. Starting out as a child who experienced the loss of his entire family and clan at the hands of his brother, Sasuke has steadily became more consumed with hatred over the series, leading to his manipulation by Orochimaru and Madara Uchiha to become one of the main antagonists of the series. This has also had the effect of dissillusioning Sakura, who used to love him but recently attempted to kill Sasuke in manga, by tricking him into thinking she wanted to follow him, but couldn't bring herself to, and barely escaped alive [11]. As we can see, the characters are in constant flux throughout the series, with interesting backstories and developments. I've only scratched the surface; there simply isn't anything comparable in Bleach. 4: The fights. The fights in Naruto are simply more varied, original and interesting than in Bleach. Again, let's take the main protagnoist as an example. Ichigo's abilities are almost entirely 'theoretical' - i.e., they have no seeable effect but allow the writers to caim that he's more powerful. For example, his bankai increases his speed and his mask ability increases all his 'stats'. The only exception is getsuga tenshou, which is a generic energy slash attack. Naruto on the other hand, has a number of interesting techniques. He can create easily destructable clones of himself; he can create a water/wind energy ball that can be manipulated in a number of ways - formed into a shiruken ranged attack, used as a close range 'punch' attack; he can summon giant toads to fight alongside him; and when he gets exceptionally angry, he can transform into a monstrous fox-like creature which also has its own set of moves. Finally, he can gather 'nature energy' to dramatically increase his speed and strength temporarily - however it also has noticable effects in battle such as the ability to hit without the blow connecting, it is used to combat one of Pein's bodies by transferring it into a stone frog when it tries to absorb his chakra. Pein is another great example - he is one person controlling six bodies, each of which has its own powers. The ability to bring back the dead, the ability to manipulate objects through repulsion and attraction, the ability to summon monsters and so on. Are there any characters in Bleach with such a large and varied move-pool? Not really. All this leads to more interesting battles, such as when Naruto's mentor fought Pein but died in the battle, Pein slowly revealing his different abilities throughout, and then the subsequent showdown between Pein and the entire Leaf villiage where he destroys it. [1] http://naruto.wikia.com...[2] http://tvtropes.org...[3] http://bleach.wikia.com...[4] http://www.mangafox.com...[5] http://bleach.wikia.com...[6] http://bleach.wikia.com...[7] http://www.mangafox.com...[8] http://bleach.wikia.com...[9] http://www.mangafox.com...; [10] http://www.mangafox.com...;[11] http://www.mangafox.com...;