Bleach is a mega-popular shonen action series featuring a large cast of beloved characters, from protagonist Ichigo Kurosaki and his friends to memorable villains like Grimmjow and Sosuke Aizen. There’s a lot to love about Ichigo and the team, but there are also some downsides or issues with BleachThe main cast of .
Orihime Inoue, for example, has a spotty history with Bleach fans. He stands out as one of the most sane and reliable characters in the series, but there are also some flaws in his personality, his combat prowess, or just his character design. Some of these problems are Orihime’s fault, while others are not.
10 Orihime’s backstory is unclear.
Any major anime character will be more compelling and intriguing when the story provides details about their backstory, often through the use of flashbacks. Bleach does that too, but Orihime Inoue didn’t get her fair share of character development with this method.
Orihime’s character feels a bit shallow and incomplete in Bleach. It doesn’t help that the few confirmed details of her backstory actually differ between the manga and anime, which makes her backstory all the more confusing.
9 Orihime has strange cooking habits.
Orihime never had the chance to learn how to cook from her parents, so she spent her childhood improvising all sorts of weird foods; this was a source of comic relief in bleach First Station. No one else can bear the thought of eating what Orihime has in her lunch box.
Orihime is the type who puts ketchup on ice cream or eats a whole loaf of bread for lunch and this doesn’t make her too popular during lunchtime at school. It’s also possible that Orihime doesn’t get proper nutrition from strange cooking like this.
8 Orihime doesn’t think about the future seriously.
Any high school student would feel a bit apprehensive when thinking about their future, as few teenagers have their whole life figured out at that point or have a solid plan in mind. Still, Orihime could at least play with some realistic ideas about what her life will be like after high school.
Instead, Orihime made everyone laugh out loud when she presented her “my future” art to her friend Tatsuki, depicting Orihime as a killer robot destroying a futuristic city. It’s a great joke, but high school students are a little old to daydream like that, especially when graduation approaches.
7 Orihime continues to cry out to Ichigo.
It is a widely used anime convention to show a supporting character shouting the hero’s name out of concern during a difficult battle and Bleach is not an exception. Orihime Inoue has every reason to be concerned about Ichigo’s well-being, but she usually takes it too far.
Orihime has a bad reputation for constantly yelling “Kurosaki-kun!” or something similar without end in Bleach and it ages fast.
6 Orihime has no offensive firepower.
Orihime does not have her own zanpakuto, nor did she train to use kido spells like a Soul Reaper. Instead, she can use six fairies to perform spiritual acts, an ability known as Shun Shun Rikka. Her barriers and her healing spell are very effective, but his symbolic offensive move is not.
One of Orihime’s fairies is Tsubaki, dressed in black, who can be sent to attack the enemy up close. Unfortunately, Tsubaki never does any real damage to Orihime’s enemies: she was crushed more than once.
5 Orihime suffers from baseless insecurities
Real and fictional teenagers have insecurities when they start comparing themselves to each other and discovering their own identities and Orihime is no exception. For the most part, she is comfortable with who she is, but when it comes to Ichigo and Rukia, Orihime is too hard on herself.
Orihime saw that Rukia supported Ichigo with ease, leading Orihime to irrationally believe that Ichigo had replaced Orihime in her mind and that she no longer needed her. She admitted this to her new friend Rangiku Matsumoto, who encouraged her and told her that yes, Ichigo still trusts her quite a bit.
4 Orihime became a damsel in distress
The concept of a “damsel in distress” feels distinctly old-fashioned, a relic of a time when legendary knights rescued princesses from isolated towers guarded by jealous dragons. Modern stories have found ways to reinvent or simply avoid the “damsel in distress” scenario, but Bleach hugged him instead.
Not only was Rukia the typical damsel in distress during the Soul Society Arc, but Orihime took her own turn in the Hueco Mundo story arc, after she was captured by Ulquiorra Schiffer. Orihime had no way of escaping without the help of her friends. She was practically helpless aside from healing Ichigo a few times.
3 Orihime “stole” Ichigo from Rukia at the end
Time Bleach had legitimate reasons for pairing up the main characters the way he did, this didn’t sit well with fans who had their own ideas about who should end up with whom. The story did drop hints of the eventual Ichigo/Orihime pairing, though Ichigo and Rukia also had strong on-screen chemistry, leading to the IchiRuki pairing.
When the Bleach After the manga ended, Orihime and Ichigo married and had a son, Kazue, which outraged IchiRuki’s legion of porters. This made countless Bleach Fans dislike Orihime even more than they already did.
two Orihime can be strangely dense
Orihime knows exactly how she feels about Ichigo and she also likes the idea of her friends finding romantic partners too. However, despite all that, Orihime is strangely dense about these things, which can make her seem clueless at times.
On bleach In the first season, one of Orihime’s friends sensed the chemistry between Rukia and Ichigo and wondered out loud if Rukia had a crush on Ichigo. Orihime hadn’t realized that, so she was only able to bring it up once her friend brought up the idea first. He was also unaware of Uryu’s huge crush on her, despite Uryu’s obvious signs during the Soul Society Arc and beyond.
1 Orihime didn’t help take down the strongest villains
No one expected Orihime or even Chad and Uryu to deliver the final blow to enemies like Sosuke Aizen and King Yhwach. However, supporting characters contributed to his downfall, such as Kisuke’s help in stopping Aizen’s role and Uryu in helping Ichigo kill Yhwach.
Meanwhile, Orihime, and Chad for that matter, did nothing to help defeat these enemies. Orihime could have helped, but she wasn’t even on the scene when these villains were finally defeated.
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