Bleach (manga)

Ichigo Kurosaki is a teenager from Karakura Town who can see ghosts, a talent allowing him to meet a supernatural human Rukia Kuchiki, who enters the town in search of a Hollow, a kind of monstrous lost soul who can harm both ghosts and humans. Rukia is one of the Soul Reapers (死神, Shinigami, literally 'Death Gods'), soldiers trusted with ushering the souls of the dead from the World of the Living to the Soul Society (尸魂界（ソウル・ソサエティ）, lit. "Dead Spirit World"), the afterlife realm from which she originates and with fighting Hollows. When she is severely wounded defending Ichigo from a Hollow she pursues, Rukia transfers her powers to Ichigo, so he may fight in her stead while she recovers her strength. Rukia is thereby trapped in an ordinary human body, and must advise Ichigo as he balances the demands of his substitute Soul Reaper duties and attending high school. For aid in hunting the Hollows, the pair ally with a trio of other spiritually empowered allies: Ichigo's high school classmate Orihime Inoue, best friend Yasutora "Chad" Sado and Uryū Ishida, a Quincy classmate with the ability to control spiritual particles.

Eventually, Rukia is arrested by her Soul Reaper superiors and sentenced to death for the illegal act of transferring her powers into a human. Ichigo and his friends enlist the help of ex-Soul Reaper scientist Kisuke Urahara, who trains Ichigo to access his own Soul Reaper powers, to enter the Soul Society and rescue Rukia. Shortly after the party's arrival in the Soul Society, conflict arises among the captains of the Thirteen Court Squads when the captain of the fifth company, Sōsuke Aizen, is apparently murdered; the captains believed that the intruders might have been responsible, which causes the Soul Reapers to begin fighting amongst themselves. Thereafter, the Captain Commander Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto, issues the Soul Reapers to arrest Ichigo and his friends as suspects. However, Ichigo saves Rukia and manages to stop the war against the Soul Society. Aizen reappears and reveals his intention to obtain the Hōgyoku (崩玉, lit. "Crumbling Orb"), an orb of immense power Kisuke planted inside Rukia, by faking his death and arranging the execution. Aizen accompanies his fellow conspirators, Gin Ichimaru and Kaname Tōsen, who are the third and ninth company's captains, as they use Hollows to cover their escape into the Hollows' realm, Hueco Mundo (虚圏（ウェコムンド）, lit. "Hollow World"). Afterwards, Ichigo and Rukia reconcile with the Soul Reapers, who view the former as a powerful ally and designate him an official title as Substitute Soul Reaper.

Ichigo soon finds himself and his friends in escalating skirmishes with Aizen's army of humanoid Hollows, the Arrancar, as they are joined by the Vizards, Soul Reapers who were victims of Aizen's experiments in creating Soul Reaper/Hollow hybrids. When Ulquiora, one of the Espada (Aizen's ten most powerful Arrancars) kidnaps Orihime, Ichigo and his allies enter Hueco Mundo to invade Las Noches. However, as Ichigo rescues Orihime, Aizen reveals her abduction was a distraction as he launches an attack on Karakura Town, in order to sacrifice everyone and create a key to the Soul King's Palace, so he can kill the Soul King who reigns over the Soul Society. Anticipating Aizen's attack, the Thirteen Court Squads had already been waiting for him by moving the entire Karakura Town to the Soul Society prior to his attack. When the Vizards join the remaining Soul Reapers, Gin reveals his agenda of killing Aizen. The latter uses the Hōgyoku to become a Hollow-like being. However, Ichigo sacrifices his power to defeat Aizen and reverts to a normal human.

Months later, preparing for life after high school, Ichigo is called back into action when Xcution, a gang of Fullbringers—supernaturally aware humans like Chad—manipulate him and his loved ones in a scheme to siphon his Fullbring abilities. After his Soul Society allies restore his Soul Reaper powers, Ichigo learns that Xcution's leader, Kugo Ginjo, was his predecessor. It is revealed that the Soul Society did not trust the substitute Soul Reapers, so they used the badge given to the Substitute Soul Reaper to monitor and restrict his power output. Ginjo felt betrayed and swore vengeance to all Soul Reapers. Despite knowing the truth, Ichigo decides to trust his Soul Reaper friends and defeats Ginjo. With his power restored, Ichigo once again is reinstated as a Substitute Soul Reaper.

After Ichigo regained his powers, an army of Quincies known as the Wandenreich (見えざる帝国（ヴァンデンライヒ）, lit. "Invisible Empire") appear and declare war against the Soul Society, having already enslaved many Arrancars in Hueco Mundo. The group is led by Yhwach, the ancient progenitor of the Quincies, who seeks to kill the Soul King and rid the world of death and fear. In their first invasion, the Wandenreich kill many Soul Reapers including the Head-Captain, Yamamoto. Uryū joins Yhwach and learns the truth behind the death of his mother. Later on, Ichigo and his friends aid the Soul Society in fighting the Wandenreich's second invasion, but Yhwach invades the Royal Palace and kills the Soul King. In the final battle, the surviving Shinigami, along with Ichigo and his friends, assault Yhwach's new palace and defeat his army of Sternritters. Yhwach returns to the Soul Society to destroy it, but Ichigo defeats him with the help of Uryū and Aizen, after the latter was temporarily released from prison.

Ten years later, Rukia becomes the new captain of the thirteenth company and has a daughter, an apprentice Soul Reaper named Ichika, with her childhood friend Renji Abarai. Meanwhile, Ichigo and Orihime have a son named Kazui, who is also a Soul Reaper. Two years later, Ichigo attends the Soul Funeral Ceremony for Jūshirō Ukitake. While the Captains are waiting in the Soul Society to perform the ritual, Ichigo joins the Lieutenants at Karakura Town to capture Hollows that will be used as a sacrifice. They are ambushed by the Beasts of Hell, led by the late Octava Espada. Even though the lieutenants managed to easily suppress them, it is revealed that the ceremony is a process of sending the late captains to Hell.

Bleach was first conceived from Tite Kubo's desire to draw a Shinigami (Soul Reaper) in a kimono, which formed the basis for the design of the Soul Reapers in the series.[2][3] At first, Kubo thought that the Soul Reapers should use guns, so the first title for the series was "Snipe" (as in "sniper"); however, this was changed with the inclusion of swords.[4] After that, the series was meant to be named "Black" due to the color of the Soul Reapers' clothes, but Kubo thought the title was too generic. He later tried the name of "White", but came to like "Bleach" more for its association with the color white and that he did not find it too obvious.[5] The original story concept was submitted to Weekly Shōnen Jump shortly after the cancellation of Kubo's previous manga, Zombiepowder, but was at first rejected.[6] Manga artist Akira Toriyama saw the story and wrote a letter of encouragement to Kubo.[3] Bleach was accepted for publication a short time later in 2001, and was initially intended to be a shorter series, with a maximum serialization length of five years.[3] Early plans for the story did not include the hierarchical structure of the Soul Society, but did include some characters and elements that were not introduced into the plot until the Arrancar arc, such as Ichigo's Soul Reaper parentage.[2]

Kubo has cited influences for elements of Bleach ranging from other manga series to music, foreign language, architecture, and film. He attributed his interest in drawing the supernatural and monsters to Shigeru Mizuki's GeGeGe no Kitaro and Bleach's focus on interesting weaponry and battle scenes to Masami Kurumada's Saint Seiya, manga that Kubo enjoyed as a boy.[2] The latter is based on Greek mythology and Kubo also considered it as a source for his focus on myths, monsters and the afterlife.[4] The action style and storytelling found in Bleach are inspired by cinema, though Kubo has not revealed any specific movie as being an influence for fight scenes. When pressed, he told interviewers that he liked Snatch but did not use it as a model.[7] Bleach's fight choreography is instead constructed with the aid of rock music, which the author listens to while imagining the fights in order to give him a sense of pacing for the panel cuts and change of angles through the scenes.[8] Kubo prefers to draw realistic injuries in order to render the fight more impactful, by making the readers feel the pain the characters are feeling.[9] Bleach's fight scenes are often broken up with brief gags, which the author inserts when he grows bored during the illustration process.[8]

Bleach's plotting process is focused around character design. When writing plotlines or having difficulties generating new material, Kubo begins by thinking of new characters, often en masse, and rereading previous volumes of Bleach.[2][9] Kubo has said that he likes creating characters that have outward appearances that do not match their true nature—an element that can be found in many Bleach characters—as he is "attracted to people with that seeming contradiction" and finds an "urge to draw people like that" when he works.[10] The terminology used in Bleach has a variety of inspirations, with each category of characters bearing a different linguistic theme. Many of the names for swords and spells used by Soul Reapers were inspired by ancient Japanese literature. Hollows and Arrancars use Spanish terms. Fullbringers use English vocabulary, with names referencing rock music, and finally, both Quincy and Bounts draw on the German language. This multilingual terminology, along with the variety in apparent character ethnicities, emphasizes the international nature of the Bleach settings.[10]

Bleach's plot incorporates the traditional Japanese belief of spirits coexisting with humans and their nature, good or evil, depends on the circumstances.[11] An example is Orihime's backstory. She was raised from the age of three by her brother Sora, and prayed for his soul's peace after he died in a car accident.[12] As time went on, she prayed less and Sora became jealous and turned into a Hollow and attacked Orihime. Academic Patrick Drazen says this is a reminder to the audience to not abandon the old ways or risk the spirits taking offense and causing problems in the world.[13] Bleach also incorporates Shinto themes of purification of "evil spirits through charms, scrolls, incantations, and other rituals".[11] Christopher A. Born regards Bleach as transmitting Confucian values.[14]

Von Feigenblatt describes Bleach as being culturally and religiously aware, as it draws upon Christianity and Caribbean Santería.[11] Spanish terms are prevalent throughout the realm of Hueco Mundo,[11] while both Quincy and Bounts have been known to associate with the German language, making Kubo's world of characters diverse in race and language as well.[10] Von Feigenblatt notes that the Quincy "are clearly inspired by the Roman Catholic Christian Orders of Knighthood such as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta and the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre whose influence is shown in terms of the uniform worn by the Quincy as well as by the symbolism of the cross".[11]

Bleach, written and illustrated by Tite Kubo, was serialized for 15 years in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump from August 7, 2001,[15][16] to August 22, 2016.[17][18] Its 698 individual chapters[lower-alpha 1] were collected in 74 tankōbon volumes released between January 5, 2002, and November 4, 2016.[19][20] Shueisha published the first 21 volumes compiled into six omnibus collections under the name Resurrected Souls to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the series.[21] The first collection was released on August 22, 2011;[22] the last collection was published on January 23, 2012.[23] On September 21, 2012, Shueisha released 45 digital volumes in Japanese e-book stores,[24][25] concluding with the 74th on November 4, 2016.[26] These digital editions have been re-released as a set of 10 volumes on April 26, 2013;[27] the sixth was released on March 14, 2014.[28]

North American licensor Viz Media serialized the first chapters in the print magazine Shonen Jump from its November 2007 to April 2012 issues.[29][30] The series moved to the digital anthology Weekly Shonen Jump Alpha in January 2012 and Viz Media released it digitally as Shueisha published new chapters in Japan.[31][32] The first volume on English was released on July 6, 2004,[33] and the last volume–the 74th–was released on October 2, 2018.[34] Viz also released a hardcover "collector's edition" of the first volume that came with a dust jacket,[35] two box sets,[36][37] and twenty-five "3-in-1 edition" volumes between June 7, 2011,[38] and March 5, 2019.[39] Viz Media released first 16 volumes in English digitally on June 17, 2011,[40][41] with the 74th released on October 2, 2018.[42]

A 73-page chapter, titled "New Breathes From Hell" (獄頤鳴鳴篇, Gokui Meimei-hen), was published in Weekly Shōnen Jump, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the manga's debut in the magazine, on August 10, 2021.[43] It was published in English by Viz Media's Shonen Jump online magazine and on the Shueisha's Manga Plus online platform. The one-shot ends seemingly on a cliffhanger; the character for "hen" (篇), used in the Japanese title of the chapter, is usually used to denote the title of a story arc.[44] The chapter was digitally released as a collected volume on December 3, 2021.[45] A full-color version of the chapter was published digitally on September 4, 2023.[46]

• Burn the Witch, another manga series created by Kubo and set in the Bleach universe

Wikiquote has quotations related to Bleach (manga).

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bleach (manga).

• Bleach official website (in Japanese)
• Bleach official website at Weekly Shōnen Jump (in Japanese)
• Bleach (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia