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Bleach (manga)
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is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tite Kubo. Bleach follows the adventures of Ichigo Kurosaki after he accidentally obtains the power of a shinigami—a Japanese death personification similar to the Grim Reaper—from Rukia Kuchiki. Gaining these abilities forces him to take on the duties of defending humans from evil spirits and guiding departed souls to the afterlife.
Bleach has been continuously serialized in the Japanese manga anthology Weekly Shonen Jump since August 2001 and has been collected in 37 tankobon volumes as of February 2009.
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is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tite Kubo. Bleach follows the adventures of Ichigo Kurosaki after he accidentally obtains the power of a shinigami—a Japanese death personification similar to the Grim Reaper—from Rukia Kuchiki. Gaining these abilities forces him to take on the duties of defending humans from evil spirits and guiding departed souls to the afterlife.
Bleach has been continuously serialized in the Japanese manga anthology Weekly Shonen Jump since August 2001 and has been collected in 37 tankobon volumes as of February 2009. Since its publication, Bleach has spawned a substantial media franchise. The manga has been adapted into an animated television series produced by Studio Pierrot which is still ongoing in Japan as it adapts the story from the manga. The series has also spawned two original video animations (OVAs), three animated feature films, seven rock musicals, and numerous video games, as well as prompted the release of many types of Bleach-related merchandise.
Viz Media licensed the manga for English-language publication in the United States and Canada and has released 25 volumes as of December 2008. In addition, it has been publishing the chapters in Shonen Jump since November 2007. On March 15, 2006, Viz obtained foreign television and home video distribution rights to the Bleach anime. Cartoon Network began airing Bleach as part of its Adult Swim block on September 9, 2006 in the United States. The first film, Bleach: Memories of Nobody was released in North America on Region 1 DVD by Viz on October 14, 2008.
Compilation volumes of the manga have sold over 50 million copies in Japan and reached the top of manga sales charts in the United States. The anime adaptation has been similarly received, rating as the 7th most popular anime television series in Japan in 2006, and in the top ten anime for America from 2006 to 2008. The series received the Shogakukan Manga Award for the shonen demographic in 2005, and is among the best-selling manga properties in both Japan and America.
Plot
The story opens with the sudden appearance of Soul Reaper Rukia Kuchiki in Ichigo Kurosaki's bedroom. She is surprised at his ability to see her, but their conversation is interrupted by the appearance of a "hollow", an evil spirit. After Rukia is severely wounded while trying to protect Ichigo, she attempts to transfer half her powers to Ichigo in order to let him face the hollow on equal footing. Ichigo instead unintentionally absorbs almost all her energy, allowing him to defeat the hollow with ease. The next day Rukia appears in Ichigo's classroom as a seemingly normal human, and informs Ichigo that his absorption of her powers has left her stranded in the human world until she recovers her strength. In the meantime Ichigo shelters Rukia in his home and takes over her job as a Soul Reaper, battling hollows and guiding lost souls to the afterlife realm known as Soul Society.
After a few months of this arrangement, in the sixth volume of the series, Rukia's Soul Reaper superiors find out about her giving her powers away (which is illegal in Soul Society) and send a detachment to arrest her, and sentence her to death. Ichigo is unable to stop Rukia's capture, but with the help of several of his classmates who also possess spiritual abilities and ex-Soul Reaper and captain Kisuke Urahara, he sets off for the Soul Reaper base, located in Soul Society. Once there, Ichigo and company battle against the elites of the Soul Reaper military, and are ultimately successful in halting Rukia's execution.
It is then revealed that Rukia's execution and Ichigo's rescue attempt were both manipulated by Sosuke Aizen, a high ranking Soul Reaper previously believed to be murdered, as part of a far-reaching plot to take control of Soul Society. Aizen betrays his fellow Soul Reapers and allies himself with the hollows, becoming the main antagonist of the series, and Ichigo teams up with his former enemies in Soul Society after learning that the next step in Aizen's plan involves the destruction of his hometown. At this point, Bleach chronicles the war between Aizen and the Soul Society, a plotline which has not yet been resolved. According to Tite Kubo, the ending of the series is not yet planned out or written.
Setting
Bleach contains a massive cast of characters designed by series creator Tite Kubo, which are divided into various factions and fictional races with distinct themes, and described using large amounts of invented jargon specific to the series. All significant characters in the series possess some degree of paranormal and superhuman abilities, and these are explained by their souls generating higher than usual levels of a paranormal energy called . The three predominant character types in Bleach are humans, Soul Reapers, and hollows.
The humans of Bleach are much like the residents of modern Japan. A normal human cannot see or sense spirits in any way unless that spirit possesses an artificial human body called a gigai, so humanity remains unaware of the existence of the spirit world. Very rarely a human like Ichigo Kurosaki is born who is able to see, interact, or fight with spirits, and others can gain these abilities by exposure to large amounts of spiritual energy, which happens to a number of Ichigo's friends during the course of the series.
The are a military order of psychopomps based in , a sort of heaven. Soul Reapers escort the souls of the dead to Soul Society through the ritual of . Their other major duties are protecting humans from hollows, and maintaining order in Soul Society. Soul Reapers all possess supernatural powers, which manifest through their zanpakuto swords, and kido magic spells. Several factions of ex-Soul Reapers are featured in Bleachs story, most prominent among them the members of Sosuke Aizen's rebellion and the Visoreds, former Soul Society elites who were exiled after obtaining hollow powers. Soul Society resembles feudal Japan, and consists of two major portions: eighty residential districts called the , which are inhabited by the souls of the dead, and the walled city , the home and military base of the Soul Reapers. The Rukongai districts are ordinally ranked, with the lower-numbered districts being more peaceful. Soul Society is nominally ruled by a king, who resides in another realm within Soul Society, but in practice is controlled by the Soul Reapers.
The hollows are a race of evil spirits who feed on the souls of humans, both living and dead. Hollows are created when the soul of a dead human is neglected by the Soul Reapers until it is overcome by loneliness and/or rage, at which point it changes form into a monster with a white mask. By going through a procedure provided by Aizen, they become an arrancar, a hollow which regains the ability to reason, obtains a more humanoid form, and can gain access to Soul Reaper abilities such as the zanpakuto. As a group, the arrancar are the primary antagonists of the Bleach series. When not hunting humans or souls in the human world hollows reside in , a dimension between the human world and Soul Society. Hollows are undetectable as long as they remain in Hueco Mundo.
Production
Bleach was first conceived from a desire on Tite Kubo's part to draw shinigami in kimono, which formed the basis for the design of the Soul Reapers in the series, and the conception of character Rukia Kuchiki. The original story concept was submitted to Weekly Shonen Jump shortly after the cancellation of Tite Kubo's previous manga Zombie Powder, but was rejected. Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball, saw the story and wrote a letter of encouragement to Kubo. 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. Early plans for the story did not include the hierarchical structure of Soul Society, but did include some characters and elements which did not come into the plot until the Arrancar arc, such as Ichigo's Soul Reaper heritage.
Tite Kubo has cited influences for elements of Bleach ranging from other manga series to music, foreign language, architecture, and film. He attributes his interest in drawing the supernatural and monsters to Shigeru Mizuki's GeGeGe no Kitaro and Bleachs focus on interesting weaponry and battle scenes to Masami Kurumada's Saint Seiya, both manga Kubo enjoyed as a boy. The action style and storytelling found in Bleach is 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. Kubo has also stated that he wishes to make Bleach an experience that can only be found by reading manga, and dismissed ideas of creating any live-action film adaptations of the series.
Bleachs creative 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. 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 I work." The terminology used in Bleach has a variety of inspirations, with each category of character 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 arrancar use Spanish terms. Kubo became interested in Spanish because, to him, the language sounded "bewitching" and "mellow".
Media
Manga
The series was published in the Japanese-language magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. The individual chapters are collected by Shueisha in series of tankobon volumes, which also include a poem by the character of the cover. Chapter names in English have katakana above them to indicate how they are read in Japanese, similarly to furigana for kanji. The first volume was released on January 5, 2002; as of February 2009, thirty-seven volumes have been released.
The series is licensed for English language release in North America by Viz Media. Viz released the first volume on June 1, 2004, with 25 volumes released as of December 2008. Viz began serializing the individual chapters in its manga anthology Shonen Jump in the November 2007 issue where the series continues to run. Viz released a Bleach box set on September 2, 2008 contains the first twenty-one volumes of the series, as well as poster and a booklet of the series.
Anime
The anime version of Bleach is produced by Studio Pierrot and directed by Noriyuki Abe. It began broadcasting in Japan on October 5, 2004, on TV Tokyo. Episodes 1-167 were made and broadcast in 4:3, with episodes 168+ made and broadcast in 16:9 wide screen.
On March 15, 2006, Viz Media obtained foreign television, home video, and merchandising rights to the Bleach anime from the TV Tokyo Corporation and Shueisha. Subsequently, Viz Media contracted Studiopolis to create the English dub of the anime, and has licensed its individual Bleach merchandising rights to several different companies. The English version of the Bleach anime premiered on Canada's YTV channel in the Bionix program block on September 8, 2006. Cartoon Network began airing Bleach the following evening as part of its Adult Swim block. The show went on hiatus on October 20, 2007 after airing the first 52 episodes of the series. It was replaced with another Viz series, Death Note, while additional episodes of Bleach were being dubbed. YTV began showing reruns of the anime after episode 26. On March 2, 2008 at 1:00 a.m. EST, the series returned from hiatus and began the next 52 episodes. In the UK, Bleach premiered on AnimeCentral on September 13, 2007, with new episodes airing daily, but is currently on hiatus after airing the first 52 episodes.
CDs
Eleven CD soundtracks, produced by Shiro Sagisu, have been released for the Bleach anime series and movies. Bleach Original Soundtrack 1 was released on May 18, 2005 and contains twenty-five tracks, including the first opening and ending themes in their original television lengths. Bleach Original Soundtrack 2 followed on August 2, 2006 with an additional twenty-three instrumental tracks. Bleach Original Soundtrack 3 followed later on November 5, 2008 with 27 instrumental tracks, Bleach: Memories of Nobody Original Soundtrack was released with twenty-five tracks from the Bleach: Memories of Nobody anime film. A soundtrack was also released for the Bleach: The DiamondDust Rebellion film, with nearly thirty tracks from the movie and finally a 3rd one for the "Bleach: Fade To Black, I Call Your Name" movie, with twenty-nine tracks. Bleach: The Best contains twelve of the opening and ending themes from the series in their full length versions later followed by "Bleach: Best Tunes" with contains the next twelve of opening and ending themes.
The Bleach Beat Collections, is an on-going set of CDs published by Sony Music featuring recordings by the original Japanese voice actors that provide a look at the personalities of the characters they play, as well as the voice actors themselves. The first CD was released on June 22, 2005; as of December 17, 2008, nineteen volumes have been released across four named sets called "Sessions".
Two "Radio DJCD Bleach 'B' Station" CD season sets, each containing six volumes, have been released in Japan. Five drama CDs have been produced for the series as well, featuring the original voice actors from the series. These drama CDs have only been included as part of the DVD releases.
Films
There are three feature films based on the Bleach series, all directed by Noriyuki Abe, director of the Bleach anime series. The films have been released in December of each year starting in 2006. Each movie features an original plotline, rather than being an adaptation of the manga's story. They also feature original characters designed by Tite Kubo, which is contrary to the normal practice for anime-based films, as the original author usually has little creative involvement.
The first film, Bleach: Memories of Nobody, was released in Japan on December 16, 2006 and had a limited release in American theaters in June 2008. The movie is centered around the activities of a group called the "Dark Ones," who were banished from the Soul Society and trying to destroy both Soul Society and the World of the Living. Memories of Nobody was released in North America on Region 1 DVD by Viz Media on October 14, 2008.
The second film, Bleach: The DiamondDust Rebellion, was released to Japanese theaters on December 22, 2007. Its plot focuses on an artifact belonging to Soul Society's King, and 10th Division captain Toshiro Hitsugaya's efforts to clear his name after it is stolen while under his care.
The third film, , was released in Japan on December 13, 2008. This film's screenplay was written by Natsuko Takahashi, who is a screenwriter for the anime series. The official film website gives the tagline of "Sayonara, Rukia". In the film, members of Soul Society are struck with amnesia causing them to forget Ichigo and Rukia. When he goes to Soul Society to investigate, Ichigo discovers that Rukia has forgotten not only him, but her own identity as well. For the film, the band Porno Graffiti performed the song "Koyoi, Tsuki wa Miezu Tomo".
Musical
Bleach has been adapted into a series of rock musicals, jointly produced by Studio Pierrot and Nelke Planning. There have been five musicals produced which covered portions of the Substitute and Soul Society arcs, as well as two additional performances known as "Live Bankai Shows" which did not follow the Bleach plotline. The initial performance run of the Bleach musical was from August 17 to August 28, 2005 at the Space Zero Tokyo center in Shinjuku.
The musicals are directed by Takuya Hiramitsu, with a script adaptation by Naoshi Okumura and music composed by playwright Shoichi Tama. The songs are completely original and not taken from the anime soundtrack. Key actors in the series include Tatsuya Isaka, who plays Ichigo Kurosaki, Miki Sato, who plays Rukia Kuchiki, and Eiji Moriyama, who plays Renji Abarai.
Trading card game
Two collectible card games (CCG) based on the Bleach series have been produced. "Bleach Soul Card Battle", produced by Bandai, was introduced in Japan in 2004. As of October 2008, seventeen named sets have been released for the series.
"Bleach TCG" was introduced in the United States by Score Entertainment in May 2007. Designed by Aik Tongtharadol, it is a two-player game in which each player starts with at least 61 cards: a "Guardian" card, a 60-card "main deck" and an optional 20-card "side deck". A player loses if their power, as dictated by their Guardian card, is reduced to zero, or if they are unable to draw or discard a card from their deck. The cards for the game have been released in named sets with each set released in three formats: a 72-card preconstructed box set containing a starter deck and two booster packs, a 10-card booster pack, and a 12-pack booster box. As of December 2008, six named sets have been released.
Video games
Currently, the majority of the games have only been released in Japan, though Sega has directly ported the first, and second Nintendo DS game and the Wii version for North America. So far, all dedicated Bleach games released for Sony's consoles have been developed and published by SCEI, whereas the Nintendo GameCube ones are developed and published by Sega, and the Nintendo DS versions are developed by Treasure Co. Ltd.
Other
A single Bleach artbook, All Colour But The Black, has been released in Japan.
Three databooks have also been released about the series. The first two, Bleach: Official Character Book Souls and Bleach: Official Animation Book Vibes were released on February 3, 2006. The third, , was released on August 3, 2007. In addition to character guides and articles on other fictional aspects of the series, it compiles the various short comics, , that were published in V Jump. The omake-style panels are similar to those included in the main series, but unrelated to the actual plot of the manga.
Tite Kubo and Makoto Matsubara have co-authored two novelizations of the Bleach series, which were published by Shueisha under their Jump Books label. The first volume, BLEACH-letters from the other side: The Death and The Strawberry was published on December 15, 2004, and the second, BLEACH: The Honey Dish Rhapsody, was published in October 30, 2006.
Reception
The first volume of the manga has sold over 1.25 million copies in Japan, and the original Japanese version of the manga series as a whole has sold over 50 million copies. In 2005, Bleach was awarded the Shogakukan Manga Award in the shonen category. During 2008, volume 34 of the manga sold 874,153 copies in Japan, becoming the 12th best-seller comics from the year. Volumes 33 and 35 have also ranked 17 and 18, respectively. In total the manga has sold 3,161,825 copies in Japan during 2008, becoming 5th best seller series. North American sales of the manga have been high, with Volume 16 placing in the top 10 graphic novel sales in December 2006 and Volume 17 being the best-selling manga volume for the month of February 2007. The English version of Bleach was nominated for the "best manga" and "best theme" awards at the 2006 American Anime Awards, but did not win either category. It was nominated again in 2007 in the fields of "best manga", "best actor", "best DVD package design", and "best theme", but failed to win any awards. In a 2006 Internet poll by TV Asahi, Bleach was ranked as Japan's seventh-favorite anime program. The previous year, it was ranked as the twenty-seventh favorite program.
Deb Aoki from About.com considered the series as the Best Continuing Shonen Manga of 2007, along with Eyeshield 21, praising the "compelling stories, dazzling action sequences and great character development". She also placed the title on her list of "Top 10 Shonen Manga Must-Reads". Mania.com reviewer Jarred Pine criticized the series as being plagued with stereotypes from the genre. He felt it was a rough start for the series with unimpressive battles, overused gags, and a bad introduction for central character Ichigo that causes him to come across "as a frowning punk" whose one good trait is his desire to protect. Despite this, Pine notes that he loves the series, particularly its quirky, lovable characters.
Anime News Network's Carlos Santos praised the anime adaptation, describing it as "...one incredibly entertaining anime that will grab you and refuse to let go." Animefringes Maria Lin liked the varied and distinct characters, and how well they handle the responsibilities increasing powers give them. She also complimented the series for its attention to details, well paced script, and balance of seriousness and comedy. In summary, she notes "Bleach the anime deserves its popularity. It has something for everyone: the supernatural, comedy, action and a little bit of romance, all tied together with excellent animation and a very enthusiastic sounding bunch of voice actors." Adam Arseneau of DVD Verdict, felt Bleach was a "show that only gets better with age" and was "surprisingly well-rounded and appealing" with well developed characters and pacing. Active Anime's Holly Ellingwood praising the anime for perfectly capturing "the excitement, the caustic humour and supernatural intrigue" of the original manga. She felt that the series "does a wonderful job of building on its continuity to provide increasingly tense and layered episodes involving not only Ichigo and Rukia, but the secondary characters as well". She also praised the series for its striking visual effects, intriguing plot and its "brilliant blend of action, off the wall comedy." In reviewing the series for DVD Talk, Don Houston felt the characters surpassed the usual shonen anime stereotypes and liked "the mixture of darker material with the comedic". Another Fellow reviewer John Sinnott felt series starts out as a boring "monster-of-the-week program" that becomes more engaging as the stories build and the characters are fleshed out. Otaku USA's Joseph Luster wrote that "the storylines are consistently dramatic without hammering it home too heavily, the characters manage comic relief that's not as eye rolling as one would expect, and the action (in classic fighting series form) has only gotten more ridiculous over the years; in a good way, of course". Mania.com's Bryce Coulter praised the series for its plot twists and "the quirky and amusing characters". In comparing the series with Naruto, Mania.com's Chris Beveridge felt Bleach was less childish and "simply comes together surprisingly well in its style and execution of what is fairly standard material".
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