Bleach

WARNING: This page contains spoilers

Bleach (stylized as BLEACH) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tite Kubo. The series was serialized in Shueisha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from August 2001 to August 2016, with its chapters collected into 74 tankōbon volumes.Bleach received the 50th Shogakukan Manga Award for the shōnen (teenage males) category in 2005, and is among the best-selling manga in both Japan and the United States. Despite significant downturns in both the Japanese and English manga markets, Bleach continued to perform well commercially, and had over 120 million tankōbon volumes in circulation worldwide as of 2021.

Plot
Ichigo Kurosaki is a teenager from Karakura Town who can see ghosts, a talent which lets him meet supernatural trespasser Rukia Kuchiki who enters Ichigo's room 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 is pursuing, Rukia transfers her powers to Ichigo so that 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 teenagers: Ichigo's high school classmate Orihime Inoue, best friend Yasutora "Chad" Sado and the Quincy—humans who have the ability to control spirit particles—Uryū Ishida.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) A great premise, as it's about the afterlife, as well as the main character protecting his friends and family from hollows, after the death of his mother.
 * 2) It has some of the best written arcs in manga such as the Soul Society and the Arrancar arc.
 * 3) A great cast of characters such as Ichigo, Rukia, Orihime, Chad, Uryu, Yoruichi, Isshin, Byakuya, Urahara, Kenpachi, etc.
 * 4) To add to #3 there's also a great cast of antagonists as well such as Aizen, Grimmjow, Ulquiorra, Ginjo, Yhwach, etc.
 * 5) The series has some of the best fights in manga such as Ichigo vs Byakuya, Ichigo vs Kenpachi, Ichigo vs Grimmjow, Ichigo vs Ulquiorra, Aizen vs Everyone, and Ichigo vs Aizen.
 * 6) It spawned a great anime adaption as well as Light Novels.
 * 7) Amazing artwork especially the panels.
 * 8) The series does a great job at Character Development:
 * 9) *Ichigo after the emotional beating he receives during the Fullbring arc, he becomes much calmer and displays greater self-awareness. And while he still won't hesitate to get involved in a fight, he's more aware and analytical about his situations with a more mature outlook than before.
 * 10) *Orihime went from being cheerful into a very solemn character since the Arrancar arc first began. Then she returns straight back to being cheerful, but with a pluckier disposition.
 * 11) *Izuru started off as a friendly and somewhat cocky cadet in the Spiritual Arts Academy. Come present time, although pragmatic in combat, he's gloomy, introspective, worrisome and indecisive, which leads to several areas of conflict between himself and his friends. Once we see him in the Blood War arc, he's far less moody and a lot more analytical, making him appear generally more leader-like amongst the other lieutenants
 * 12) *During the Soul Society Arc, Byakuya presented himself as a callous man who only cared about upholding the law, even if it meant executing his sister. After he is defeated by Ichigo, he reveals to Rukia that the reason was because he made a vow to his parents to always uphold the law no matter what after breaking the law twice by letting commoners join the Kuchiki family. With his internal conflict regarding the vows resolved, Byakuya shows himself to be a more caring and generous person.
 * 13) Some great quotes such as:
 * 14) *“If I were rain, that joins sky and earth that otherwise never touch, could I join two hearts as well?”
 * 15) *"Truth only exists for those who cling to it.
 * 16) *"Fear is necessary for evolution. The fear that one could be destroyed at any moment."
 * 17) *"We fear which we cannot see."
 * 18) *"People have hope because they don't see death standing behind them"
 * 19) It also references other cultures and religions besides Japanese, Shintoism, and Buddhism. Such as: Christianity, Spanish, and German as well, thus, making it suitable to everyone.
 * 20) The series explores what death is like and how we can accept it through certain characters like Ichigo, Orihime, Chad, Aizen, and Yhwach.
 * 21) It helped inspire other works, such as Jujutsu Kaisen, Black Clover, My Hero Academia, Psyren, among others.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The ending of the Thousand Year Blood War was rushed mainly due to Kubo's declining health which lead to it ending.
 * 2) *The whole final fight between Ichigo and Yhwach can be seen as Deus ex Machina (Despite the Silver Arrow being foreshadowed).
 * 3) Chad, despite him being a good character was pretty wasted. Also, he was used to be flanderized with Orihime into joining the Xcution organization to steal Ichigo's Fullbring powers.
 * 4) The character roster and later arcs have often been criticized for constantly expanding and being less quality than earlier ones, respectively.

Trivia

 * 1) The title wasn't named Bleach when Tite Kubo decided to draw a story about Shinigami. This was before he drew the one-shot manga that appeared in Akamaru Jump. The weapon wasn't a sword, but a scythe. Only Rukia had a scythe and the other characters used guns. At that point, the title was Snipe (as in "Sniper"). Right before he started drawing, he began to think that a sword would be better and realized he couldn't use Snipe as a title anymore. He began looking for a title that grasped the bigger picture. Shinigami are associated with the color black, but it would have been boring to use "black". "White", on the other hand, can suggest black as a complementary color. So Tite Kubo chose "bleach" to evoke the impression of the color white.
 * 2) Other changes mentioned by Kubo include that Rukia was meant to be a more central character, as in the lead character, and that most Soul Reapers used firearm-themed zanpakuto rather than swords whereas Rukia used a scythe. The sketch of Rukia with a scythe was used as a base for the "Dark Rukia" in the third movie, Fade to Black, I Call Your Name.
 * 3) The Menos Forest mini-arc would have been in the manga had it not been for time constraits forcing Kubo to cut it.
 * 4) Kubo initially envisioned Mayuri as a fairly flat personal enemy for Uryuu, who would finally vanquish Mayuri after a series of encounters. However, Kubo then began plotting out the final arc even before the Soul Society arc had finished and realised that the Arrancar Arc afforded him the opportunity to develop Mayuri's character as an example of how a truly evil individual can be still useful to an organization that is, overall, on the side of good-ish.
 * 5) When in an interview about Shinji, Kubo mentioned that he had wanted to do stories for Ichigo's other classmates as well—directly implying storylines for Keigo, Tatsuki, and Mizuiro—before the executives told him to move up the schedule and get to the Soul Reapers.
 * 6) A number of plot threads were planned out for the Thousand Year Blood War arc, which Kubo originally stated was going to be even longer than the Arrancar Arc. However, Kubo abruptly finished the final arc after nineteen volumes and with most of the story left unresolved. The final battle was exceptionally fast and an epilogue set after a ten-year Time Skip tied up the fates of only the core main characters; with everything else being Left Hanging. Kubo later explained on his Twitter account that his increasingly severe health issues related to overwork brought him to the verge of quitting a number of times over the years, and only the posthumous letter from a small child who had enjoyed reading the manga kept Kubo writing for as long as he could. As a result, the final arc that he had originally planned was cut short, although he did manage to write the epilogue chapter he had planned since the very beginning. However, Kubo still wanted to finish the story he'd originally envisioned and quickly set to work co-creating a set of light novels to wrap the series up.

Reception
Bleach had over 120 million tankōbon copies in circulation worldwide as of 2018. 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 the year's 5th best selling series. In the first half from 2009, Bleach ranked as the 2nd best-selling manga in Japan, having sold 3.5 million copies. Having sold 927,610 copies, Volume 36 ranked 7th, Volume 37 was 8th with 907,714 sold copies, and volume 38 at 10th with 822,238 copies.

North American sales of the manga have also been high, with tankōbon volumes having sold over 1.2 million copies by 2007. Volume 16 placed in the top 10 graphic novel sales in December 2006 and volume 17 was the best-selling manga volume for the month of February 2007. In a 2010 interview, Gonzalo Ferreyra, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Viz, listed Bleach as one of six Viz titles that continue to exceed expectations in spite of the harshening manga market.

Deb Aoki from About.com considered the series as the Best Continuing Shōnen 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 Shōnen Manga Must-Reads". The artwork and the character designs received positive response by IGN's A.E. Sparrow. He also commented on the series' ability to handle multiple minor character plotlines at the same time, which he considered a point of appeal, in response to fans' claims about a "lack of a story" in Bleach. Leroy Douresseaux from ComicBookBin agreed with Sparrow in the number of storylines, but also praised the fighting scenes finding them comparable to the ones of popular films.

In 2005, Bleach was awarded the 50th Shogakukan Manga Award in the shōnen category. The English version of the manga was nominated for the "best manga" and "best theme" awards at the 2006 and 2007 American Anime Awards, but did not win either category

In November 2014, readers of Media Factory's Da Vinci magazine voted Bleach #16 on a list of Weekly Shōnen Jump's greatest manga series of all time. Bleach ranked #86 on Alu's manga community "My Manga Best5" 2020 ranking, in which 46,641 users (via Twitter) participated. On TV Asahi's Manga Sōsenkyo 2021 poll, in which 150.000 people voted for their top 100 manga series, Bleach ranked #23.