Bleach

[jpacoma_134]

Bleach (manga)
ブリーチ
(Burīchi)
Genre Shōnen, Action, Supernatural
Manga
Authored by Tite Kubo
Publisher  Shueisha
  VIZ Media

Additional publishers:[ Show ]
Chuang Yi
  Glénat
Panini Comics
TokyoPop
Tongli
CultureCom
Serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump
Original run August 2001 – (ongoing)
No. of volumes 23, containing 205 of 245 chapters
TV anime
Directed by Noriyuki Abe
Studio Studio Pierrot
Network  TV Tokyo
YTV
Cartoon Network (Adult Swim)
GMA-7 (October 2006)
Original run October 5, 2004 – (ongoing)
No. of episodes 97 (current)
Related works
Bleach, musical based on manga
Bleach-related video games
Bleach: Memories of Nobody (2006 film)

Bleach (ブリーチ Burīchi, romanized as BLEACH in Japan) is a manga and anime series by Tite Kubo, mangaka of Zombie Powder. Bleach is at 23 volumes in length in Japan as of August 4, 2006, and new chapters are featured weekly in the Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. The total number of chapters as of September 28, 2006 is 245. VIZ Media has released 15 English volumes in North America.

Bleach follows the life of Ichigo Kurosaki, a 15-year-old high school student with the ability to see ghosts, and a shinigami (Soul Reaper or, literally, "death god") named Rukia Kuchiki, who runs into him one day while searching for a hollow (an evil spirit). During the ensuing confrontation with the spirit, she is wounded and forced to transfer all of her powers into Ichigo. Thus the adventures of Ichigo and Rukia begin. Together they search for hollows and perform soul burials on wayward souls, cleansing the spirits and sending them to Soul Society.

The early parts of the story focus mainly on the characters and their past, rather than the actual occupation of the shinigami. However, as events unfold, the story begins to delve deeper into the world of these gods of death on the "other side" called Soul Society.

Introduction
Ichigo Kurosaki is a rough-and-tumble teenager who has always had the special ability to see ghosts. The story begins with the sudden appearance of an oddly-dressed stranger in Ichigo's bedroom. This stranger is the shinigami Rukia Kuchiki, who is surprised at his ability to see her. Their resulting conversation is interrupted by the appearance of a hollow, an evil spirit. After Rukia is severely wounded during battle, she decides to transfer half of her powers to Ichigo, hoping to give him the opportunity to face the hollow on an equal footing. For unknown reasons, however, Ichigo absorbs all of Rukia's powers during the attempt, allowing him to defeat the hollow with ease.

The next day, Rukia turns up in Ichigo's classroom as a transfer student. Much to his surprise, she now appears to be a normal human. She theorizes that it was the unusual strength of Ichigo's spirit that caused him to fully absorb her powers, rather than just half, thus leaving her stranded in her gigai — an artificial human body. While she waits to recover her abilities, Ichigo must take over the job of watching over the area, battling hollows and guiding lost souls to the afterlife.

Main characters

Ichigo KurosakiMain article: Characters in Bleach series
Ichigo Kurosaki
Rukia Kuchiki
Orihime Inoue
Yasutora "Chad" Sado
Uryū Ishida

Races
There are two distinct "races" revealed in Bleach: humans and spirits. Most humans cannot see or sense spirits in any way. However, spirits can inhabit artifical human bodies that are visible to ordinary humans. Furthermore, about one in 150,000 humans can see spirits clearly. Some humans have both the power to sense and to fight with spirits. Other humans can gain the ability to do so by spending time around a large source of spirit energy. Spirits have a form composed of reishi (ectoplasm), with an anatomy similar to an ordinary flesh body, including organs and blood. However, this form encompasses all of a spirit's being. In other words, there is no distinction between soul and body. Human and spirit classes are described below.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Plus: A plus (whole in the official English editions) is the disembodied spirit of a person who has died. A plus has a spiritual body composed of reishi that resembles its material body at the time of death. From the chest hangs the Chain of Fate (因果の鎖, inga no kusari?). This chain ties the soul to something in the world that keeps it there. If the chain of a spirit is broken, the chain begins to corrode. Normally, pluses are sent to Soul Society by shinigami in a ritual called soul burial (魂葬, konsō?). However, if the corrosion is completed before a shinigami can perform a soul burial, the plus degrades into a hollow. The plus may alternatively use shinigami powers to prevent this from occurring.
Shinigami: Shinigami (Soul Reapers in the official English editions) are the psychopomps of Bleach. They are pluses with spiritual power, recruited from the ranks of the residents and nobility of Soul Society. Like all pluses, they cannot be detected by normal humans. Shinigami use their soul slayers (zanpakutō to perform soul burials on pluses. Shinigami also use zanpakutō and demon arts (kidō to fight their archrivals, the hollows. Some shinigami have acquired hollow powers using illegal methods; they are known as the vizard.

Ichigo facing a hollowHollow: The hollows are the major antagonists of Bleach. They are evil spirits who reside in Hueco Mundo. Like shinigami, hollows are made of spiritual matter, cannot be detected by ordinary humans, and use their internal spiritual power to fight. While most hollows can be overcome by the average shinigami, some can surpass a shinigami captain in strength. All hollows wear white masks, except for a few created under the direction of Sōsuke Aizen. These hollows are called arrancar and have been able to remove most of their masks and tap into the powers of the shinigami. Although they carry zanpakutō, the manner in which they release their swords is different from the shinigami, in the sense that rather than modifying the weapon, it modifies the body of the arrancar itself.
Modified soul: Modified souls were experimental souls authorized and created by shinigami. They were meant to hunt hollows by possessing soul-less human bodies and supercharging a particular aspect of them (for example, strength or speed). The shinigami decided to scrap the project due to the inhumanity of forcing dead bodies to fight, leading to the destruction of all modified souls. Those that were manufactured but yet to possess human bodies were also to be terminated, but some escaped. The only modified soul in the original manga is Kon. However, in the bount arc of the anime, there are three others: the modified souls Ririn, Claude, and Nova live in gigai created by Kisuke Urahara.
Quincy: The Quincy were a clan of spiritually aware humans who once fought against the hollows, using weapons composed of spiritual energy to slay them. As opposed to shinigami, who operate using only their inner spiritual energy, Quincy absorb and channel energy from their surroundings. When a shinigami slays a hollow, this cleanses the hollow's spirit and washes away its sins, allowing it to enter Soul Society. The Quincy technique to slay hollows does not cleanse the spirit, but simply destroys it entirely. However, the Quincy method of slaying hollows has the propensity to shatter the balance of the universe. When souls are destroyed, the number of souls entering and leaving Soul Society cannot remain equal. This fact prompted the shinigami to conduct a campaign to exterminate the Quincy about 200 years before the main storyline. However, at least two Quincy remain.
Bount (anime only): The Bounts are, like the Quincy, a group of human beings with special abilities. Unlike the Quincy, who destroy hollows, Bounts consume the souls of human beings to survive. They also differ from the Quincy in that eating souls allows them to live for centuries; theoretically, a Bount could live forever. Although the Bounts have a strict rule to consume only the souls of the dead, the last group of Bounts chose to begin draining living humans of their souls in order to become more powerful. Each Bount uses a "doll" in combat, a type of familiar possessing its own special abiities. Each doll is unique and is a manifestation of the user's power, similar to the zanpakutō. The Bounts were created by Shinigami scientists looking for a way to create infinite life.

Setting
There are several planes of existence in the Bleach universe. These broadly correspond to the life and afterlife of human belief systems. The living humans of Bleach reside in a world resembling the present day; buried souls live in a kind of Heaven called Soul Society; unredeemed spirits reside in a purgatory called Hueco Mundo; evil souls are sent to Hell. Once in Soul Society, a spirit is able to live much longer than humans in the living world, with many aging into the thousands. Once a spirit dies in Soul Society, its soul is sent back to the living world and reborn as a new human. This provides the two worlds with balance.

Human world: The human world of Bleach is modern Japan, or more specifically, a fictional area of Western Tokyo called Karakura Town.[1] In this world, Ichigo attends school, fights hollows, and tries to avoid rumors that he is Rukia's boyfriend. Places of note are the high school, the Urahara Shop, the river where Ichigo's mother was killed, the cemetery, and Ichigo and Orihime's homes.

A view of Seireitei, Soul SocietySoul Society: Soul Society consists of a giant walled city in the center, known as the Seireitei (Court of Pure Souls), and four regions (north, south, east, and west), each with 80 districts, outside of it. The districts outside of the Seireitei are known as the Rukongai (Town of Wandering Spirits) and are the place where non-shinigami and non-nobles live. The district number of the Rukongai also describes its conditions. Each District 1 is peaceful and orderly, while District 80 is filled with criminals and has poor conditions. A king resides in Soul Society, but no details about him have surfaced.
Hueco Mundo: Hueco Mundo is the area between the human world and Soul Society. Literally meaning "hollow world" (although the Spanish is inaccurate), it is where hollows reside when not in the human world or Soul Society, and where they are nigh undetectable. The entrance to Hueco Mundo is a rip in the fabric of the human world.
Hell: Hell is the destination of those who committed unforgivably evil acts during their lives in the human world. When a hollow whose mortal soul is too wicked to enter Soul Society has its mask split by a zanpakutō, the gates of Hell (giant doors with a skeleton holding on to each) appear and begin to open, and a giant, laughing spiritual being with a blade will spear the wicked spirit and drag it down into Hell.
Bleach characters move from world to world by several means. Human souls usually cross between planes through birth into the human world or soul burial by shinigami. However, living humans can also use special portals to move between worlds. Shinigami open passages between worlds by means of their zanpakutō. Moths created during soul burial, called hell butterflies, make these routes safe. While hollows are portrayed as able to move between planes at will by opening rifts in space, they usually remain in Hueco Mundo due to the risk of discovery in Soul Society or the human world. Encounters between roaming and displaced characters are a driving plot force in Bleach.
Spoilers end here.

Media information
Main article: Bleach media and materials
See also: List of Bleach episodes, List of Bleach video games, Bleach (musical).
The Bleach animated TV series is broadcast at 7:27 p.m. on Wednesdays on TV Tokyo and affiliated stations throughout Japan. Studio Pierrot does the animation work. The first episode aired on Tuesday, October 5, 2004, replacing F-Zero: Falcon Densetsu in the 6:30 p.m. timeslot. It remained in that timeslot for the first 51 episodes. The next 46 episodes aired at 7:27 p.m. on Tuesdays. As of September 19, 2006 there are a total of 97 episodes and two OVAs. Recent episodes are original to the anime, and are designed to prevent the anime storyline from overtaking that of the manga. The series has no plans to end production.

The Bleach manga is being translated into English by VIZ Media, although several scanlation groups continue to release unofficial English translations. On March 15, 2006, VIZ Media also obtained foreign television, home video, and merchandising rights to the Bleach anime from the TV Tokyo Corporation and Shueisha Inc. These licensing privileges in the Americas, Europe, and Oceania prompted some fansub groups to end their work on the series; others continue their work. Subsequently, VIZ Media contracted Studiopolis to create the English dub of the anime. [1]

The English version of the Bleach anime premiered on Canada's YTV channel in the Bionix program block on September 8, 2006 at 10:30 p.m. EDT. This represented the show's official debut in North America. Cartoon Network's Adult Swim began airing Bleach the following evening at 12:30 a.m. EDT. In addition, Adult Swim has launched a Bleach website that includes the original opening and ending themes with English credits. [2] The English voice acting is directed by Michael Sorich.

Bleach: Memories of Nobody is an animated film scheduled for release in Japan on December 16, 2006. It is set just after the Soul Society arc. Ichigo is in the living world fending off hollows when there is a new crisis that threatens to "collapse the world."

In 2005, Bleach was awarded the prestigious Shogakukan Manga Award in the shōnen category. [3]

In Volume 4, Issue 3 of the American Shonen Jump, there was an interview with the creator of Bleach. In the interview, it was said that Tite Kubo entered into a manga contest, but lost. An editor noticed him, and they worked with each other

<p>

<p>

[Boredo]

Bleach is over-rated..although the fillers are way better then Naruto, the story is good, but the components are not that great. Not many attacks, in my opinion too many involving characters. It has some originality but the Rukia Rescue arc is kinda typical with the entire "Girl gets kidnapped, man goes to save her"

[t1MM1k]

i have to agree it does get an over-rated rep.. but you have to admit its still a pretty nice anime.. i completely gave up on naruto after the first month of fillers and started looking at the manga.. and then upon finding it was gonna be a good year before they got back on track i decided i'd give bleach a try.. im upset they're filling it up too but still a great storyline.. it gets more involved after that whole part with Rukia's rescue and such, but i dont want to spoil it for anyone who wants to watch

[Boredo]

t1MM1k Wrote:i have to agree it does get an over-rated rep.. but you have to admit its still a pretty nice anime.. i completely gave up on naruto after the first month of fillers and started looking at the manga.. and then upon finding it was gonna be a good year before they got back on track i decided i'd give bleach a try.. im upset they're filling it up too but still a great storyline.. it gets more involved after that whole part with Rukia's rescue and such, but i dont want to spoil it for anyone who wants to watch

well on the positive side, Naruto Fillers are done so cheers...and I wanna see how the Bleach story is gonna turn out..in my opinion it's gonna be crap or something good.

[AxiuM1485]

Bleach is awesome. When i first saw the first episode i wasn't really intrested in it and just kept on watching naruto, but when naruto started to have all their filler episodes i actually gave bleach a chance and it turned out to be better then what i thought.  It does sorta start out slow but eventually becomes very exciting and i think they have awesome music also.

[lego2iori]

I used to keep up with the Bleach without reading manga (I still haven't), cuz i didn't wanna spoil the plot. But after Aizen took off with a huge question mark while the story continued with a bunch of bountos, it really pissed me off. So I stopped at like 60-ish...

[MickelBoy]

Bleach is the only anime I follow, and even then I have to always try and find time to watch/read it. The fillers aren't so bad, since it gives light right now to some of the minor captains. Better then naruto ofcourse fillers ofcourse.

Overall, bleach is pretty good, it has an interesting plot line, and does throw in surprises every once in awhile. Plus the whole Aizen then is so mysterious to me. I think my favourite character is Aizen, just because he went from underestimated captain to total bad ass.

[Boredo]

MickelBoy Wrote:Bleach is the only anime I follow, and even then I have to always try and find time to watch/read it. The fillers aren't so bad, since it gives light right now to some of the minor captains. Better then naruto ofcourse fillers ofcourse.

Overall, bleach is pretty good, it has an interesting plot line, and does throw in surprises every once in awhile. Plus the whole Aizen then is so mysterious to me. I think my favourite character is Aizen, just because he went from underestimated captain to total bad ass.

i dun think of him as much of a badass..more like a ass...

Captain Hitsuyaga or w/e the genius is pretty cool..the so called "Prodigy.."..I wonder if he will actually become stronger then the other captains by the time he grows up, cuz he kinda sucks..and doesn't act like much of a genius compared to Shikamaru, Sasuke or even Raito.

[Usopp]

The Captain has been impressed with this show's storyline, but it fails sometimes with its predictability.

[xs13c9v]

I love this anime, Bleach is better than Naruto in my opinion.
The storyline is awesome to me, I've watched this show since 6th grade.
I used to get up early in the mornings just to watch this right before school starts.