Bleach

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Alternative Titles

Japanese: BLEACH

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Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 74

Chapters: 705

Status: Finished

Published: Aug 7, 2001 to Aug 22, 2016

Genres: Action, Adventure, Award Winning, Fantasy

Demographic: Shounen

Serialization: Shounen Jump (Weekly)

Authors: Kubo, Tite (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 7.85¹ (scored by 231,173 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #1129²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #14

Members: 376,622

Favorites: 35,415

Resources

Wikipedia

7.85

Ranked #1129Popularity #14Members 376,622

MangaShounen Jump (Weekly)Kubo, Tite (Story & Art)

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Volumes: /74

Chapters: /705

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Synopsis

For as long as he can remember, high school student Ichigo Kurosaki has been able to see the spirits of the dead, but that has not stopped him from leading an ordinary life. One day, Ichigo returns home to find an intruder in his room who introduces herself as Rukia Kuchiki, a Soul Reaper tasked with helping souls pass over. Suddenly, the two are jolted from their conversation when a Hollow—an evil spirit known for consuming souls—attacks. As Ichigo makes a brash attempt to stop the Hollow, Rukia steps in and shields him from a counterattack. Injured and unable to keep fighting, Rukia suggests a risky plan—transfer half of her Soul Reaper powers to Ichigo. He accepts and, to Rukia's surprise, ends up absorbing her powers entirely, allowing him to easily dispatch the Hollow.

Now a Soul Reaper himself, Ichigo must take up Rukia's duties of exterminating Hollows and protecting spirits, both living and dead. Along with his friends Orihime Inoue and Yasutora Sado—who later discover spiritual abilities of their own—Ichigo soon learns that the consequences of becoming a Soul Reaper and dealing with the world of spirits are far greater than he ever imagined.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Bleach has sold over 130 million copies worldwide as of 2022, making it one of the top 20 best selling manga series of all-time; North American sales have also been significant with 1.7 million copies sold in the region. In 2005, the series won the 50th Shogakukan Manga Award in the shounen demographic category. Many adaptations have also been made of the series, with a 2004 television anime series along with four feature length films, numerous video games, spin-off light novels, databooks, and even a musical.

The series was published in English by VIZ Media under the Shonen Jump imprint from July 6, 2004 to October 2, 2018, and as omnibus volumes from June 7, 2011 to March 5, 2019; a hardcover collector's edition for volume one was released by VIZ Media on August 5, 2008, a box set of volumes 1-21 was released on September 16, 2008 as well as volumes 22-48 on July 7, 2015, and the final box set containing volumes 49-72 on November 6, 2018. It has also been published in Portuguese (Brazil) by Panini Comics and Planet Manga since July 2007, and in Spanish by Glénat/EDT since June 2006, publishing 51 volumes before the publisher went defunct, and later was republished by Panini Comics from February 2013 to November 2017.

Bleach was adapted into a live-action movie on July 20, 2018.

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Related Manga

Alternative version:	Bleach, Bleach: Letters From the Other Side
Side story:	Bleach: The Unforgivens, Bleach Unmasked Short Stories, Bleach: Spirits Are Forever with You, Bleach: The Death Save the Strawberry, Bleach: We Do Knot Always Love You, Tsurezure Nichijou Ekotoba Colourful Bleach, Bleach: Can't Fear Your Own World, Bleach: Beginning of the Revive of Tomorrow, Gekijouban Bleach: Memories of Nobody
Spin-off:	Bleach 4-koma: Komaburi
Sequel:	Bleach: Gokui Meimei-hen
Adaptation:	Bleach, Bleach: Sennen Kessen-hen, , Bleach: Sennen Kessen-hen - Soukoku-tan, Bleach: Sennen Kessen-hen - Ketsubetsu-tan

More characters
Characters

Kurosaki, Ichigo

Main

Kuchiki, Rukia

Main

Inoue, Orihime

Main

Abarai, Renji

Main

Ishida, Uryuu

Main

Sado, Yasutora

Main

Zaraki, Kenpachi

Supporting

Urahara, Kisuke

Supporting

Aizen, Sousuke

Supporting

Hitsugaya, Toushirou

Supporting

Reviews

Jul 22, 2023

manserpent

Recommended

bleach, from a writers viewpoint, is not that great. however if you go into it expecting nothing more than hype fights and likable characters, youll absolutely adore it.
bleach is very formulaic, and therefore predictable.
ichigo gets his ass handed to him
ichigo trains
ichigo comes back and one taps the opponent with a new powerup thats gifted to him thanks to his insane tier genetics
but disregarding that, i dont think i can say theres a single character (besides the ones that you're intended to dislike) that i actually disliked, they all had qualities that allowed me to sympathize with or laugh about, this manga isnt super deep, ...

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Nov 25, 2023

Pezguy97

Mixed Feelings

Bleach is a fun read, but it is by no means a work of art. Strong points for the series include great characters, strong dialogue, and a finish that gives all of the (important) characters a strong send-off. Additionally, the series can be very funny at different times. It was very difficult to put the series down once I got to the second arc. Despite that, the series has a few obvious weaknesses. 1) There is very little character development throughout the entire series. 2) There are a lot of completely superfluous characters, and some genuinely fun characters feel underutilized. 3) It felt like Tite ...

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Sep 3, 2023

abystoma2

Not Recommended

Out of the “big three”, Bleach is undoubtedly the most… bland one. I honestly believe that it only counts among them by accidental association of filling the void of the third realace.

Originally I planned to make this review much more wordy, but as the author couldn’t bother to put more effort into the manga, I too won’t got the extra mile so instead I’ll just describe my thoughts on the series shortly in no particular order in form of short rants:

First and the most glaring issue is the protagonist. Ichigo has boring character, boring powers and boring goals. Which is to say, Ichigo’s character ... is that he wants to protect his friends. That’s it. And that is also his goal – Ichigo has absolutely no agency on his own beyond “Well, I guess I’ll have to go beat up the bad guy to save my friends” or occasional “Well, I guess I’ll have to get stronger so I can go beat up the bad guy to save my friends”. Literally every part of the plot is caused by an outside force and Ichigo is only a bystander caught by all of it in accident. He also somehow has the most boring character design out of the main cast beyond maybe Origihme. Regarding the powers, Ichigo is pretty much just spamming one strong attack but making it stronger each arc. It’s like Saitama’s punch but unironical.

Ichigo is literally just a dude that won a genetic lottery (through multiple retcons), and demolishes everyone with barely any training. Like seriously, right in the first arc he fights multiple supposedly strong enemies in row with very basic knowledge of the world and only few days of training, somehow not only survives but also wins. This makes the hyped up characters looks just weak and ruins my capability of taking anyone allegedly strong seriously since even the elite gets beaten by a literal novice. Like imagine if Naruto was a kid outside of Ninja village, then he gets the most basic ninja training possible, one that doesn't even cover *all* the basics and proceeds to crash Leaf Village and beat up Kakashi. That's essentially what happens in Bleach.

Also, back to Ichigo’s character, despite it being the most simple barebone characterization it could be, it still manages to not make sense? The whole "no that wasn't actually me who defeated you, so cut off my arm to make it fair" is also incredibly stupid. The only agenda Ichigo has is protecting his friends, yet he's also willing to throw it away mid-battle for... pride? His characterization makes no sense. Was that supposed to make him seem righteous? Because it only makes him seem dumb. I get it if he was portrayed as overly proud or something and if it’s presented as his character *flaw* but no, it just comes out of nowhere and goes nowhere.

Regarding power system in general, it’s made very unclear. For series about swords, there is very little actual sword fighting and the swords really serve more like magic wands. The characters don't even seem to try to fight seriously anyway - instead of trying to slash artery for a fatal wound, instead we get chest/arms/etc wounds just so the fight can go on longer and the protagonist can get up after remembering his friends or something. That said, later characters are shown to survive getting their insides gouged out by just somehow recovering off screen, so I guess there are no stakes either way. The special powers just do random things that look cool higgledy-piggledy. Your sword just summons a giant poisonous baby? Sure, why not, might as well.

The only actually good part about Bleach is the art, in particular the design. Many of the still images look cool, and many of the outfits look cool. I respect the drip. I especially adore the chapter title pages which are among the most creative I've seen. Honestly, the art is the only thing that made me still pay attention to the pages. That said, and artbook made out of the cool-looking pages would be more enjoyable to read than the actual manga they belong to.

Because man, the fights are bad. There are absolutely no stakes, you don't wonder whether the protagonist will win, but how much overpowered the protagonist will turn out during the fight. The fights have the strategical elements of Michael Bay movies. Powerups aren’t foreshadowed at all but just given out when needed. Any supposed drawbacks or risk for main characters are irrelevant - like seriously, both of the times the main characters are told that the powerup will cause them to lost their powers forever they get them back literally the next arc. The only time the drawback is actually finalized is for a side character that nobody really cared about.

Ichigo’s fights are especially terrible since they pretty much go all like “Haha I, the villain, win!” *Ichigo starts thinking of his friends and shit, stands up from his beaten up state, receives a new power and wins*. The repeated situations of Ichigo dying completely outclassed, then suddenly getting a random-ass powerup and winning gets really tiring, none of it feels earned.

Not like the side character fights are any better, but most of that is because thy just… don’t matter. They are fillers because each new arcs drops a whole group of new characters that don’t actually contribute to the story other than so the previous group of side characters have someone to fight. I also hate how often the series is like “Oh I am the mighty Glorbglorb and my grand Chakachakaboom has never been defeated in 300 years!” and then the character just gets one-shotted. It’s just silly. It’s all so silly.

Regarding the story… well, there is barely any story. Bleach storyline is pretty much the equivalent of mashing toy soldiers against each other and making up cool sounding attacks. Other than the intro there are basically 4 arcs, three of them being practically identical in story and the last one being almost the same too. We have 1) Girl gets abducted so Ichigo crashes Soul Society to save her 2) Girl gets abducted so Ichigo crashes Hueco Mundo to save her 3) Girl gets assaulted so Ichigo crashes the Xcution society to save her 4) Ichigo crashes Soul Society again, but this time on the side of Soul Society and to save not a girl, but the world. Such stunning and creative writing.

The Fullbringer arc (the 3rd one) is the most silly - it's Bleach's attempt to temporary become a JoJo rip-off. And it also *really* feels like a filler mad just so there’s some excuse to give Ichigo his powers back.

By the start of the final arc, I was completely disinterested in the story and kept reading simply because I don't really drop manga. The amount of cool art decreased, which as mentioned previously was the main thing that kept me going. The fights while still being basically the only content of the manga degraded into mostly talking - like "Oh I will do this" "Oh no he will do that... but we will actually do this" and then few panels of the actual fights - if you're lucky. The influx of even more random characters makes it that most fights have also be an infodump about the characters powers. Also the villain of this arc manages to be even less interesting than Aizen, which is a feat in itself. In general it’s clear that the author didn’t plan out the story more than 3 or so chapters ahead.

Regarding the finale, one one hand I would like to say that readers shouldn't be surprised how abruptly the manga ends, given that the protagonist has literally no own goal to accomplish. On the other hand, the way the final fight was just cut off was so damn disrespectful lmao. It really feels like Kubo finally just gave up of trying to come up with something that makes sense.

The good thing is that at least I wasn’t as massively disappointed as with Naruto, because Bleach lacked potential right from the start. On the other hand, there is really no reason to even read Bleach in the first place. If you’ve read any battle shounen manga, you’ve already read Bleach in some other form. Oh I guess you should read this manga if you for some unfathomable reason wanted to watch the anime, because manga is average, the (first) adaptation is just absolutely terrible. So I guess that’s one reason to read the manga.

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'Bleach: Sennen Kessen-hen' Third Part Announced for 2024

The 13th and final episode of the Bleach: Sennen Kessen-hen - Ketsubetsu-tan (Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War - The Separation) television anime announced on Sunday ...read more

Sep 30, 8:59 AM by Hyperion_PS | Discuss (24 comments)

'Bleach: Sennen Kessen-hen' Gets Second Part in Summer 2023

The 13th and final episode of the Bleach: Sennen Kessen-hen (Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War) television anime announced its second cours on Tuesday, subtitled Ketsu...read more

Dec 26, 2022 10:14 AM by Hyperion_PS | Discuss (27 comments)

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