BLEACH Images

General Information:

Bleach (Japanese: ブリーチ) is a Japanese action, adventure and fantasy manga series by Tite Kubo.
Bleach first came out in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump since August 2001.
It was later licensed by Viz Media to be published in English in its own version of the magazine.
Bleach is an ongoing manga series with its chapters collected in 66 collected volumes thus far.


Bleach was made popular by Studio Pierrot when they adapted Bleach for an animated television series together with director Noriyuki Abe, the man behind stellar shows like Yu Yu Hakusho and Flame of Recca.
Also working on the show are Jun Takibuchi (producer), Masashi Sogo (scriptwriter) and Shirou Sagisu (music director).
Bleach made its big debut on TV Tokyo back on October 2004.
Bleach was later licensed by Madman Entertainment, Viz Media and Manga Entertainment which aired the English version on Animax, AnimeCentral, Cartoon Network, Toonami and Sony Movie Channel.
Bleach unfortunately ended its fun-filled adventures on March 2012 with 366 action-packed episodes.

Plot:

Bleach follows 15-year old Kurosaki Ichigo, who unlike teenagers around his age is able to see ghosts.
He has always had this ability as far as he can remember.
Her fateful encounter with Rukia Kuchiki, a so-called female “death god”, came to be when soul-eating spirits (later known as Hollows) attacks his family.
Rukia manages to save his family but at the cost of injuring herself.
Seeing as she is unable to move lest defeat the hollow, Rukia transfers her shinigami powers onto Ichigo so that he may fight in her stead.
Since then, Rukia is trapped in an ordinary human body while trying to recover her strength.
Until then, Ichigo must become the substitute Soul Reaper, ushering souls of the dead from the World of the Living to the Soul Society and fighting Hollows whilst still attending high school just like any other teenage kid.
They are later joined by spiritually empowered teenagers: Ichigo’s classmate Orihime Inoue, Ichigo’s best friend Yasutora Sado and the remarkably talented Uryuu Ishida, who turns out be one of the long-forgotten Quincy clan.


Characters:

Ichigo Kurosaki is the 15-year old high school student who has the uncanny ability to see ghosts and spirits. He unintentionally became a “substitute” Soul Reaper when Rukia transferred her powers onto him seeing she is unable to continue fighting.


Kuchiki Rukia is the female Soul Reaper assigned to Kamakura Town. She now leads a temporary lifestyle as a regular human guiding Ichigo in his duties as a substitute Soul Reaper.


Orihime Inoue is Ichigo’s childhood friend and long-time classmate. Although originally devoid of any spiritual powers, Inoue develops spiritual awareness when her late brother turned into a Hollow and tried to attack her. She now has the god-like ability to warp reality by rejecting any and all past phenomena.


Yasutora Sado is Ichigo’s Japanese-Mexican friend. Despite his rather imposing and fearless appearance, he is generally kind and refuses to fight unless it is for the sake of another. He has the unique spiritual ability to strengthen his right arm and even fire off spiritual energy at his opponents.


Uryuu Ishida is a descendant of a long line of nearly-extinct hollow-hunting archers called the Quincy. Just like any other Quincy, Uryuu is able to gather and use the invisible spirit particles which he shapes into a bow and arrow to fight Hollows.


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Update:

Along the course of its run, Studio Pierrot manages to work on several feature-length films of Bleach. Bleach: Memories of Nobody was released on 2006, Bleach: The Diamond Dust Rebellion on 2007.
Bleach: Fade to Black premiered on 2008 and its last feature film, Bleach: Hell Verse premiered on 2010.
Several video games based loosely on Bleach were made ranging from PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS and even Wii versions were made.



Bleach Similar Series:
1. Yu Yu Hakusho
2. Soul Eater
3. Inuyasha
4. Shaman King
5. D.Gray Man

source: Zerochan; written by carllustre87