Manga Madness: BLEACH

Hello

An nyoung

Konnichiwa

Ni Hao

It's Thursday which can only mean one thing it's Manga Madness, this week is a pretty popular manga that's been going for 14 years (I may be wrong on this so please correct me if I am). BLEACH is wrote and illustrated by Tite Kubo and started back in August 2001 and has since sold 82 million copies in Japan alone and so far has 68 volumes, it's one of Japan's longest running manga's along with Naruto and One Piece, I'd be surprised if you are part of either the manga or anime world and haven't heard of any of these three I would be rather surprised, even if your not I'm sure you would have heard the names in passing. Well lets get to business.

The series follows a hothead teenager named Ichigo Kurosaki who has the gift of being able to see and speak to ghosts, a gift that introduces him to Rukia Kuchiki a Soul Reaper. On their first meeting Rukia is severely wounded while protecting Ichigo from a Hollow she is pursuing and for the Hollow to be defeated she transfers her spirit pressure to Ichigo so that he can fight as a Soul Reaper, because of this Rukia is trapped in a ordinary human body till she regains her strength. She has to advise Ichigo on balancing his demanding substitute Soul Reaper duties and attending high school. Along the way you are introduced to other characters that help Ichigo in future battles: Orihime Inoue, Yasutora "chad" Sado and Uryu Ishida. Their first mission is rescuing Rukia when she is arrested for the illegal act of transferring her power to Ichigo and is sentenced to death, which causes a race against time for Ichigo and his friends to reach and save her. From there on their battle to save the Soul Society and the Human World begins when three of the Soul Reaper captains turn against them, this is the point when Ichigo, Orihime, Chad and Uryu train to be able to fight against those three, the Arrancars and the Hollows, but is there a traitor in their midst when Orihime joins the Arrancar. There is so much I can talk about for this manga but like many other posts I don't want to tell the full story, to be honest I'm only as far as going to rescue Rukia in the manga but the anime I'm up to Orihime and the Arrancars, I'm going to use tomorrow's Anime post to give character info on the main characters but today I'm going to introduce the characters, enemies and settings for the series.

The Settings:

The Human World

Set in a modern day Japan the characters live in a fictional area in western Tokyo called Karakura Town, this is also where Ichgo and his friends attend school.

The Soul Society

This is where the Soul Reapers live and where most of the souls stay until they are reincarnated in to the Human World, it's am afterlife if you will. The Soul Society consist of the Rukongai where the souls live when they enter the Soul Society and the Seireitei which is the centre of the Soul Society. The Soul Society is parallel with the Human World , families that are separated by death are rarely reunited in the society unless they arrive together. Birth and death happen as it does in the Human World. This is also where all the Soul Reapers live.

Characters:

Humans

Ichigo Kurosako

Orihime Inoue

Yasutora "Chad" Sado

Uryu Ishida

Soul Reapers

Soul Reapers are a fictional race of spirits who govern the flow of spirits between the Human World and the Soul Society, they are also known as Shinigami meaning death gods. Each Soul Reaper uses their own individual swords called a Zanpakuto and each one has their own spirit that they have to befriend to be able to use it to it's full potential.

Rukia Kuchiki

Renji Abarai

Byakuya Kuchiki

Sosuke Aizen

Toshiro Hitsugaya

Kenpachi Zaraki

Gin Ichimaru

(to name a few)

Arrancar

The Arrancar are a group Hollows that have removed their masks and gained powers similar to the Soul Reapers, the ten most powerful Arrancars are assigned numbers to how powerful they are and are known as the Espada.

Ulqiorra Cifer

Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez

Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck

Enemies:

Hollows

The main and re occurring enemy of BLEACH are Hollows they are monstrous ghosts of formally ordinary humans. Orihime's brother blames the fact that she stopped praying for him for the reason he became a Hollow saying she forgot about him.

BLEACH has been described as being culturally and religiously aware as the plot incorporates the traditional Japanese belief of spirits coexisting with humans and their nature, good or evil, depends on the circumstances. BLEACH also incorporates Shinto themes of purification of "evil spirits through charms, scrolls, incantations, and other rituals, many of the names used for the swords and spells were inspired used by the soul Reapers were inspired by ancient Japanese culture, it seems to me that BLEACH was created so that in the modern world the traditional Japanese beliefs wouldn't be forget and even keep it modern and up to date.

I really hope you give BLEACH a try, you can't help but get attached to characters and get hooked on the story, I for one am looking forward to getting further into the story and seeing where Mr Kubo and the characters take me, will you join me along for the ride?

See you soon!

An nyoung 
Sayonara 
Zai Jian 
Bye