Production
Bleach was first conceived from a desire on Tite Kubo's part to draw shinigami in kimono, which formed the basis for the design of the Soul Reapers in the series, and the conception of character Rukia Kuchiki.[2][3] The original story concept was submitted to Weekly Shōnen Jump shortly after the cancellation of Tite Kubo's previous manga Zombiepowder., but was rejected. Manga artist Akira Toriyama saw the story and wrote a letter of encouragement to Kubo.[3] Bleach was accepted for publication a short time later, in 2001, and was initially intended to be a shorter series, with a maximum serialization length of five years.[3] Early plans for the story did not include the hierarchical structure of Soul Society, but did include some characters and elements which did not come into the plot until the Arrancar arc, such as Ichigo's Soul Reaper heritage.[2] The series was originally meant to be named "Black" due to the color of the Soul Reapers' clothes, but Kubo thought it was too generic. He later tried giving it the name of "White", but came to like more "Bleach" as it was associated with the white color and he did not find it too obvious.
Tite Kubo has cited influences for elements of Bleach ranging from other manga series to music, foreign language, architecture, and film. He attributes his interest in drawing the supernatural and monsters to Shigeru Mizuki's GeGeGe no Kitaro and Bleach's focus on interesting weaponry and battle scenes to Masami Kurumada's Saint Seiya, both manga Kubo enjoyed as a boy.[2] The action style and storytelling found in Bleach is inspired by cinema, though Kubo has not revealed any specific movie as being an influence for fight scenes. When pressed, he told interviewers that he liked Snatch but did not use it as a model.[5] Kubo has also stated that he wishes to make Bleach an experience that can only be found by reading manga, and dismissed ideas of creating any live-action film adaptations of the series.
Bleach's creative process is focused around character design. When writing plotlines or having difficulties generating new material, Kubo begins by thinking of new characters, often en masse, and rereading previous volumes of Bleach.[2][6] Kubo has said that he likes creating characters that have outward appearances that do not match their true nature, an element that can be found in many Bleach characters, as he is "attracted to people with that seeming contradiction" and finds an "urge to draw people like that when I work."[7] The terminology used in Bleach has a variety of inspirations, with each category of character bearing a different linguistic theme. Many of the names for swords and spells used by Soul Reapers were inspired by ancient Japanese literature. Hollows and arrancar use Spanish terms. Kubo became interested in Spanish because, to him, the language sounded "bewitching" and "mellow".
Manga
Main article: List of Bleach chapters
The chapters of the Bleach manga are written and illustrated by Tite Kubo. In Japan, they have been published in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump since 2001.[8] Since Bleach's premiere, over three hundred chapters have been released in Japan. Most chapter names are in English and have katakana above them to indicate how they are read in Japanese, similar to furigana ruby characters used with advanced kanji characters. In addition to the main series chapters, some chapters are published with a negative chapter number. These "negative" chapters are side stories and consist of events that precede the start of the series.[9] North American licensor Viz Media has been serializing the individual chapters in Shonen Jump since November 2007 in the United States.[10] The individual chapters are collected by Shueisha in a series of tankōbon volumes, which include a poem based on the cover character. The first volume was released on January 5, 2002; as of August 2009[update], 40 volumes have been released.
Viz released the first volume on June 1, 2004, with 27 volumes released as of June 2009[update].[13][14] The company released a hardcover "collector's edition" of the first volume with a dust jacket on August 5, 2008, followed by a box set on September 2, 2008, containing the first 21 volumes, a poster, and a booklet about the series.
