by Robert Smith

Created on: November 05, 2008

This refers more to bleach as a novel rather than the anome. The story and characters and art style are all the same however!

Bleach is one of the most popular manga's in the world at the moment. Manga is a Japanese form of comic book or graphic novel. You may associate the word "comic" with kids reading Spiderman but that is not the way it is thought of in Japan. Comics are not just for children. There is a wide range of different types of manga's. Some are for kids but a lot of them are aimed at people in their late teens or even early twenties. It is not uncommon for adults over 40 to read manga.

Bleach is aimed at quite a range of ages. It may be too mature and contain too much blood for early teens but it is quite common that people in their early twenties read Bleach. Since its translation into English it has proved to be a big hit in the west and it is proving to be a catalyst that leads to other manga series being read all over the world!

This series is written and illustrated by Tite Kubo and Bleach to date is the most well known of his work. It has been adapted into an anime (Japanese animation) in recent years and that too has had massive success and is currently approaching its two hundredth episode. It too has been translated into English and has featured on a few channels here in England!

The story starts by introducing us to Ichigo Kurosaki who is a student. We soon learn he has the unfortunate ability to see the dead. Its not like the "Sixth Sense" or anything like that, he just sees ghosts every now and again. We soon learn Ichigo is a tough guy who sticks up for those smaller than himself. His mother died when he was younger and he lives with his father and his two younger sisters. His father owns a small medical centre which doubles up as their house. One day Ichigo has run in with a girl named Rukia Kuchiki. She is amazed Ichigo can see her as she is a Soul reaper (Shinigami). Soul reapers help ghost that have not left earth to pass on to the next life. They have another job however. There are evil souls called Hollows. A hollow is a person that has been on earth too long without passing on. They become consumed by all the bad emotions you can think of. Their appearance and personality changes to something much more primal and they gain a skull like mask. These hollows prey on the souls of other ghosts, consuming them so they can never pass on. Soul reapers have to stop this. They have what is known as a Zanpaktou, which is essentially a samurai

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