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Contemporary Fantasy Manga 101: Bleach
Glenn Hough (gallyangel) is a nonpracticing futurist, an anime and manga otaku, and is almost obsessive about finishing several of the lists tracked on WWEnd. In this series on Fantasy Manga Glenn will provide an overview of the medium and the place of fantasy within it.
To say that Bleach is a popular Manga here, in Japan, and around the world is to understate the obvious. Bleach is a Pop cultural icon of the worldwide manga movement.
Tite Kubo, as a mangaka, is prolific. Bleach debuted in August of 2001. As of this writing, chapter 573 is due out this week. That’s about 63 takubon worth of material. That’s quite the pace for a weekly series since I’m sure he did have some time off during the last ten plus years. Bleach has probably made Kubo a Billionaire many times over. (A billion Yen. The quick and dirty conversion for Yen to Dollars is to move the decimal two places to the left so ¥1,000,000,000 equals $10,000,000. One Yen is like one Cent.)
This is what VIZ says about Bleach, Vol. 1:
Strawberry and the Soul Reapers
Ichigo Kurosaki has always been able to see ghosts, but this ability doesn’t change his life nearly as much as his close encounter with Rukia Kuchiki, a Soul Reaper and member of the mysterious Soul Society. While fighting a Hollow, an evil spirit that preys on humans who display psychic energy, Rukia attempts to lend Ichigo some of her powers so that he can save his family; but much to her surprise, Ichigo absorbs every last drop of her energy. Now a full-fledged Soul Reaper himself, Ichigo quickly learns that the world he inhabits is one full of dangerous spirits and, along with Rukia–who is slowly regaining her powers–it’s Ichigo’s job to protect the innocent from Hollows and help the spirits themselves find peace.
