Bleach (manga)

Bleach
First tankōbon volume cover, featuring Ichigo Kurosaki
Genre	Adventure[1] Martial arts[1] Supernatural[1]
Manga
Written by	Tite Kubo
Published by	Shueisha
English publisher	AUS: Madman Entertainment NA: Viz Media
Imprint	Jump Comics
Magazine	Weekly Shōnen Jump
English magazine	NA: Shonen Jump (former) Weekly Shonen Jump
Demographic	Shōnen
Original run	August 7, 2001 – August 22, 2016
Volumes	74 (List of volumes)
Anime television series
2004–2012 series Thousand-Year Blood War (2022–present)
Anime films
Memories of Nobody (2006) The DiamondDust Rebellion (2007) Fade to Black (2008) Hell Verse (2010)
Live-action film
2018 film
Media franchise
List of Bleach light novels List of Bleach video games Bleach Trading Card Game Bleach musicals

Bleach (stylized in all caps) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tite Kubo. It follows the adventures of a teenager Ichigo Kurosaki, who obtains the powers of a Soul Reaper—a death personification similar to a Grim Reaper—from another Soul Reaper, Rukia Kuchiki. His new-found powers allow him to take on the duties of defending humans from evil spirits and guiding departed souls to the afterlife, and set him on journeys to various ghostly realms of existence.

Bleach was serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from August 2001 to August 2016, with its chapters collected in 74 tankōbon volumes. The series has spawned a media franchise that includes an anime television series adaptation produced by studio Pierrot from 2004 to 2012, two original video animation (OVA) episodes, four animated feature films, ten stage musicals, and numerous video games, as well as many types of Bleach-related merchandise. A Japanese live-action film adaptation produced by Warner Bros. premiered in 2018. A sequel to the anime television series, which adapts the manga's final story arc, premiered in 2022.

In North America, the manga was licensed for English release by Viz Media in 2004. They have released the collected volumes and published its chapters in their Shonen Jump magazine from November 2007 until the magazine's final issue in April 2012.

Bleach received the 50th Shogakukan Manga Award for the shōnen category in 2005. The manga had over 130 million tankōbon volumes in circulation worldwide by 2022, making it one of the best-selling manga in history.