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Bleach (ブリーチ, Burīchi) is a Japanese anime series based on the manga of the same name by Tite Kubo. Bleach follows the adventures of Ichigo Kurosaki after he obtains the powers of a Soul Reaper (死神, Shinigami, literally, "Death God")—a death personification similar to the Grim Reaper—from another Soul Reaper, Rukia Kuchiki. His newfound powers force him to take on the duties of defending humans from evil spirits and guiding departed souls to the afterlife. The anime adaptation includes original storylines not found in the manga; including repeated appearances and stories containing these original characters. Studio Pierrot produced the series from 2004 to 2012, consisting of 366 episodes. Viz Media obtained foreign television and home video distribution rights to the Bleach anime on March 15, 2006. Cartoon Network's Adult Swim began airing Bleach in the United States on September 9, 2006. The series international release extends through dozens of countries in several languages including Spanish, French, German, Portugese and Tagalog.

Plot

Ichigo Kurosaki is a teenager in Karakura Town who is gifted with the ability to see spirits and has his life changed by the sudden appearance of a girl named Rukia Kuchiki. Rukia is a Soul Reaper—one of many entrusted with the preservation of flow of souls between the World of the Living and the Soul Society (尸魂界 (ソウル·ソサエティ), Sōru Sosaeti) from where she originates from by fighting Hollows, dangerous lost souls who consume other souls. When she is severely wounded defending Ichigo from a Hollow she is pursuing, Rukia transfers a part of her Spirit Pressure (霊圧, Reiatsu) energy to enable Ichigo to fight in her stead as a substitute Soul Reaper while she is forced to remain in the World of Living until she can recover her strength. As some time passes, she and Ichigo meet a Quincy named Uryū Ishida who attends the latter's school, Rukia finds herself being taken by her Soul Reaper superiors back to the Soul Society and sentenced to death for the illegal act of transferring her powers into a human.

Ichigo resolves to rescue her with the aid of Uryū and several of his other spiritually aware classmates Orihime Inoue and Yasutora (Chad) Sado. As Ichigo and friends break into Soul Society and fight to save Rukia, dissension occurs among the Soul Reaper captains over both the incident as well as Rukia's sentence and the death of a high-ranking Soul Reaper captain named Sōsuke Aizen. The conflict comes to a head with Aizen, having faked his own death, obtains an item called the Hōgyoku from Rukia leave for Hueco Mundo, the Hollow World, to enact his scheme by recruiting humanized Hollows called Arrancars to serve him.

An original storyline follows with Ichigo returning home and coming into a new conflict with a group of foes. The Bount, are a group of empowered humans that can live forever via absorbing souls and rebel against their Soul Society. With the help the modified souls Ririn, Kurōdo, and Noba help Ichigo and his friends detect and fight the Bount threat. Jin Kariya, leader of the Bount, invades Soul Society and obtains the power of a Jokai Crest, and plans on using it to detonate other Jokai Crests hidden underground all across the Soul Society in a chain reaction to destroy Soul Society. After a final battle, Ichigo defeats Kariya and saves Soul Society.

Ichigo obtains the power to control his Hollow form from a group known as the Visards, and invade Hueco Mundo to stop Aizen and defeat his elite Arrancar servants, the Espadas. Aizen's scheme involves creating Oken and use it to reach the Soul King and kill the Soul King. Aizen kidnaps Orihime, Ichigo and his friends pursue. However, through he lost a majority of his Espadas, Aizen reveals Orihime's abuction was a lure to cripple resistance from stopping him from turning the souls of Karakura's Town residents into an Oken.

In another anime original, the New Captain Shūsuke Amagai arc, follows the Kasumiōji Conspiracy in which Shūsuke Amagai engineers a plan that utilized the Kasumiōji Clan's Bakkōtō to get revenge on Yamamoto for killing his father. Ending in a duel with Amagai versus Ichigo, after the battle Amagai admits his shame for his actions and commits suicide.

The storyline returns to Hueco Mundo after Ichigo defeats Grimmjow and follows through a series of battles in which many of the Espada and Tosen are kill. Aizen reveals he absorbed the Hōgyoku and uses its power to transform and defeat the Soul Reaper captains. As Aizen enters Karakura Town after revealing that his tribulations were his doing, Ichigo undergoes intense training with his father Isshin, revealed to be former Soul Reaper, and becomes an equal to Aizen. Eventually, the battle ends with Aizen defeated and imprisoned after being weakened by Ichigo's final attack. But the attack has a side effect with Ichigo eventually becoming a normal human. However, seventeen months later, Ichigo regains his Soul Reaper powers after encountering Xcution, a group of humans possessing "Fullbring" powers like Chad who serve a former Substitute Soul Reaper named Kūgo Ginjō. Helping the Soul Society defeat Xcution, Ichigo then regains his title as the Substitute Soul Reaper.

Voice cast

For the addition of minor characters, some of the voice actors played multiple roles. For the English version Kate Higgins is the voice actor for Karin Kurosaki, Nanou Ise, Retsu Unohana, Lily Lilynette and the Arrancar Gingerback. Liam O'Brien is the voice actor for Soken Ishida and Sora Inoue as well as Baigon.

Release

The Bleach anime series aired in Japan on TV Tokyo's Tuesday 6pm timeslot from October 5, 2004, to March 27, 2012, excluding holidays. The series was directed by Noriyuki Abe and produced by TV Tokyo, Dentsu, and Studio Pierrot.

Viz Media obtained the foreign television, home video, and merchandising rights to the Bleach anime from TV Tokyo Corporation and Shueisha on March 15, 2006. Viz Media has later licensed its individual Bleach merchandising rights to several different companies.

The adaptation of the Bleach anime premiered on Canada's YTV channel in the Bionix programming block on September 8, 2006. Cartoon Network's Adult Swim began airing Bleach in the United States the following evening. Adult Swim stopped broadcasting new episodes of the English adaptation on October 13, 2007 after airing the first 52 episodes of the series. It was replaced with another Viz Media series, Death Note, to provide Studiopolis more time to dub additional episodes of Bleach. The series began airing again on March 2, 2008, but went back on hiatus on November 21, 2009, after the airing of its 167th episode. Adult Swim is now airing new episodes at 12am on Saturday in their animated programing block Toonami.

In the United Kingdom, Bleach premiered on Anime Central on September 13, 2007, with new episodes airing weekly. The English dubbed version of Bleach premiered on Animax Asia on 18 December 2009 with the first 52 episodes and season 2 premiered on 18 March 2011 this time with the original Japanese audio with English subtitles.

As of January 2012, 76 DVD compilations have been released by Aniplex in Japan. Viz Media has released 32 DVD compilations of the English adaptation of the anime, along with seven season boxsets that contain the first seven seasons of the anime. On July 29, 2009, Aniplex released a "TV Animation Bleach 5th Anniversary Box" that includes 15 DVDs and three bonus discs. Episode 366, which aired March 27, 2012 was the last episode of Bleach to air on TV Tokyo.

Reception

The anime has been featured various times in the top ten from the Japanese TV Ranking. DVDs have also had good sales having commonly appeared in the Japanese DVD Ranking. The anime was nominated in the 2007 America Anime Awards in the fields of "best manga", "best actor", "best DVD package design", and "best theme", but failed to win any awards. In a 2006 Internet poll by TV Asahi, Bleach was ranked as Japan's seventh-favorite anime program. The previous year, it was ranked as the twenty-seventh favorite program. During February 2009, Bleach ranked as the 9th most viewed animated show from Hulu.

Anime News Network's Carlos Santos praised the anime adaptation, describing it as "...one incredibly entertaining anime that will grab you and refuse to let go." Animefringe's Maria Lin liked the varied and distinct characters, and how well they handle the responsibilities increasing powers give them. She also complimented the series for its attention to details, well paced script, and balance of seriousness and comedy. In summary, she notes "Bleach the anime deserves its popularity. It has something for everyone: the supernatural, comedy, action and a little bit of romance, all tied together with excellent animation and a very enthusiastic sounding bunch of voice actors." Adam Arseneau of DVD Verdict, felt Bleach was a "show that only gets better with age" and was "surprisingly well-rounded and appealing" with well-developed characters and pacing. Active Anime's Holly Ellingwood praising the anime for perfectly capturing "the excitement, the caustic humour and supernatural intrigue" of the original manga. She felt that the series "does a wonderful job of building on its continuity to provide increasingly tense and layered episodes involving not only Ichigo and Rukia, but the secondary characters as well". She also praised the series for its striking visual effects, intriguing plot and its "brilliant blend of action, off the wall comedy." In reviewing the series for DVD Talk, Don Houston felt the characters surpassed the usual shōnen anime stereotypes and liked "the mixture of darker material with the comedic". Another Fellow reviewer John Sinnott felt series starts out as a boring "monster-of-the-week program" that becomes more epic as the stories build and the characters are fleshed out. Otaku USA''s Joseph Luster wrote that "the storylines are consistently dramatic without hammering it home too heavily, the characters manage comic relief that's not as eye rolling as one would expect, and the action (in classic fighting series form) has only gotten more ridiculous over the years; in a good way, of course". Mania.com's Bryce Coulter praised the series for its plot twists and "the quirky and amusing characters". In comparing the series with Naruto, Mania.com's Chris Beveridge felt Bleach was less childish and "simply comes together surprisingly well in its style and execution of what is fairly standard material".

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• Articles to be merged from October 2013
• 2004 anime television series debuts