Bleach(ブリーチBurīchi?) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated 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, and set him on journeys to various ghostly realms of existence.
Bleach has been serialized in the Japanese manga anthology Weekly Shōnen Jump since August 2001, and has been collected into 65 tankōbon volumes as of September 2014. The series has spawned a media franchise that includes an animated television series that was produced by Studio Pierrot from 2004 to 2012, two original video animations, four animated feature films, ten rock musicals, and numerous video games, as well as many types of Bleach-related merchandise. English-language releases of Bleach are coordinated by Viz Media, which has released several volumes of the manga each year since 2004, and published chapters of Bleach in its Shonen Jump magazine since November 2007. 63 such volumes are available in English as of February 2015. Viz Media secured foreign television and home video distribution rights to the Bleach anime in 2006. Cartoon Network's Adult Swim began airing dubbed episodes of Bleach in the United States that Fall, and Hulu later began to stream subtitled versions of the anime a week after each episode aired in Japan. Viz Media has also released each of the Bleach feature films in English.
Bleach received the Shogakukan Manga Award for the shōnen demographic in 2005, and is among the best-selling manga in both Japan and the United States. Bleach has sold more than 84 million copies in Japan since its publication, and continues to perform commercially despite significant downturns in both the Japanese and English manga markets. Among critics, Bleach is most commonly praised for its action scenes, character designs and art, but considered to have a relatively stereotypical plot, oftentimes sluggish pacing, and draws widely variant opinions as to the quality of its characterization.
