Did You Notice How Much 'Bleach's Characters Changed?

One of the major benefits of following along with a manga series is watching your favorite artists improve over the course of their series runs. Given the strict weekly schedule manga authors and artists are under, their craft improves at quite the steady rate.

Fans love to point to Tite Kubo and Bleach, for a great example of how an artist improves over the years, and one fan even compiled the examples together into an easy to watch gif.

Tite Kubo's Artwork Evolution Over The Decade from r/bleach

As shared by Reddit user RarestProGamerr, the collection of images compares how characters looked at the start of the series to how Kubo drew them toward the end when his art was at its best.

With Ichigo, Rukia, Orihime, Ishida, Renji, and Chad, fans can see how Kubo's earlier, rougher rounder style eventually gives way to an even more angular look for all of the characters as his character design grew to carry more detail in each character's face.

Bleach's art is one of the main reasons is dominated Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump for so long, as Kubo's more gothic and detailed character art still inspires all sorts of fan-art and cosplay long after the series originally ended.

Bleach fans have a lot to look forward to this year as the live-action Bleach adaptation releases July 20 in Japan, and has just released its first full trailer. The film will adapt the first arc of the series, the "Substitute Shinigami" arc. The current cast includes Sota Fukushi as Ichigo Kurosaki and Hana Sugisaki as Rukia Kuchiki is MIYAVI, who will play Byakuya Kuchiki Ryou Yoshizawa, asUryuu Ishida, and Taichi Saotome as Renji Abarai.

For those unfamiliar with Tite Kubo's Bleach, the series follows the young delinquent Ichigo Kurosaki, who had the ability to see spirits. He soon obtains the power of a Soul Reaper - one meant to usher lost souls to the afterlife - and now has the duty to defend the living world from monstrous dark spirits known as Hollows.

The manga was serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump from 2001 to 2016, and was collected into 74 volumes. It has been adapted into English thanks to VIZ Media, and has sold over 900 million copies in Japan. The series was adapted into an anime by Studio Pierrot from 2004 to 2012, and has four feature-length animations, rock musicals, video games, and a ton of other merchandise.

The English language broadcast premiered on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block in 2006, and you currently find the Japanese and English language versions now streaming on Hulu.