'Bleach' Creator Shares New Sketch of Older Ichigo, Rukia
Tite Kubo's Bleach has seen a bit of a revival lately as it released a new art book collecting [...]
Tite Kubo's Bleach has seen a bit of a revival lately as it released a new art book collecting many pieces of art from the series, and Kubo is celebrating the occasion with brand new art.
Promoting a special signing he's holding for the art book in Japan, Kubo shared a new sketch of the older Ichigo and Rukia along with their spunky offspring.
— 久保帯人 (@tite_official) December 4, 2018
Kubo shared on Twitter (as translated by @edomonogatari on Twitter) that he contacted Shueisha to set up the first autograph session in 17 years for the release of the new Bleach art book (the first being when Bleach was originally picked up as a series) jokingly suggesting they'd sell more copies that way.
The new art book is titled Bleach JET and collects over 700 pieces of seen and previously unseen art compiled in over 500 pages of goodness. This includes new looks at the older versions of Ichigo and Rukia as well, which debuted in the final chapter of the series. The final chapter of the series came about during Bleach's truncated end, which forced the series to speed through its conclusion.
It featured a time jump with older versions of the characters (and confirming certain relationships as canon) as Ichigo and Rukia's kids started new adventures of their own. Fans were surprised to see the older version of their favorites, and it's one of the reasons the finale of the series is still remembered so fondly despite being a quicker end than fans originally wanted for the series.
Bleach was first created by Tite Kubo for Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump, running from 2001 to 2016. The series follows the young delinquent Ichigo Kurosaki, who has 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.
It has been adapted into English thanks to VIZ Media, and has sold over 900 million copies in Japan. The series was later 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. You can currently find the series now streaming on Hulu. There's also a live-action adaptation on Netflix. You can find ComicBook.com's review of the film here.