'Bleach' Artist Revives Favorite Soul Reapers in New Artwork

Bleach is still one of the most popular series to come out of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump even [...]

By Nick Valdez

Bleach is still one of the most popular series to come out of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump even after the series has been over for a while now. What helps the series' lasting power are the strong character designs.

Character designer for the anime Masashi Kudo shared some new sketches to Twitter, and just seeing these favorites again brings back all of the hype.

Kudo shared cool new looks at Kenpachi Zaraki, Rangiku Matsumoto, and Orihime Inoue, and it's great to see these characters again. Especially another look at Orihime's final look from the never adapted final arc of the series, Thousand-Year Blood War. Kudo has shared sketches of these three characters before as well, and they seem to be favorites.

Kudo shared another alluring sketch of Orihime for her birthday, and apropos of nothing shared an equally spicy sketch of Rangiku. Kudo has also shared fierce new sketches of Ichigo, Rukia, and Kenpachi, as well as an equally as striking new sketch of Grimmjow, and even sketches bridging the gap between Kubo's older series and brand new one-shot Burn the Witch.

Each of Kudo's sketches are highly appreciated by Bleach fans as it's brand new content for their fan-favorite series. Although the series isn't exactly continuing in the way they would like, there have been resurgences of popularity thanks to new art, a new live-action film, and appearances of new Shonen Jump video games. The series still lives on, in a way.

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. A live-action film adaptation of the series is now streaming on Netflix. You can find ComicBook.com's review of the film here.

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