Bleach

Title:  Bleach
Mangaka:  Tite Kubo
Length:  53 Volumes (Ongoing)
English Translation?  Yes, 38 volumes so far by Viz Media.
Demo/Genre:  Shounen/Fantasy/Action/Comedy

How did I hear about it?  Um...how would I not hear about this one?  It's only one of the most popular manga in the world...

For as long as he can remember, Ichigo Kurosaki has been able to see spirits.  His life changes when he meets a certain spirit, a girl named Rukia Kuchiki.  She explains that she is a Soul Reaper (actually, a "shinigami."  I wish they had left that word untranslated in the English manga/anime.  Shinigami sounds better to me.).  Soul Reapers are the ones who are responsible for guiding the dead to the Soul Society (this story's version of the afterlife) and for cleansing fallen souls known as "hollows."  She is injured while trying to simultaneously fight a hollow and protect Ichigo and his family.  To give them a fighting chance, she transfers some of her powers to Ichigo.  Unfortunately, he absorbs all of her powers.  Until she can regain what she lost, she has Ichigo carry out her duties in her stead.  Everything is hunky dory until two other Soul Reapers arrive to take her back to the Soul Society to stand trial for granting her powers to a human.  And thus begins a story involving many characters, plot twists, conspiracies, and a hell of a lot of action.

As is common with most long series, the artwork shifts as time progresses.  I didn't dislike the art in the beginning, but I much prefer the art's later stages.  This manga has a huge cast, and I love how unique all of the character models are.  I believe that took a great deal of imagination on Kubo-sensei's part.  Not to mention the fact that so many of these characters are given pasts and histories.  While he might not go into detail with a lot of them, I thought that it was great just to see where each of them came from.  It's very easy to neglect these little details, but Kubo-sensei managed to create such an intricate web of characters that the reader can interact with emotionally.  That's one of the many things that I adored about this series.

Is the plot perfect?  No.  Despite its flaws though, it's still very well-done.  One can easily tell that Kubo had a good idea of what the big picture was going to be as he moved along with Bleach.  I read it all online first, and now I've been re-reading as I'm collecting it.  I'm constantly discovering little details that I missed the first time around that really show how unified the whole series is.  I love it when you can do that.  The introduction spans roughly the first fifty chapters, then you finally enter the first true story arc.  The story moves fluidly from arc to arc, never losing its momentum, which is quite the accomplishment considering its massive length.

The main cast is very solid.  Ichigo is a pretty typical shounen hero.  However, as the manga continues, I feel that he really begins to shine.  Yes, he always wants to do what's right.  Yes, he cares very much about the safety and well-being of his friends.  But we also start to see his flaws.  He's very confident in his abilities, and yet it almost seems that's he's confident because he's so insecure.  When something happens to one of his companions, he takes all of the blame himself.  He believes that it happened because he wasn't strong enough or wise enough to prevent it.  This really weighs on him, and so when he finds himself in a battle, he doesn't give himself the option of losing.  He has to win.  He pushes himself to his limits every time, and not because he believes so strongly in his cause that he'll do anything to achieve it.  More because losing means that he has failed his friends, and that is simply not an option.  I don't think I explained what I'm thinking very well, but I'll just say that to me, Ichigo is both simple and complex because of this.  We don't really start to see these things until the second major story arc.  That doesn't mean that Ichigo is boring and one-sided until that point.  It means that he is constantly growing throughout the series.  We don't see everything he has to offer right away.

Another character whose development I was very impressed with is Orihime.  She is the bright, bubbly, ditzy, big-breasted (of course) classmate of Ichigo, who happens to be in love with him.  I am usually immediately turned off by these types, but not with her.  For a large chunk of the series, she was just "okay" in my books.  But again, we see that when that second arc hits, Kubo-sensei dives into these characters and expands them.  Orihime has negligible offensive capabilities (at least in the scope of the powerful enemies they are fighting at this point), but her strengths lie in her defensive powers.  She can create an almost impenetrable shield and has the ability to reverse almost any injury.  Thus, she almost always finds herself being protected.  She wants to be by her friends' sides, but in battle, all she can do is hang out in the back, making her an easy target.  This could make her an easy character to hate, but instead, we really start to see her emotions shine through.  There comes a point where she is given a choice, and this choice allows her to do the protecting for once.  We start to see how much she believes in her friends, and how she doesn't want to be a burden to them anymore.  She loses her ditzy visage and becomes an emotionally strong character who would go to the ends of the earth to save her friends.  Again, I'm having difficulty putting it into words.  If you've been reading my reviews, then you've probably already figured this out.  Anyway, I found Orihime's character development to be excellent.  She went from being pretty low on my list to being in my top five Bleach characters.

I feel like I could talk all day about Bleach, but I think I'll end it here.  Suffice it to say, this series has achieved its popularity for a reason.  It's a great shounen.  I think even those who are not typically shounen readers will enjoy this one.  Look out for the anime though.  While it's very well done as well, it has tons of filler arcs in it that break up the momentum terribly.  I definitely recommend reading it as opposed to watching it.  Will I be collecting this one?  Yup.  As of the time of this writing, I have 25 volumes of Bleach.

This series is still ongoing in Japan, and only just a few weeks ago, a big announcement was made:  Bleach is entering its final story arc.  I'm excited!  I'm a little sad that it probably only has a couple of years left on the series, but at the same time, I'm excited because I know that this is going to be a great arc that will answer a lot of questions.