Subject: Manga Reviews: Bleach, v. 1 | Author | Messages | Billy Aguiar
Posts: 84
 | Posted: 4/6/2007 9:26:29 PM | Bleach, vol. 1
Viz Shonen Jump
$7.95, b/w, 200 pages, Available now!
By Tite Kubo
Rated for 13+
Reviewed by Billy Aguiar
2 stars
Bleach is another one of those hugely popular manga that Viz seems to crank out, after first supporting it in their Shonen Jump magazine. The series is still being released in Japan with 27 collections already available, and it has an ongoing anime series that already has had 120 episodes with no sign of stopping. Add to that the various merchandising and video games and you have a marketing monster that keeps on attracting attention.
The story that Bleach begins with is rather simple. Ichigo Kurosaki is a young tough in high school who has the eerie ability to see the dead, and he occasionally helps them out. His life was as normal as it could be until he saw Rukia Kuchiki, an otherwise invisible Soul Reaper whose job is to stop the Hollows that hunt spirits that have yet to move on, and powerful sources of spirit energy. And guess who comes knocking on Ichigo's door? A Hollow is going to kill him and his family, and with Rukia injured, he accidentally drains her of her abilities to be a Soul Reaper and has to serve in her place until she recovers.
This is not an especially deep or thoughtful story, at least not at the beginning, though in later volumes I understand that it becomes more serious and conspiracy-laden. At the moment it is merely a fun lark, an action title that hasn't yet devolved into three-volume-long fight scenes.
This is a once every two weeks manga review here on the CBG site, but don’t forgot to check out my other review site, Prospero’s Manga for more manga reviews.
www.viz.com
Vol 1. ISBN: 1-59116-441-9
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