Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Ink: Tite Kubo, Creator of "BLEACH"

What does it take to create one of the most successful manga and anime titles of all time? Near-insanity and not a lot of sleep, it seems. Just ask Tite Kubo, the creator of the 130-million-copy-selling series BLEACH, who prefers to show rather than tell through his thrilling hand-inked panels. It also doesn’t hurt that Kubo has a keen eye for gory theatrics, character complexity, an iron-clad work ethic, and knows when to give fans what they want… and when to make them wait for it, too.

Over fifteen years of its print serialization, BLEACH became such a cultural touchstone that even the manga-averse came to recognize the series’ orange-haired protagonist Ichigo Kurosaki’s menacing glare. It’s the blueprint for the modern fighting genre, influencing successors like Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen, which both picked up its mantle and sales popularity since BLEACH’s manga run ended in 2016. In Kubo’s words: “The creators of those series have told me they were influenced by BLEACH… I don’t think influence is something that flows in only one direction. It’s something that’s passed from one generation of creators to the next.”

Following the success of the manga, the original anime adaptation of BLEACH debuted in 2004 and ran until 2012. It was followed by the Thousand-Year Blood War series which premiered in October 2022. Now the series is back with BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War – The Calamity, a ten-episode rollout, primed to tie up any loose ends for fans still needing closure and another taste of Kubo’s iconic storytelling.

But first, a little context for the less familiar: BLEACH chronicles the adventures of Ichigo, a punk-with-a-heart-of-gold high schooler who can see the spirits of the deceased. He begins work as a death god (called a Shinigami, a profession somewhat similar to the Grim Reaper), after another reaper named Rukia transfers her powers to him. Shinigami purify souls called Hollows, then send the purified souls to Soul Society (aka the afterlife), usually through an intense showdown. They guide ordinary departed spirits to Soul Society, too.

Aside from satisfying the tropes of the shōnen genre (manga intended for young boys but popular today with everyone) — a fearless protagonist who always wins, a pantheon of muscular villains, the triumph of good over evil, plus a lot of schoolgirls, demons, boobs, and swords — BLEACH is unique in that it dips into the existential.

In Kubo’s words: “Originally, I was actually more interested in depicting people’s emotions than action.” Beyond the immediate satisfaction of battle sequences, many have analyzed the series as a retelling of the Buddha’s path to enlightenment, with Ichigo as a Buddha figure fighting it out in different realms. While others have also noted that the series draws upon imagery from traditional Japanese and Mexican folktales. Regardless of the inspiration, Ichigo is not your typical happy-go-lucky protagonist. If anything, he is an anti-hero who reluctantly heeds the call to bring spirits out of misery, with a dash of hot-headedness and detachment, mixed with unwavering loyalty to his loved ones. If you take away any lesson from this explanation of why this series hits, it would be that BLEACH satisfies both highbrow and lowbrow motivations. Essential when attempting to devour a 686-chapter manga.

Also, simply put, BLEACH looks cool. The series functions less like a straightforward action series and more like a pop-culture mood board referencing what Kubo loves: music and fashion. General telltale Kubo-isms include sparse backgrounds, intense shadows, angular linework, and some very good fits. Unlike other popular shōnen, there’s an emphasis on each character’s styling, with punk and Y2K streetwear fashion cues. Kubo says he finds inspiration from street style as well as things he’d like to wear in real life, but couldn’t find — coupled with inspiration from runway shows from Maison Margiela and Dior. Music runs through the series just as visibly; chapters are titled after songs and albums by bands like AC/DC, Oasis, and the Rolling Stones, which makes sense as rock is Kubo’s soundtrack of choice when drawing.

Being a mangaka in Japan is a highly idealized profession for school-age kids. In Kubo’s case, he decided to pursue the path in elementary school and followed through with it shortly after high school. But once your prefrontal cortex develops and the realities of the job set in, many drop out. It’s a vocation with one day off a week and a new chapter due every seven days, forcing creators to frequently sleep in their offices overnight. Pressure from devoted fanbases alongside publishers to deliver something bankable, lest the series be pulled, has historically caused a fair share of burnout for mangaka and even some premature deaths.

In our interview, Tite Kubo (also known by his birth name, Noriaki Kubo) doesn’t take the stance of complaining about it, though. The 49-year-old remains equanimous. He subtly remarks on the hazards of the job and how, at times, its demands make it difficult to continue. “It wasn’t a particularly healthy lifestyle,” Kubo says with a placid grin. “I would stay awake until late at night, go to sleep around four or five in the morning, and wake up at about eleven.” His drafting schedule for BLEACH was equally demanding. Kubo elaborates: “I would spend about three days developing the story and creating the name, or storyboard, then another three days drawing the finished pages, and take the remaining day off.” This August coinciding with BLEACH the manga’s 25th anniversary, Kubo and the anime’s separate team regroup and elaborate where the serialization left off, with BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War – The Calamity, to give fans something new after years of waiting.

BLEACH’s reach goes beyond manga and anime into other art forms, with cultural crossovers that prove Kubo is a titan, not just a bestselling author. In the realm of fashion, Kubo worked alongside John Galliano to create original illustrations and store display graphics for Maison Margiela’s Artisanal 2024 Collection, presented at Dover Street Market. PUMA marked the series’ 20th anniversary with an Ichigo and Grimmjow sneaker collection, and ASICS made a limited-edition sneaker inspired by the series that same year. Hip-hop artists like ZillaKami and Denzel Curry have referenced the series in their music. Combined with commercial tie-ins like limited-edition Coca-Cola packaging, these crossovers have cemented Kubo’s work as something even non-readers can identify on sight.

Kubo’s Tokyo studio is filled to its breaking point with sketches, books, and an entire wall-sized shelf of CDs, sprinkled with Bon Jovi and Gorillaz memorabilia. He sits quietly confident amid this organized chaos, with a youthful appearance perhaps a result of long hours spent out of the sun and in the studio. Throughout our interview, Kubo speaks with an ease that suggests fame hasn’t dented his humility or overwhelmed him in the slightest. Against a cityscape befitting of one of Manga’s most successful creators, he further spills creative juice on why the series endures, the mechanics of bringing a manga to life, and why reviving BLEACH felt necessary.

HYPEBEAST: BLEACH was serialized weekly for many years. How did you decide what would happen in each chapter? Which elements were planned far in advance, and which were decided week by week?

Tite Kubo: I had a long-term plan for the overall story. I had also decided on the ending very early in the series. BLEACH begins with Ichigo and Rukia meeting, and ends with Ichigo’s child and Rukia’s child meeting. I structured the entire story so that everything would gradually converge toward that ending. Each week, I would make sure to include at least one scene that I genuinely wanted to draw, and then construct the rest of the chapter around the path leading to that moment.

Did the production team become much larger as the series progressed? What are the difficulties involved in expanding a manga production team?

The team never became particularly large [laughs]. The original three assistants worked with me from almost the beginning of the series all the way through to the end. Later in the serialization, we added a fourth assistant, so we became a team of four. This person changed a few times over the course of the serialization. Other than that, very little changed.

When you add another person, you first need to prepare a workspace for them. There is also the question of whether the assistants get along with one another [laughs]. From a technical standpoint, someone also needs to have reached a certain level before you can immediately entrust them with the work.

For many readers, the daily reality of being a manga artist is difficult to imagine. What did a typical day or week look like during serialization? Did your working style change as BLEACH became more successful?

It wasn’t a particularly healthy lifestyle. I would stay awake until late at night, go to sleep around four or five in the morning, and wake up at about eleven. That said, I’m someone who needs sleep, so even during serialization I always made sure to get at least six hours. I think I would have struggled much more mentally if I hadn’t slept properly.

I wasn’t drawing continuously for every hour that I was awake. I’m not someone who can maintain concentration for long stretches, so I would focus intensely for a short period, draw as much as I could, and then rest my mind for a while. I repeated that cycle throughout the day.

Even after BLEACH became successful, my basic routine didn’t really change. But as the series became more popular, I received more requests for things like color pages and cover illustrations, so gradually I had less and less free time.

As a general weekly schedule, I would spend about three days developing the story and creating the name, or storyboard, then another three days drawing the finished pages, and take the remaining day off. At my fastest, I could ink around 15 pages in a single day. I think most artists would manage around five, so I was probably quite fast.

Was there a period during the fifteen-year-long weekly serialization that you found particularly difficult?

The hardest times were when I was physically unwell but still had to keep drawing. Back then, Weekly Shonen Jump wasn’t the kind of place where you could easily take a break just because you had a cold. I imagine things are different today, but in my time, taking a hiatus simply wasn’t something that happened very often.

I remember catching the flu once and telling them, “I really can’t do it this time.” Even then, the editor-in-chief called me and asked, “Are you sure it’s actually influenza?” [laughs].

Emotionally, I also found it difficult whenever Ichigo was going through particularly dark moments. During the Lost Agent Arc, just before the final storyline, Ichigo was pushed to his emotional limits. It happened to be around that same time that my own health started to decline.

Until then, I didn’t think I was the type of creator who absorbed my protagonist’s emotions. But that experience made me realize that I was far more affected by Ichigo’s mental state than I had ever imagined.

During the long serialization of BLEACH, you received an anonymous letter from a seriously ill child that urged you to continue the series and end it the way you wanted to, without compromise. How did that letter affect you?

After many years of serialization, I was going through a period when my health had deteriorated. The letter arrived during that time, and it gave me a reason to keep pushing forward and continue drawing until the end. It became a major source of support. I believe the letter arrived sometime during the final arc.

Three months after the serialization ended, I publicly asked for information, and that was how we were eventually connected. Later, I was able to get in touch with one of the child’s friends, and I was also able to send a message in return to his family.

BLEACH really stands out for the fashion the cast wears. When designing the characters’ clothing, what kinds of styles, subcultures, brands, or fashion influences did you draw from?

Because the series ran for such a long time, the things that influenced me naturally changed from one era to another. But I tried not to consciously chase any particular brand or trend. It was more about combining things I saw on the street with things I saw in fashion shows. I would take elements I came across in everyday life, mix them with things I personally liked, and then filter everything through my own sensibility.

There was no particular city or neighborhood I always looked to for inspiration. I wanted to combine grounded, everyday clothing with the kinds of pieces you might see on a runway — things that do not necessarily exist in ordinary life. And when something did not exist exactly as I imagined it, I would redesign it in my own way and put it on the character.

People often say that Ichigo and the other characters’ personal style reflects your own taste in fashion. Is that true?

Yes, definitely. Sometimes I would put a shirt on a character that I had actually bought for myself as the basis for a design. Other times, I would see something and think, “This is great, but it probably would not suit me,” so I would let one of the characters wear it instead. In that sense, the characters became a way for me to express both the things I wanted to wear and the things I admired but could not necessarily wear myself.

Which fashion brands or designers are you particularly drawn to at the moment?

Right now, I like Maison Margiela, Dior, and LOEWE. I tend to follow designers rather than brands. So when a designer moves to another house, I often find myself following them there. The reason I recently started buying Dior again is because Jonathan Anderson moved there.

And the reason I originally started buying LOEWE was because Jonathan Anderson was there. Then, before I knew it, he had moved on [laughs]. I still like LOEWE, of course, even after his departure.

In your everyday life, what inspires your creativity? And how do you avoid burning out after creating for so many years?

I’ve never really thought about it consciously. Books were actually the first medium I ever fell in love with as a child. I’m the kind of person who believes that once I truly love something, I’ll continue loving it for the rest of my life, so I still enjoy reading today.
Music has always inspired me, as well. But inspiration can come from the most ordinary things — something I notice while shopping, or even something I happen to see on social media. If I had to name one influence, I’d say Gorillaz. I loved their music, but I was equally inspired by Jamie Hewlett’s artwork.

Looking back, why do you think BLEACH became such a distinctive series compared to other manga of its time?

The most important thing to me when creating characters is giving them multiple dimensions. People are inherently complex. Even cheerful people have darker sides, and even those with a strong sense of justice experience doubt and weakness.
Ichigo was never intended to be a simple, straightforward hero. From the very beginning, I wanted every character to feel like a real person with different layers to their personality.

Many readers believe BLEACH established a blueprint that has influenced a new generation of manga. Do you see it that way, and if so, what do you think that blueprint is?

People often say that the captains of the Gotei 13 influenced the Hashira in Demon Slayer, or that concepts like Bankai inspired aspects of Jujutsu Kaisen.

The creators of those series have told me that they were influenced by BLEACH, so I think it’s fair to say that influence exists. But I don’t think influence is something that flows in only one direction. It’s something that’s passed from one generation of creators to the next.

When I was a child, I absolutely loved the anime Saint Seiya. The Gold Saints left a huge impression on me, and the Gotei 13 captains were my own interpretation of that kind of powerful ensemble cast.

That’s how creativity evolves. Every generation of creators absorbs ideas from the works they admire, reinterprets them through their own perspective, and transforms them into something entirely new. That’s what influence has always been.

Since your debut in 1996, how do you think the manga industry has changed? In particular, how do you view the rise of self-publishing and online platforms?

I think it has become much easier for new artists to enter the industry and compete, and I see that as a very positive development.

Ten or fifteen years ago, when people began posting their work online for free and using social media to build an audience, I remember thinking, “Is that really a good idea?” or “Isn’t it a waste to give your work away for free?”

But that was simply based on the way I thought at the time, and looking back, I was completely wrong [laughs]. Now there are far more ways for new creators to share their work and find readers. I think it has become a much more accessible environment.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to become a manga artist?

Compared to the past, it is much easier to pursue a career as a manga artist now. So I would encourage people to keep trying and take as many opportunities as they can. Manga artists can actually earn a more stable living than people might think [laughs].

Nearly a decade passed between the end of the original anime series and the adaptation of the final arc, Thousand-Year Blood War. Why did you decide to add new material that had not appeared in the manga?

Around ten years passed between the end of the previous anime series and the beginning of the new one. There were fans who had been waiting throughout that entire period, so I didn’t want to simply adapt the manga exactly as it was. I wanted to give them something more.

For that reason, we added parts that I had omitted when drawing the original manga, as well as elements that I hadn’t been able to fully depict at the time. There are new developments in every episode that even readers of the manga don’t already know, so I think they’ve been enjoying that.

What do you see as the biggest difference between the manga and anime versions of BLEACH?

The biggest difference is that anime has sound [laughs]. The pauses between lines and the rhythm of a scene inevitably feel different in animation than they do when you are reading manga. That is why I have remained closely involved in supervising the latest anime series, BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War, so that those differences do not become too pronounced.