4 years after

     Manga, or Japanese comics, is one of the most popular forms of literature in the world. It covers all kinds of genres, from horror to comedy, sci-fi to history, there are even education and philosophical mangas, so there's always something for everyone. The most popular mangas, as most people would've guessed, is action. And when you ask someone what are some of the most popular action mangas are, they would usually answer with One piece, Naruto, JJBA, etc, but there is one series, just 4 years back, had the potential to top them all, now not even on anyone's top 5: Bleach, written and illustrated by Tite Kubo. How did it grow so big, worked on for 15 years, and now almost forgotten. Today I'll be talking about Bleach's fall from grace and how 2020 is building it back up. 

    Bleach in total had 74 volumes, 698 chapters, 366 anime episodes, and 5 movies. It had everything need to succeed, beautiful art style, engaging plot, lovable characters, and even the publishers, Shounen Jump, is the biggest manga publishers in Japan, so how did it end so badly, or to be specific, suddenly. To understand this first we have to know how manga publishing works. Unlike novels, each chapter of a manga come out one by one, depending on the author and the length of the chapters, it could come out weekly, monthly, or even every few months. So, the readers don't read a finished story at once, they wait for the next week or month to continue until the final chapter ends with "fin." and leaves the readers satisfied, and here is where Bleach failed: the popularity forced Mr.Kubo to draw weekly mangas, stressing him and weakening his health. So much to the point, he wanted to stop the series right then and there, but a fan convinced him to keep working, and even then he stated he was going to end the series 1 year early.

    Bleach in total had 4 story arcs, when Kubo finished the 3rd arc (The Lost Agent Arc) he said Bleach was going to go on for another 10 years. The series ended in 3.5. You can already realize how rushed things were during the last arc. It was supposed to be the biggest arc, the climax, the most important, and the thing to end the series on a high note, but it was quite the opposite. Everything was sped up, characters developments were skipped, characters reveal their ultimate attack and die in the same chapter, there was just no excitement for the next chapter anymore. Realize in no way I am blaming Tite Kubo, he worked so hard to finish the series I can only thank him for that. Knowing he was even hospitalized after completing it saddened me quite a bit. Rather I blame the fans, the toxic fans that pressured him for weekly comics and even forcing him to bring supposedly dead characters back to life. The fan now hating the series because they forced the author to be hospitalized. To be honest I didn't despise the final arc, sure as a whole it didn't live up to the fans' expectations, but a lot of what happened was what everyone was hoping to see. In no way was this the best arc the readers were hoping for, but it also is nowhere near the worst arc ever.

    It's been 4 years since Bleach ended, the anime stopped even earlier 8 years ago. Yet somehow, in 2020, the strangest year ever, the topic of Bleach came back from almost the brink of irrelevancy and became the topic that every manga enthusiasts are now talking about. The first reason is that in March of this year, the final arc is finally going to be adapted into anime after a long, long wait. This also gives Kubo a 2nd chance and allows him to change everything and fix the series. The second reason is the light novel continuation of Bleach written by Ryohgo Narita called "Can't Fear Your Own World" or just CFYOW for short. While there is a bunch of light novels of the series after it ended, this is the first time a light novel is continuing from where the original left off, before all the novels were about the past before the start of the novel. Though the actual book was written in 2019, the official translation to English didn't come out until this year. Lastly, fans of Bleach also received a spin-off series called "Burn the Witch" where there is no pressure on the author which allows him to create with his fullest abilities.

    Overall I loved Bleach, it definitely isn't my favorite book or even manga of all time, but the art is still amazing and the plot and world building are simply fantastic. Bleach really showed how difficult it was to become a popular mangaka (manga creator), the struggle to find a publisher, getting the public's approval, and the fighting the stress and pressure. I can't recommend Bleach enough, even if you don't like comics or pictures you can just read the light novels or watch the anime. Bleach is actually one of the lucky ones where the author chose when to end and set the end date by himself, there are many mangas that just get axed suddenly and the readers can never know the ending. So, read manga like how you should live life: enjoy every moment because you never know when it's going to end (I'm sorry if you cringed at that).

-Yan