Although Bleach is primarily famous for being a battle shounen not dissimilar to the likes of One Piece and Naruto, it didn't really start off that way.
The first few chapters of Bleach are largely episodic and focus on Ichigo and Rukia's misadventures in fighting off Hollows in Karakura after Ichigo ends up having to absorb Rukia's powers to save his family after an encounter with a Hollow turns sour. As such, it only makes sense to group this time period that lasted about 55 chapters and 1 year of serialization into one "arc", even though it doesn't necessarily have a central driving conflict and antagonist like the later arcs of Bleach. Throughout this arc we are introduced to Ichigo's family and classmates as the primary supporting cast, and also gradually learn bits and pieces about Soul Society and the nature of Bleach's lore and cosmology overall through Rukia and her interactions with the mysterious and easy-going shopkeeper, Kisuke Urahara.
In many ways, the early parts of Bleach really exemplify the nature of a weekly shounen. Some remarks Kubo has made before (which we'll talk a bit more about when we get to Soul Society) indicate that he doesn't really plan ahead that much. He didn't really expect the series to last much longer than 5 years anyway.
This period very much feels like Kubo wrote it as he went along, going with whatever ideas he had time to come up with before his deadlines came up. Bleach managed to get by in this fashion for a full year, which is no easy task in Shounen Jump. So there was definitely something keeping readers there until Soul Society came along and the series peaked in popularity.
I can't necessarily say this period was written EXCEPTIONALLY well, but it was competent shounen storytelling, and I wouldn't really ask much more of a battle shounen anyways. The stories are enjoyable to read, and the cast of characters, despite not being particularly deep, are entertaining. However, with that said, there are a couple of things which stand out and make Bleach a bit more distinct, especially compared to Bleach and Naruto, which were its direct competitors at the time.
The first and perhaps most notable is its main character, Ichigo.
Battle shounen heroes do have some individual distinctions from series to series, obviously, but the archetypal shounen protagonist has always been some variation of the kid Big Eater, hot-blooded mischievous Idiot Hero, with the Ur-Example being Goku from Dragon Ball. One Piece and Naruto, which were heavily and directly inspired by DB, followed suit in this mold with their main characters, Naruto Uzumaki and Monkey D. Luffy. There are probably a lot of reasons for this; since shounen series are primarily targeted towards young boys, having the hero not be all that smart and prone to pragmatism and profound introspection makes them more identifiable towards the target audience. Most shounen manga are also very idealistic at heart; hell, the motto of Shounen Jump itself is "Friendship, Victory, and Effort". More intelligent characters are frequently more cynical, pragmatic, and down-to-earth, which doesn't exactly gel all that well with the premise. The idealism and simple kind-heartedness of the main characters also make them admirable and potential role models for young children, which is a big selling point. I get the feeling that many people who watched Naruto identified with the main characters' background of loneliness and isolation, and were inspired by his positive attitude and good heart in spite of this.
Ichigo is a little bit different. While you wouldn't necessarily call him a genius, he's far from stupid, and certainly not similar to Naruto or Luffy much at all. He's competent and intelligent enough to realize that he's in a poor and unfair social situation in regards to his treatment by his peers and teachers due to his unusual hair color, so he he works hard enough to do well academically and at least have his teachers off his back. He is also much less goofy and comedic than either of the two aforementioned main characters; indeed, Ichigo is referred to as "cold" by his classmates on multiple occasions, and he's brash and abrasive, frequently getting into fights with people who pick on him due to his hair color.
This does not mean that Ichigo isn't a good person, however. His introduction features him telling a bunch of delinquents off for disrupting a memorial to a dead little girl, whose ghost Ichigo can communicate with. This establishes him as a fundamentally kind, upright person right off the bat. He does not hesitate to stab himself with Rukia's zanpakuto to save his family, even knowing that it could kill him, which shows that even in spite of his occasional misgivings with them, he truly loves and cherishes his family.
In that sense, he moreso resembles older shounen heroes like Jotarou Kujo from Stardust Crusaders and Kenshiro from Fist of the North Star, though he isn't really that much like them anyway. The point is that Ichigo stands out enough from the crowd to be considered at least somewhat unique, and is overall an enjoyable, sympathetic character.
We gradually learn more about him as well, culminating in one of the minor "arcs" that I consider most important in this time period, Ichigo's confrontation with the Grand Fisher. It is at this point that we learn that Ichigo as we know him from the beginning of the story largely came to be as a result of failing to save his mother. His mother gave him his name, which means "to protect one thing"; this defines a large part of Ichigo's character, as it instills in him a desire to gain strength and mature so he can protect things that are important to him.
Rukia is a fun character to watch; initially she's pretty dismissive of Ichigo and questions whether he's up for the task of replacing her, but over the two months the two spend together the two grow a mutual respect for each other and gradually become close friends. This subtle development later pays off handsomely in Soul Society, where Ichigo's protective nature and growing fondness of Rukia makes it very believable that Ichigo would do whatever it takes to save her.
The other characters who are worth talking about in terms of overall importance in this time period itself and the series as a whole are Orihime, Chad, and Uryuu.
Orihime is introduced as a kind and air-headed girl with a huge bust who has a crush on Ichigo; in one of the more emotionally poignant episodes of this period, we learn about her upbringing by her older brother, who later turns into a Hollow and tries to eat her. Ichigo is able to save her, and through his and Rukia's intervention, the two are able to come to an understanding and find peace. This would mark Orihime as one of the more important characters, as the manga gradually establishes that she becomes able to see ghosts in much the same way Ichigo can, and even develops her own spiritual powers towards the end of this time period.
Chad is a mexican-japanese young man who is much older than he looks. It's pretty unusual to have a foreigner like this in any japanese series, much less a shounen. Kubo mentioned that he didn't initially plan for Chad to be mexican, but the design he created gave off that impression and Kubo ran with it and incorporated it into his backstory. It serves as another one of the examples of spanish and latin-american influences in Bleach, along with the gratuituous spanish name theming of the hollows. Anyway, Chad is a Gentle Giant, and overall pacifist whose outlook and personality were largely shaped by the upbringing of his mexican grandfather, who raised him after his parents died. His introductory arc is all about him trying to protect a little boy's soul stuck in a parakeet, and it really displays that he's one of the kindest, gentlest people in the series. He's a good friend of Ichigo's, and the two are very devoted to each other. He's another person who gains spiritual powers as a result of contact with Ichigo.
Uryuu's introduction marks the last significant episode before Soul Society. Uryuu is different from Chad and Orihime in that he already has spiritual powers before encountering Ichigo and in fact has a bone to pick with him. He serves as a counterpart and rival to Ichigo, being more intellectual and refined, deriving his powers in a manner opposite to his, and wields a long-rage weapon in contrast with Ichigo's sword. He has a bone to pick with Ichigo due to his grandfather's death, which he views as a result of Shinigami's arrogance and refusal to acknowledge the Quincy clan's strength, which is why he begins the series off determined to prove his heritage's worth and spiteful of Shinigami in general. Ichigo eventually wins him over and the two develop a mutually respectful relationship, though Uryuu continues being pretty Tsundere towards him. Overall he's one of the more enjoyable characters, despite his really late introduction, especially given his dorky quirks.
With the overall plot and character overview out of the way, let's talk about Bleach's early art for a bit, from the perspective of someone who is training to be an artist himself.
Kubo had decided that he was going to be a mangaka since elementary school. His first and primary inspirations were Masami Kurumada's Saint Seiya and Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro. The former had a large influence in the fights and unique personalized powers of the series' characters, while the latter influenced Kubo's decision to have monsters due to his fondness for the yokai in that series (let's be honest, the Hollows are BASICALLY yokai with foreign theme naming). His first manga, Ultra Unholy Hearted Machine, was published when he was 19 years old in 1996, and Bleach began serialization when he was 24, in 2001. Kubo had undoubtedly been drawing for long hours ever since he was in elementary school, as it's impossible to become a professional mangaka at that age otherwise.
Before re-reading Bleach, I did not have a particularly high opinion of Kubo as an artist overall, as I felt the later chapters of Bleach looked a bit sterile and I disliked his artistic decision to eschew backgrounds. Having re-read the early parts of Bleach, I have been forced to re-consider my old opinions about Kubo's talent as an artist.
The early art in Bleach is very, very competently done for a weekly shounen. This is somewhat understandable, as Kubo had prior experience in serialization, as he'd worked on Zombie Powder previously, so it makes sense that his art would be a bit more polished than an absolute rookie's. There's a pretty decent amount of detail, all things considered, and although there's SOME sameface syndrome, Kubo shows that he can craft unique designs in a fairly short amount of time and keep them consistent. I'll give him bonus points for Chad actually looking mexican, even if that wasn't done on purpose initially. There
are
also lots of pages of the cast drawn in unique and stylish outfits, seemingly for no other reason other than fun and possibly showing off.
I think Kubo's skills are particularly noticeable in the more manly and "realistic" characters, like Chad; some
of his drawings show a pretty good understanding of form and are overall pretty nice to look at. On the whole, it looks like Kubo had a pretty good idea of what he was doing in terms of drawing even from Bleach's beginning. When you start training to become an artist yourself, it becomes much easier to tell when an artist struggled to draw something and when he did it confidently and effortlessly. Kubo's drawings look very purposeful and confident, which shows that he is very talented.
As a final testament to his skill, here's an excerpt from an interview from Comic-Con 2008:
TK: Nobody poses for me — I just have rock music going in my head and just imagine the action scenes. I pause the action and rotate the characters and find the best angle, and then I draw it.
Assuming that we can take this at face value, it shows that Kubo has a VERY good understanding of perspective and form, i.e he understands how to represent 3D objects in a 2D space very well. This is one of the huge things that separate an untalented artist from a skilled one. The fact that Kubo can pull out these big action scenes out of his head with characters of wildly varying designs in all sorts of dynamic angles and poses with little to no photo reference is a VERY big deal. Most professional artists use reference frequently to varying degrees, especially when it comes to subjects they don't know particularly well or when they want that extra bit of accuracy and polish. Rotating a unique character in 3D space is very difficult, but Kubo manages to do it pretty convincingly. After looking at his art again and reading these interview excerpts, I have a lot more respect for the man now than I did previously.
If I had to pick out one moree thing about bleach that stuck out to me during this period, it's that bleach is occasionally kind of dark by shounen standards. Now, almost every battle shounen has parts of it that unusually unsettling and dark due to differing standards of what's acceptable for children in Japan, but even with that, there are a couple of instances in the early parts of Bleach that I found particularly creepy.
The first is the Grand Fisher. The concept itself is acceptable by shounen standards, but there's this particular set of two
pages
where he "peels" away layers from his lure that i found very chilling.
The second instance is near the end of the arc itself, when Tatsuki and Orihime are confronting a Hollow summoned by Uryuu's pill. The Hollow has the ability to implant seeds into people's bodies which allow him to control them like puppets. At one point, the Hollow threatens to have Tatsuki kill herself by hanging after the school boys take turns gangraping her.
This is a taunt straight out a seinen manga, and if Bleach actually was one, that may very well have happened or almost happened. Even if it didn't, it's very unusual for shounen to address sexual assault like that, even in passing, ESPECIALLY as a threat.
I've read so many seinen manga that are full of grimdark violence and sexuality that stuff like this really doesn't bother me. I actually like that Kubo decided to go that far.
Overall pre-Soul Society Bleach is pretty decent shounen; if I had to make one complaint in particular, it would be Kon and how his character is handled.
Kon is introduced as a "mod-soul", a type of artificial spirit which was conceptualized by Soul Society and later purged due to being considered too dangerous. Due to this backstory, Kon is initially presented as an absolute pacifist who refuses to kill anyone or anything, because he can't stand how carelessly the lives of his fellow mod-souls were thrown away by Soul Society; it made him believe that every life has value. This is actually pretty compelling characterization and marks a pretty strong introduction to his character...and then shortly afterwards he's pretty much reduced to a comedic relief joke character who has very little importance afterwards, especially later on in the series. It felt to me that Kubo had a pretty decent character idea and ended up doing pretty much nothing with it. Kon is enjoyable comic relief, but it's inconsistent with how his character was initially portrayed and a huge waste of his potential.
Outide of that I actually don't have much to complain about. Between the generally competent storytelling and surprisingly good art, this was honestly pretty fun to read.
Join me next time as we get to the "real meat" of the series, the big turning point that would define Bleach for the rest of its run.
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