20 Weird Secrets You Never Knew About Bleach
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The popular anime/manga Bleach gets really unsettling, really fast. Here’s a few dark secrets not even the biggest fans will know.
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Bleach is a very popular TV show, and it has been around since 2004. This makes it a classic. Weird and often just outright bizarre and disturbing, the show has gone from strength to strength, with a dedicated and happy fanbase. But alongside all of that goodness comes a set of secrets that make the show even more interesting than it as back in the early days.
The set up was simple. Guy gains ability to see ghosts, and becomes awesomely messed up because of it (let’s face it, most of us would get messed up). But unlike the kid out of The Sixth Sense, he decided that enough was enough, and became a Soul Reaper. This makes him a hero, and someone who wants to keep the people around him (and the rest of the world) safe from nasty spirits who just want to kill.
For a show that’s been around so long and has seen so many different spinoffs (novels, a movie, etc) there isn’t much surprise that it’s got its own dark secrets. We’re about to uncover a few of them right now, that might give you a different look at a show/manga that you already love. If you don’t know the show, hopefully it’ll convince you to start watching… it’s definitely worth it!
20 Gingers Get No Love
Ichigo is a cool guy. He’s well-built, and he has a mission that no one will stop him from pursuing. But he also has orange hair. This is not a problem. Everyone is different. But characters in the show are happy to make his life awful for having that hair. To them, it’s a fun game. To Ichigo, it’s the worst thing in his life.
For example, in High School, Ichigo was attacked, physically, by bullies who thought his hair was ridiculous. He fought back though, and became the amazing martial artist/saver of the world that he is today. The really weird thing here is that you can look on YouTube for Ichigo hair tutorial videos. People want his hair. So there’s an entire niche hobby out there on the Web, based entirely on the character’s hair.
19 The First Arrancar
Arrancars are the very creepy characters that used to be Hollows. Essentially created to become fighters, the end result is a very special little group in the story that look even cooler when they battle.
The powers they have are similar to Shinigami powers, but they’re not that tough to beat. However, ten of the Arrancars were particularly tough, and they were named the Espada.
There was never really a ‘first’ Arrancar, but the first person to create one was Sozuke Aizen. He is a nasty piece of work and is highly manipulative of his creations. However, he also seems mild-mannered and calm. That first creation, by the way, was Ulquiorra Cipher.
18 A Bleachy Compromise
Bleach is a lovely show, and it still has a horde of fans willing to do anything to have it back and thriving on screens again. But most fans aren’t actually aware of how the show was named Bleach in the first place.
The original creator (Tite Kubo) of the show was smitten by the black clothing some of the characters wore. He was so happy with it that he wanted to call the show Black. But any show called Black does sound immediately boring, so he relented and went back to calling it White (fun fact: Kubo is on record as saying the word Black is unoriginal).
He settled on Bleach, which he must have thought was somehow the middle ground between Black and White. We don’t know why he came to that conclusion, but he did.
17 Causing Actual Health Problems
The creator of the original manga was happy with most of the things that happened to his story when it catapulted onto the screen. Then again, there were some things that he wasn’t too thrilled about. He had a major problem with the scripts on a number of the shows and made his thoughts known to the people responsible. But we’re not quite doing his suffering justice. He actually suffered stomach cramps due to his stress around the rewrites.
Around half of the anime episodes are considered to be ‘filler’ by fans. These episodes don’t advance any story arcs. When Kubo became so distressed, we’d like to think it was over the filler content. With the news that a movie is due in 2018, we’re just hoping that Kubo has some medical aid on standby.
16 If You Looked Like This, You’d Be Awful, Too
Kon is a character that divides fans. This is a big deal because he actually has a history that isn’t particularly pleasant, so a tiny bit of sympathy is warranted.
But not too much. He is a highly sensualized character, and the way he ogles women is sickening. He also has an ego the size of a house, and we can’t agree that any of that is pleasant in any way. But the fact that he was once a pill (as in, something you take to ease discomfort) is really rather sad. And now he’s in the body of a stuffed lion toy. Granted, he thinks lions are the coolest things in the world, but to us he’s just a cuddly toy.
15 A Powerful Attack Made Even More So
We all know that Bleach does seem a little improvised now and then, with no real thought to major plot points and so on, but one particular attack used by Ichigo was inspired.
Getsuga Tensho (to give it the proper name) was amazing. The slash attack that emits from his sword is intensified as it leaves the sword, and this means the end result is a truly devastating attack. And what’s even better about it is that Ichigo didn’t know its name for some time. When he finally knew its name, it caused even more damage. Basically, it was the biggest and most spectacular attack in Bleach.
And if you look into the details of the attack (omnidirectional, the crescent effect) you’ll understand the complexity here. So now and then, Kubo was seriously on the money in regards to world-building.
14 All Sorts Of Disappointment
Possibly the biggest failure in the Bleach story was the introduction of Zero Squad, or The Royal Guard as they are also known. Presenting initially as the baddest team of fighters this side of The Deadly Vipers from Kill Bill, they looked to be ready to blow the world of Bleach apart with amazing skills, weapons, and generally unbeatable abilities.
Except they didn’t. Instead, they seemed to be better at inventing stuff. That’s right, we got a group of Doc Browns from Back to the Future rather than The Deadly Vipers. The biggest problem? This was supposed to be the Royal Guard, and they looked about as tough as a secondhand mouth guard. We’re guessing they won’t be in the new movie.
13 A Man Goes Through Many Changes
This character is special in many ways. He’s kind of heroic and ‘a good example’ in the way he stood up to bullies in his youth, but now he’s known more for the way he actually changes throughout Bleach. Think about it. How many animated shows do you know that have their characters age as things progress?
Fashion-wise, Ichigo has changed his appearance with clothing. But as the majority of Bleach characters look stunning in their clothes, he doesn’t stand out much. But at one point it was fairly clear to viewers that he had actually grown taller. This was put down to magic by some fans. But it’s still pretty spectacular. And it shows how closely the fans watch it, for a start.
12 Straight Out Of GQ
All of them look magnificent, let’s be honest. However, over the years a distinct set of characters has popped up in forum after forum, with comments about how they are the most fashionable and stylish.
The one character that always crops up is Stark. And it has to be said that he is a snazzy dresser. His look has changed a little over the years, but it has always seemed as if he had just got back from a Milan fashion show. Then we have Mashiro, who is a cosplay favourite and has a neat but incredibly stylish white jumpsuit. It’s functional, and devastatingly fashionable (is what she might say about it).
But our money is on Aizen. If you can be part of the Bleach universe and still look like you should be in GQ, you’re our winner.
11 The Hidden Tattoo Meaning
Chad (back row, left in the picture) is an enigmatic character, one that always seems to be thinking deep, meaningful thoughts. Handsome and brooding, he is the perfect example of a ‘cool’ Bleach character. And he has an awesome tattoo.
He is a student at Ichigo’s high school, you know, that place where twenty-somethings go to hang out and everyone thinks they’re teenagers? No seriously, Chad really looks about twenty-five years old. And we sense a strong and mysterious background here as well. He has a tattoo on his left shoulder that says ‘Love and Death’ in Italian. It’s got a snake in the design too.
Oh hang on, if he’s got a tattoo, doesn’t he have to be eighteen?
10 Language Isn’t A Barrier
Yep, one of the things you’ll notice soon after you start watching Bleach is the languages. There are a number of different languages used in the show, so much so that you might as well fire up Google Translate before you sit down to watch.
A number of the names and words used to refer to The Hollows are Spanish. We like this because it has a romantic, gently feel to it. It’s perfect for using in regard to poor lost souls who have nothing else in their lives other than death and destruction to distract them. And then we have the Bount spells, which are all in German. We don’t know why this happened, but it’s made the show richer.
9 Sparking Controversy
Anime productions are generally there to entertain viewers. Mostly, this means some harmless fun and only the occasional spell of extreme violence. But Bleach nearly started off a race war over with it’s alleged approach to black characters.
There are two of them, in fact. Kaname Tousen has regularly been suggested as a character who has been treated unfairly due to the colour of his skin. The fact the character is blind made fans think this was a deliberate attempt to make him weaker than others.
Then we have Zommari. Fans (some of them) felt that the way he behaved and the situations he found himself in reflected the racist stereotypical view of young black men.
They are both bad-asses though. That makes them the same as everyone else in Bleach.
8 Wait, How Many Things Have They Made?
This one is pretty obvious. Something that has been this popular for so many years must be making decent money. The reason why we’ve brought it up centres around the fact that it is absolutely huge. So much has been done in this particular manga/anime universe, it’s almost the Star Wars of manga.
If we were to go into details here, we’d have to discuss the comics themselves, the TV show, the musicals, the trading card games, the video games, the light novels, the novels, the art books, the movies, and the soundtrack CDs. But we don’t have time, so we won’t.
Suffice to say that Bleach has been a huge cash cow, a massive industry, and then there’s what’s happening next year as well…
7 Bet You Didn’t See This One Coming
That’s right, Bleach is hitting cinemas in Japan soon. Okay, it’s been in the works for nearly eight years, but we’re hopeful for the projected 2018 release, so that it’ll be here before the kids who liked the original manga are in retirement homes.
The movie is going to be live-action too. And that fact alone has made fans start to lose control of their minds. It could, of course, be a live-action movie like He-Man was, and set back international relations for a century or so. Live-action movies can be amazing, as long as they have a good story. Kubo, by the way, says he’s interested in how Ichigo’s orange hair will look on a real person. So are we.
6 Abandoned Story Arcs
Manga and anime have peculiar characteristics. We mentioned ‘filer’ episodes earlier, but it doesn’t stop there. For such a rich narrative field, Bleach does it’s very best to drop stories just when it feels like it.
Take Orihime, for example: a wonderful character and one with huge potential. At one point, her powers seemed to be building up to something quite epic. She had powers that allowed her to alter reality, and that was huge. Then she kind of disappeared and generally became a supporting character with nothing much to do.
The biggest loss though, was Hell, introduced early as a fundamentally freaking amazing place for characters to exist. It was basically blown out of the water in the story, and never really touched upon again.
5 None Of This Makes Sense!
Sure, the Bleach party is (kind of) over, but the accusation from many fans that Kubo couldn’t stick to anything pretty much rings true for much of the life of the Bleach phenomenon.
For example, we get Isshin overpowering Aizen. Nearly every Bleach fan on the planet would laugh if you told them that Isshin was more powerful, or that Aizen forgot his powers of being able to control an opponent’s five senses to his advantage. It just didn’t work. This annoyed fans because it seemed that Kubo (who often complained about the lack of creative control on the anime) simply wasn’t ever paying attention to the stories and characters he had created.
4 Just A Bit Of A Feminine Touch
Kubo wasn’t really focusing on Ichigo when he started to put Bleach together. In fact, Ichigo was not the first character to be created for the Bleach universe. Instead, Kubo wanted to create a girl first, and he did.
Rukia Kuchiki was the first to arrive. And this is all because Kubo wanted to draw a character in a kimono. This strongly-felt desire meant that Ichigo was not ‘real’ until Rukia was done with. She has a terrible burden to carry too, so this makes her potentially more interesting than Ichigo anyway. She feels that she was partly responsible for Kaien’s death. She could have intervened when he was possessed by a Hollow. But she didn’t. A complex character for a change, then.
3 An Ending Before A Beginning
Bleach is an amazingly popular anime and manga, so it’s hard to imagine the world without it. But we nearly had to deal with that. When it was first pitched by Kubo to a certain platform, it was blown out of the water and dismissed.
Shonen Jump is a huge manga anthology that holds considerable influence in the world of manga and anime. Kubo took Bleach there many moons ago, hoping to get a serialisation. They said no. We have heard that they actually laughed at him and gave him an atomic wedgie, but this is probably just speculation. Akira Toriyama, creator of Dragon Ball Z, wrote to Kubo, suggesting he keep trying. And he did. And boy, are we grateful.
2 A Whole Different League
Yes, you can say what you want about Ichigo’s truly sad hair, but Kenpachi probably has the most ‘striking’ hair in the show. So striking it’s borderline ugly.
But you wouldn’t say that to Kenpachi though. The guy is rock solid (just look at that eight pack!), and one of the saddest things about his history is the fact that he was attacked as a young child and the resulting scar dominates the left side of his face.
No longer as violent as he was when first introduced, the most recent iteration of the character has grown his hair out over his shoulders. He used to have little bells in his hair so you could hear him coming and give yourself an extra two seconds to avoid being eviscerated by him. Charmingly, he has been known to go easy on opponents to make battles last longer.
1 Theme Songs For Everyone
Okay, we’ll clarify that a little. It’s not like wrestling, where every character has their own tune at the start of a fight (but we’re secretly wishing that were the case). No, the thing is, the creator of the phenomenon plays music to himself when coming up with new characters, so every character has a musical history. A theme song, if you will.
The creator, Kubo, plays different CDs whenever he is creating characters. Apparently, he has hundreds of CDs that he has listened to during the creative work. We managed to unearth a list (from the darkest, deepest part of the Internet) that outlined some of the songs and characters Kubo has used.
So for Kenpachi Zaraki, it’s ‘Superpredators’ by Massive Attack (listen to it, it makes sense), and Kon has Bushman by Rip Slyme.
Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/unsettling-secrets-you-never-knew-about-bleach/