Tite Kubo promotes the upcoming new chapter of the Bleach manga by releasing a new illustration of an older-looking Ichigo.
Bleach is getting a new chapter to celebrate the series’ 20th anniversary, and a newly released illustration from author Tite Kubo gives a hint as to when the new story will take place.
Released on Twitter, the new illustration shows an older-looking Ichigo, matching Ichigo’s appearance from the final chapter of the Bleach manga, which takes place ten years later. The illustration seems to confirm that the 20th anniversary chapter will take place after the events of the original manga and will star Ichigo, so it won’t be some kind of prequel or side story. The new chapter Bleach was announced a few days ago and will be published in Issue #36/37 of Weekly Shonen Jump. This special release will be Bleach’s first full, new chapter since 2016.
「#BLEACH』生誕20周年を記念して、来週8月10日（火）発売のジャンプ36・37号に「BLEACH」の新エピソード読切が掲載されることが、本日発売のジャンプ35号予告で???????? pic.twitter.com/CYh5YWnuov
— (@tite_official) August 1, 2021
Bleach was one of the biggest hits that came out on Shonen Jump in the early 00s and tells the story of Ichigo, a young man cursed with the ability to see ghosts. After encountering a woman named Rukia, a member of a group of supernatural warriors known as the Soul Reapers, Ichigo becomes involved in the group’s conflict with the Hollows, a type of poisonous spirit that attacks even the living. and the souls of those who have just left. The manga has been hailed as one of the Shonen Jump of the ‘Big Three’ anime and manga franchises of the era, along with Naruto’s Masashi Kishimoto and Eiichiro Oda’s ongoing One Piece. Following Bleach’s ending in 2016, Tite Kubo released the Burn the Witch spinoff manga series in 2020, which takes place in the same universe as the previous work.
Bleach is available in English from VIZ Media. The anime series is available to stream on Hulu, Netflix, and Crunchyroll.
