Noriaki Kubo (久保 宣章, Kubo Noriaki), better known by his pen name Tite Kubo (久保 帯人, Kubo Taito), is a Japanese manga-ka and the author of the Bleach manga series.

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Biography

Born June 26, 1977, Tite Kubo is the son of a town council member in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima. He has two younger siblings, a brother and a sister.[2] Tite graduated from the local high school. In 1996, his first manga short, "Ultra Unholy Hearted Machine", was published in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump Special and was followed by two more shorts. At the age of 18 he submitted his first concept of Zombiepowder and after several rejections, it was finally accepted to Shonen Jump in 1999 and ran for four volumes until 2000.

In 2001, his next manga series, Bleach, made its debut in Shonen Jump and ended on November 4 2016. As of December 2015, over 600 chapters of Bleach have been serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump and collected into over 70 volumes. The manga was named a winner of the Shogakukan Manga Award for its category in 2005.[3][4] Kubo and Makoto Matsubara have co-authored two novelizations of the Bleach series, which were published by Shueisha under their Jump Books.[5]

In 2004, an anime adaptation of Bleach began running in Japan, which ran for over seven years, totaling 366 episodes. Additionally, four feature-length animated Bleach movies were released between 2006 to 2010. Tite was involved in the character design for the anime.[6] Tite voiced Kon in the OVA Memories in the Rain, which was shown during the Jump Festa 2004 Anime Tour and also appeared in the 112th episode of the Japanese radio program of Bleach B-Station. In that program, Kubo was interviewed by Masakazu Morita, voice actor of Ichigo Kurosaki and answered several questions from fans.[7] On July 26, 2008, Kubo went to the United States for the first time and made an appearance at the San Diego Comic-Con International.[8] At the 2012 Jump Festa, Kubo sent in an author's note stating that he had gotten married.[1]

Influences

Tite decided to become a manga-ka when he was in elementary school. When he became a manga-ka, he also became interested in architecture and design, but he preferred to focus on being a manga artist. His biggest influences to become a manga artist were Saint Seiya by Masami Kurumada, due to the characters wearing armor and having interesting weapons, and Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro by Shigeru Mizuki. Tite stated that he has always liked the yokai (monsters) in the latter series. In an interview, Kubo has stated that he entered a magazine's manga contest and that although he did not win, one of the magazine's editors noticed his talent. They subsequently worked together on joint projects.[9]

Creating Bleach

Bleach was first conceived from Tite's desire to draw Shinigami in kimono, which formed the basis for the design of the Shinigami in the series and conception of the character Rukia Kuchiki and the world of Bleach.[10][10] Initially he drew Rukia with a scythe and other characters using guns, with the title of the story being "Snipe". Tite later changed the weapons to swords and upon realizing that he could no longer use "Snipe" as a title, he chose the title "Bleach". He noted that while Shinigami are associated with black, this would be a boring title. White suggested black as a complimentary color and he therefore chose "Bleach" to evoke the impression of the color white.[11][12] When Shonen Jump initially turned down Bleach, Kubo grew discouraged, but a letter of encouragement from Akira Toriyama, the creator of the landmark hit "Dragon Ball", buoyed his spirits and Bleach was later accepted by WSJ.[13]

Before publication of the series, Tite had drawn Ichigo with glasses and darker hair. Early plans for the story did not include the hierarchical structure of Soul Society, but did include some characters and elements which did not come into the plot until the Arrancar arc, such as Ichigo's Shinigami heritage.[14] When Tite created the Quincy, they were to be Ichigo's rivals, so he drew Uryū Ishida in white clothing, with bow and arrows as the ranged weapons would be harder for Ichigo to fight.[10]

Art Style

Tite acknowledges that his art style changed a lot in the beginning and it only started to cement after the anime began to air. He says that his art also gets influenced by Masashi Kudo, character designer for the anime. He used to draw hair behind the ears but Masashi does not, which prompted Tite to realize that Humans do not have hair behind their ears.[15] Tite has stated that he often places emphasis on portraying the mood of characters and that backgrounds are less important. He frequently does not wish to draw a background if the focus is on the character and often when a new character appears, he leaves the background blank as he wants the reader to feel the mood the character gives.[16]

Kubo has stated that when making Bleach, he wanted it to be something that could only be done as a manga and he had not wanted it to be a live-action film.[17] In the making of battle scenes, Kubo's comments that he imagines the fights with the empty backgrounds and then he tries to find the best angle to make it.[18] Then, he tries to make the injuries look very realistic in order to make the readers feel the character's pain.[19]

Works

Short stories

"Ultra Unholy Hearted Machine" (1996, Weekly Shonen Jump Special . Appears in volume 2 of Zombie Powder .)

(1996, . Appears in volume 2 of .) "Rune Master Urara" (刻魔師 麗, Kokumashi Urara) (1996, Weekly Shonen Jump . Appears in volume 3 of Zombie Powder .)

(刻魔師 麗, Kokumashi Urara) (1996, . Appears in volume 3 of .) "Bad Shield United" (1997, Weekly Shonen Jump. Appears in volume 4 of Zombie Powder. Also makes a cameo in Bleach as the fictitious movie Bad Shield United 2.)

One Shots

Serials

Initially appearing in Weekly Shonen Jump and published by Shueisha in Tokyo, Japan, both manga have been licensed in North America by Viz Media.

Zombiepowder. (1999–2000, Weekly Shonen Jump , Shueisha. Collected in four volumes in 2000 and discontinued.)

(1999–2000, , Shueisha. Collected in four volumes in 2000 and discontinued.) Bleach (2001-2016, Weekly Shonen Jump, Shueisha. Collected in 74 volumes.)

Artbooks

Others

References