Bleach Anniversary Exhibition Reveals Art from Naruto, One Piece and Demon Slayer Creators

Several of the manga industry's top creators reveal new art honoring Tite Kubo's Bleach.

As reported by Shonen Jump News - Unofficial, seven of the manga industry's top creators, including One Piece's Eiichiro Oda, Naruto's Masashi Kishimoto, and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba's Koyoharu Gotouge, have come together to create art for the upcoming Bleach EX art exhibition. In addition to those three, the exhibit also features guest illustrations from Jujutsu Kaisen's Gege Akutami, Black Clover's Yuki Tabata, Assassination Classroom's Yusei Matsui, and Dr. Stone's Riichiro Inagaki. The exhibit celebrates the 20th anniversary of the original publication of Tite Kubo's popular shonen manga, and features art from throughout the series, as well as all-new pieces created by Kubo himself. The art gallery opened on Dec. 18 in Tokyo, Japan.

Bleach originally premiered in 2001 is the eleventh best selling manga series in history, with a circulation of over 120 million copies around the world, so it's no surprise that the series' anniversary exhibition would get support from such an all-star team of manga artists. In addition to Kubo himself, many of the exhibitions guest artists are among the most successful creators in the anime and manga industry: Koyoharu Gotouge's Demon Slayer is the newest addition to the list of the top 10 best-selling manga of all time, with over 150 million copies sold; Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto is ranked fifth with a quarter of a billion copies in circulation, and of course, Eiichiro Oda's One Piece remains the most successful manga series in history, with a whopping 500 million copies in circulation around the globe. Oda's long-running pirate epic is set to surpass the lifetime sales of the Harry Potter book series and Batman comics before the end of the year. Gege Akutami's Jujutsu Kaisen is much newer than his peers' series, but the dark fantasy shonen is already on track to become the next hit to break the 100-million circulation milestone. Since its debut in 2018, Akutami's manga has already managed to sell more that 60 million copies, and it beat out Demon Slayer to become the best-selling manga of 2021.

Tite Kubo's Bleach is experiencing a resurgence of popularity lately, as the series has announced a number of comebacks during its 20th year. The anime adaptation recently revealed the first trailer for the show's long-awaited return; now titled Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War, the new season of the series will adapt the chapters of Kubo's manga that were published after the original anime ended its broadcast run. Earlier this year, Kubo also published "No Breaths from Hell," the first new chapter of the Bleach manga since 2016. Though nothing has been announced officially, the new chapter appears to be setting up a new adventure for Ichigo and the the rest of the Soul Reapers, leading many fans to believe that a sequel series is imminent.

Source: Twitter