Mangaka Tite Kubo, aside from the fact that he created the famous manga/anime series Bleach, is also known for incorporating an endless amount of references into his body of work. And in continuing this trend, Kubo named Burn The Witch, his Bleach one-shot-turned spinoff miniseries, after the 2016 song of the same name by alternative rock band Radiohead.
It is no secret that Kubo is a devotee of this particular music genre. In fact, he has such an affinity for it that he actively listened to his favorite bands while mapping out action scenes for his manga. He prefers to have them playing in the background of action scenes, in particular.
Additionally, in conjunction with his love for music and Bleach, he created a Spotify playlist consisting of 68 hand-picked songs that represented each of his characters. For series protagonist Ichigo Kurosaki, he chose “News From the Front” by Bad Religion, an American punk rock group whose roots laid the foundation for alternative rock. Moving further down the pecking order, for Szayelaporro Granz, Kubo gave him “Rape Me” by Nirvana, the one group who stormed the pop and rock scene in the early ’90s and were also a product of the alternative subgenre, like their predecessor.
Nirvana's 1989 debut album of the same name is also where Kubo drew the name for Bleach as a whole from. However, it must be stressed that although Kubo continues to use musical titles to name his manga, he made it abundantly clear in an interview for the Bleach JET artwork book that the themes made from the music don’t correlate at all with the events of his stories. He simply chose them out of raw appreciation: "[...] the content of the story has nothing to do with the song. I just liked the music, that's all."
Clearly not shying away from the preference, Kubo reaffirmed his appreciation for alternative rock with the naming of his newest manga, Burn the Witch. From using one of his favorite albums titles to a single song (both different in their thematic message but similar in sound) Kubo isn't watering down his musical nerd side anytime soon; rather, it's only growing with each new work. There’s no stopping a man that literally takes the appearance of a rock star (cool shades, stylish hair and all).
