List of Bleach Characters - Creation and Conception

Creation and Conception

Bleach's creative process is focused around character design. When writing plotlines or having difficulties generating new material, Tite Kubo begins by thinking of new characters, often en masse, and rereading previous volumes of Bleach. Kubo has said that he likes creating characters with outward appearances that do not match their true nature, an element that can be found in many Bleach characters, as he is "attracted to people with that seeming contradiction", and finds an "urge to draw people like that when I work." When creating characters for the manga, Kubo first attempts to create the design and later decides what a character's personality will be, according to what he drew. Kubo considers every character to be unique and wants each of them to be developed along the series. When asked about potentially-romantic relationships between certain characters, Kubo states that he "doesn't want to turn the series into a love story", since he thinks there are more exciting aspects of their personalities to draw out.

Bleach was first conceived from Kubo's desire to draw a shinigami in a kimono, which formed the basis for the design of the Soul Reapers. Several characteristics from them such as the kidō spells and the zanpakutō swords are also based on Japanese literature. Rukia Kuchiki was the first character Kubo designed, but he did not see her as a lead character, so he created Ichigo Kurosaki to be the series protagonist. Other characters from the series also use different languages to describe their terminology; the powers from the Quincy are taken from German, while hollows and arrancar instead use Spanish terms; for the latter, Kubo believed that the language sounded "bewitching" and "mellow". Additionally, the names of several arrancar are based on famous architects and designers.

Kubo has cited influences for elements of Bleach ranging from other manga series to music, foreign language, architecture, and film. He attributes his interest in drawing the supernatural and monsters to Shigeru Mizuki's Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro and Bleach's focus on interesting weaponry and battle scenes to Masami Kurumada's Saint Seiya, both manga Kubo enjoyed as a boy. Kubo has also commented that, when making characters designs, one of his inspirations is by looking at people's faces, a trait Kubo used to do when he was a child. One of his biggest problems in drawing the manga is the fact he has to make a chapter of 19 pages on a weekly basis. Although he is helped by three assistants, he has to do all the important illustrations and characters by himself. In the making of battle scenes, Kubo's main inspiration is rock music. While listening to the music, he imagines the fights with that music and then he tries to find the best angle to make it. He then tries to draw very realistic injuries in order to make the readers feel the pain the characters are feeling. Kubo mentions that he's sometimes bored whilst illustrating them, and tends to add in a few jokes to make it more humorous.