When I first heard about Bleach, it was one of the 'other' ( Naruto) popular manga title that was released in 2001. I have no idea what Bleach was all about until I read the first volume and it was kind of interesting. I did follow-up with the rest of the volumes and soon, I love reading it. Bleach 3-in-1 Edition Vol.1 is an omnibus edition collecting the first three volumes.

There's also some.seriously sad stuff in there - dead family members make guest appearances, and I actually found some of the scenes so touching and painful. The entire volume was just written so fantastically. Part-time student, full-time Soul Reaper, Ichigo is one of the chosen few guardians of the afterlife.

Table of Contents

It’s 75 volumes in total and if you get the 3-in-1 versions (like my library did), it’s around 25 books. But it’s a deep and complex story, so it goes slower than expected. I watched a portion of the episode where Ichigo uses his bankai for the first time ages ago and felt a bit cavalier and thought that maybe I'd get into the series sometime. Now that I've gotten into it, well, I'm sorry I didn't pay more attention earlier- there's a hell of a lot of manga to get through!

I enjoyed this story. It was fun learning about Soul Reaping and following Ichigo and Rukia on their adventures whilst they took down hollows. The drawings were great and out of the manga’s I’ve read this one was more text heavy. The text made it easier to follow the plot and learn a lot about the characters. However it's still the same artwork still the same story and characters that we love, just more affordable. The art is what I remembered most about Bleach but the story blew me away for a second time. It’s done in such a detailed way. With my knowledge of the whole series, I can see foreshadowing for the rest of the series. It’s also funny because Ichigo is so weak and slow compared to his Ultimate Version.When I discovered anime I preferred Bleach over Naruto. I don't know why exactly because Bleach has a few flaws in its world building. A bit too much unexplained things that never really get an satisfying answer. Still I adored these chapters and in the future will be collecting the omnibussen. I've just finished watching the 32 available dvds of Bleach and I'm so ridiculously fascinated (i.e. obsessed) with the series that I'm now going through the manga.

However, once you’ve fought one hollow you have kind of fought them all. It was repetitive in nature and the constant battling felt exhausting! The relationship between Ichigo and his dad was slightly confusing as they always seemed to be fighting each other aggressively but they weren’t really??? I don’t know... that relationship confused me. Orhime also was a weird character as she had quite a large role in the manga but after her hollow encounter she seemed a bit redundant but kept reappearing just to remind the reader that everyone lusts after her apart from Ichigo? Weird plot mechanic. If you haven't read Bleach, this is actually a story about a young high school boy named Ichigo Kurosaki, also known as 'Strawberry' due to his natural orange hair color who can see ghosts. Due to this ability, he can't ignore what is happening around him until he met a Soul Reaper name Rukia Kuchiki, a young girl who reaps evil spirits called 'Hollows' and banished them from Human Society. When a hollow was too strong for Rukia, she lend her powers to Ichigo, little did she know that he has extra-ordinary abilities that questions the mystery of who Ichigo really is. So begins the story of Bleach. Overall this is a very good value, but if you are looking to collect Bleach I would recommend buying separate volumes for a few reasons:There are so, so many characters in this series. Their personalities are all very unique, and they each have endearing qualities that make them all incredibly likable. Bleach has enjoyed such long-running success due in part to the huge cast and elaborate character development. I haven't read another manga series that has quite the lengthy list of characters as this one has.