“I can’t think of any new characters”: Tite Kubo’s Priority Was Never to Perfect Bleach Characters’ Personalities Despite Creating Them Before the Plot
With his popular manga series Bleach, manga artist Tite Kubo contributed to the definition of a whole generation of shonen fiction and became a friendly rival to other manga giants such as Masashi Kishimoto from Naruto and Eiichiro Oda from One Piece.
Tite Kubo could seem relatively unknown in comparison to Kishimoto and Oda, as many manga/anime fans are more familiar with them. However, there’s a lot more to discover about the inventor of Bleach and his creative process.
In honor of Weekly Shonen Jump‘s 40th anniversary in Japan and its fifth anniversary in the United States, VIZ Media threw a lavish welcome for Kubo that he won’t soon forget. At the VIZ Media stand, there were large banners that read “Kubo is here,” a large display of color pages from Bleach, and a large number of cosplayers.
Tite Kubo Designs a Character’s Visuals First
During the course of the interview, many important subjects were revealed about Bleach and Tite Kubo himself, such as his impressions of Comic-Con, his fans, his creative process and his plans for continuing the adventures of Ichigo, Rukia and the rest of the Soul Reapers, Quincies, Vizards, and Arrancars. When the interviewer asked Kubo whether the character or the plot came first, Kubo promptly answered “character”.
The interviewer stated that Bleach has so many characters with so many different powers, weapons, personalities, and relationships. Then the interviewer asked Kubo how he came up with them, to which he replied:
I really don’t intend that characters have certain personalities when I come up with them. Sometimes I can’t think of any new characters. Then other times, I come up with 10 or more new characters.
It is quite uncharacteristic for a mangaka to create characters before the plot. While a manga creator might come up with a character and then sketch out what that character should look like, Tite Kubo went in the other direction. He would sketch out a fantastical hero or villain, and then determine what kind of human would embody that persona. This could help to explain why so many of the characters in Bleach have such unique visual styles.
For instance, the ferocious Captain Kenpachi Zaraki was probably originally depicted as a generic, vicious swordsman so that Kubo could fill in the details of Kenpachi’s true nature. Rukia Kuchiki, the first Bleach character, was created in this manner after all, and she served as a model for all other Bleach characters.
Tite Kubo Did Not Expect Fans To Love Shuhei Hisagi
When the interviewer asked whether there were any characters that Kubo thought fans would love but didn’t, or a character that caught on with fans in a way that he didn’t expect, Kubo replied:
I don’t really recall any characters that I’ve created that I thought fans would love but didn’t, but usually I notice that when I start describing a character’s personality or backstory, the fans start to really respond to them, and really start liking them.
However, in the case of Shuhei Hisagi (Lieutenant / Acting Captain of Squad 9), fans got hooked on him before I even started describing his personality, so that was very unusual.
When asked about Ichigo’s (the protagonist of Bleach) greatest strength and greatest weakness, Kubo said that his considerate nature and thoughtfulness are his strengths, but his strength is also his greatest weakness since worrying about his friends puts him in danger as well.
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