This year’s 31st issue of Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine is announcing on Monday that Tite Kubo’s long-running Bleach manga is approaching its ending. The magazine teased the number of chapters before the manga would end, but purposefully obscured the number. The manga entered its final story arc in February 2012.
Kubo launched the manga in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2001, and Shueisha published the manga’s 72nd volume on May 2. Viz Media is publishing the manga in North America digitally in English as new chapters are published in Japan. The company is also publishing the manga in print, and it published the 66th volume on March 1.
The manga inspired a television anime adaptation that ran for 366 episodes from 2004 to 2012. Viz Media obtained the television and home video rights to the anime in 2006. The series premiered with an English dub in Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim that same year, and eventually aired all the episodes by 2014. Viz Media announced last month that it will release the television anime series on Blu-ray Disc starting on July 19.
The manga has also inspired four anime films, a series of novels, and several video games. A series of stage musical adaptations launched in 2005, with the latest entry debuting in July.
