Viz Media, LLC has secured the television, home video and merchandising rights to Shonen Jump's Bleach in the Americas, Europe, and Oceania.  Viz Media plans to introduce a dynamic rollout strategy that will leverage the strong manga performance of the property into a broad licensing and marketing program.  Viz plans to announce Bleach's television broadcast partner and key merchandising licensees in the near future.

Since its introduction into the U.S. market in mid-2004 the Bleach manga has moved steadily up the charts -- the most recent edition of ICv2's Retailers Guide to Anime/Manga rated Bleach #10 on our list of the 'Top 50 Manga Properties.'  Tite Kubo's Bleach manga, which has reached 21volumes so far (11 of which have been released in the States), has sold over 28 million tankoubon in Japan and spawned a popular anime series (from Studio Pierrot), which began airing on TV Tokyo in Japan in 2004 and is still going strong (with more than 76 episodes in the can).  The American anime community is eagerly awaiting the licensing of the Bleach TV anime, which should be announced shortly (and which may well follow the pattern of Naruto, although Viz won't confirm anything at this time).

 Viz Media plans to introduce a dynamic rollout strategy that will leverage the strong manga performance of the property into a broad licensing and marketing program.  Viz plans to announce Bleach's television broadcast partner and key merchandising licensees in the near future.

Since its introduction into the U.S. market in mid-2004 the Bleach manga has moved steadily up the charts -- the most recent edition of ICv2's Retailers Guide to Anime/Manga rated Bleach #10 on our list of the 'Top 50 Manga Properties.'  Tite Kubo's Bleach manga, which has reached 21volumes so far (11 of which have been released in the States), has sold over 28 million tankoubon in Japan and spawned a popular anime series (from Studio Pierrot), which began airing on TV Tokyo in Japan in 2004 and is still going strong (with more than 76 episodes in the can).  The American anime community is eagerly awaiting the licensing of the Bleach TV anime, which should be announced shortly (and which may well follow the pattern of Naruto, although Viz won't confirm anything at this time).