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Tite Kubo - The Best Poet in Manga? The Poetry of BLEACH

BLEACH "Souls" Official Character Book cover.

With much of the hoopla surrounding the final arc of the BLEACH manga, I want to take a look at a feature of BLEACH that doesn’t get enough attention: the poems. Every volume of the manga has a poem centered around the character featured on its respective cover. A majority of these poems are very enlightening and one has to wonder about Kubo’s intentions in inserting them into the manga.

Poems are something you usually don’t see in a majority of manga series. Kubo, however, makes it an emphasis to include a poem in every volume. Does he want his readers to be inspired and see the world in a different light than what people would tell them otherwise? People write poems for a variety of reasons: self-expression, creative expression, inspiration/motivation, and emotional expression. Here are a few BLEACH poems that I enjoyed reading.

BLEACH Volume 8 “The Blade And Me”

If it rusts, it can never be trusted
If its owner fails to control it, it will cut him
Yes, pride is
Like a blade

BLEACH Volume 14 Cover featuring Hanataro Yamada.

BLEACH Volume 14 “White Tower Rocks”

Creak, creak, tower of purgatory
Piercing the world like light
Sway, sway, tower of spine
Will it be us or the sky that falls?

BLEACH Volume 17 Cover featuring Yoruichi Shihoin.

BLEACH Volume 17 “Rosa Rubicundior, Lilio Candidior”

Red like blood
White like bone
Red like solitude
White like silence
Red like the senses of a beast
White like the heart of a god
Red like molten hatred
White like chilling cries of pain
Red like the shadows that feed on the night
Like a sigh piercing the moon
It shines white and scatters red

BLEACH Volume 25 Cover featuring Hollow Ichigo Kurosaki..

BLEACH Volume 25 “No Shaking Throne”

We are all
Born dead.
The end exists
Before anything begins.

If living
Is a constant quest for awareness,
The awareness we gain at the end is the real goal.
In other words, death
Is the discovery and complete understanding
Of the end.

We are not permitted to seek awareness.
Those that cannot transcend death
Will not find awareness in anything.

BLEACH Volume 27 Cover featuring Orihime Inoue.

BLEACH Volume 27 “goodbye, halcyon days.”

We have
Not one
In common
No two
Are shaped alike
The third
Because of the eye we lack
In the fourth
Direction there is no hope
The fifth
Is at the heart

BLEACH Volume 33 Cover featuring Nnoitra Gilga.

BLEACH Volume 33 “The Bad Joke”

We are insects,

Parasitic worms writhing in
malicious constancy,

Soaring past the moon you
look up to

Until you pathetic creatures
are no longer visible.

BLEACH Volume 34 Cover featuring Neliel Tu Odelschwanck.

BLEACH Volume 34 “King of the Kill”

If you were to give me wings
I would fly for you

Even if this entire land
were to sink underwater

If you were to give me a sword
I would stand up and fight for you

Even if this entire sky
were to pierce you its light

BLEACH Volume 44 Cover featuring Kaname Tosen.

BLEACH Volume 44 “Vice It”

Every human is evil by all means
In order to imagine justice from oneself
There is no other way but to imagine that every other being is more evil than oneself

What it means by definite justice,
in order for evil justice to be accepted as justice,
one must always question justice from within oneself.

BLEACH Volume 50 Cover featuring Kugo Ginjo.

BLEACH Volume 50 “The Six Fullbringers”

Time always goading from behind,
raising a growl before one’s eyes, is wholly washed away.
Let halt your steps!
Time shall wash you away to the beautiful past, and how it shall pare the fangs.
Don’t look ahead!
Your hope approaches to the rear
only within a dark, turbid stream.

Does anyone find it interesting that Kubo is possibly a better poet than a storyteller at times? Is this what happens when an artist is very attached to his characters? Kubo was once asked about his poetry in an interview published in the BLEACH SOULS Official Character Book, alongside the Japanese voice actor for Ichigo Kurosaki in the BLEACH anime, Masakazu Morita. Here’s the excerpt from the interview:

“Interviewer: How long do you take to write verses?

Kubo: I’ve been writing them down. I write them down as I think of them and look for the ones that match the stories.

Morita: You have an idea book?

Kubo: I do, I do. I’ve already written fifty verses. I write them describing the characters or what characters are thinking. If something that I’ve written doesn’t match the image I’ve got, I work on it until it does. It would be quite difficult if I didn’t write them down.”

Perhaps Kubo believes that poetry is truly the best way of communicating thoughts. Brief and to the point. Poems are helpful in that they get people to think creatively. Combine the character poems with the great artwork that Kubo’s known for equals a trip for the senses. The poems appear to make the characters relate to the readers even more. Poetry, in many ways, is a look at the human mind. Our deepest thoughts are explored and brought out in vivid detail.

Poems are also about experience. Life experiences are shared via poems. We can all learn about people from reading poems. Perhaps that is what Kubo intends to say with his poems: that we should learn from other people’s experiences to develop ourselves further. I remember reading Volume 8’s poem (which was the first poem to affect me) and thought to myself, “Pride really is like a sword that I have to wield effectively.” As much as you have to develop a sense of pride in becoming a better person, pride can be a sin when used for the wrong purposes. I even began to think of emotions as a chest of weapons to use for life’s challenges. Recently, the poem in Volume 53 had me thinking about how adults view children as a whole. The poem also made me think about Great Teacher Onizuka and its focus on how teenagers viewed selfish adults. For those who have followed the volumes, have you personally been moved by Kubo’s poetry?

Clever metaphors and imagery have powerful applications. Kubo’s passion for poems shows how much he is intrigued by the psychology of humanity. Individuals are filled with stories and experiences. Stories that are meant to be told. Experiences that are meant to be shared. Sometimes, I wonder if BLEACH is about wacky poets all trying to find meaning in a crazy world divided by different realms of existence.

In a world where creativity seems to get chastised, Kubo’s poetry attempts to further unlock the imaginations of his readers and encourage them to break the chains possibly hindering their minds. He is a firm reminder (to anime/manga fans) of how the arts and humanities are still of great importance to society.

With that said, here’s a quote that summarizes poetry quite nicely.

“Artists and poets are the raw nerve ends of humanity. By themselves, they can do little to save humanity. Without them, there would be little worth saving.”

Keep on busting out those sick verses, Kubo.

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