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“Ichigo & Rukia” Trending On Twitter

The first meeting between Ichigo Kurosaki and Rukia Kuchiki.

(It’s official. They’re the most popular anime/manga characters in all of Twitter.)

Wow, what is going on in Twitter land? This morning, I heard from someone about the BLEACH main characters, Ichigo Kurosaki & Rukia Kuchiki, being an item. So, I browsed Twitter Search and found out “Ichigo & Rukia” was a trending topic on Twitter. Hell, the topic was ahead of Thom Yorke, Amazon Prime, Bruna Surfistinha, and others (even Justin Bieber!). A good question is what has led to both Ichigo & Rukia to be part of a worldwide trend that got on the front page.

Is it because of Episode 310 (which finally highlights the end of the drawn-out Arrancar saga covered in Volume 48 of the manga)? Perhaps so. Fans of the manga have noted that the farewell scene between Ichigo & Rukia (Chapter 423) did not happen at all in this episode. People thought that this would be the last episode of BLEACH. Were fans visibly upset at all this and decided to vent their rage through Twitter? Also, are there really a huge number of BLEACH fans all over the world (more than Naruto & One Piece)? The answer lies in this document about a project being made to create a worldwide Twitter trend for IchiRuki. (Special thanks to Kim Huerta for the link.)

So, how does a topic end up trending on Twitter and end up becoming worldwide in the first place? A lot of factors have to be put in consideration: the amount of users tweeting about the topic, the time zone, the pace of the tweets, the influence of the topic starter, and incentives to promote the topic. Although a study conducted by HP last week reported that most trending topics are made because of traditional media news sources, this is not the case for the IchiRuki topic as multiple users made it a worldwide trending topic.

It looks like a lot of careful planning went into making IchiRuki a front-page worldwide topic. How did the IchiRuki community reach Tite Kubo, Masakazu Morita (Japanese VA for Ichigo), & Masashi Kudo (character designer for the anime)? Are the power of passionate fans that strong? Though in a sense, Twitter is a tool meant for fun & interesting diversions. It’s a platform that has created a community the likes the Internet hasn’t seen. You can reach many people in a matter of seconds with Twitter. The channel of communication is extremely open. The 140-character limit is actually fun, because it challenges people to be very creative with what they want to say.

An interesting article on the psychology of Twitter states that people are starving for community (in many forms) and Twitter fills that need. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? This can go both ways, but the fact is this: users can socialize with people with similar interests much easier than in a forum. It’s easier to band together as one huge group and IchiRuki is a good example of how Twitter redefines community.

It’s also amazing to see how popular BLEACH is all over the world. This is how it looks like in my eyes right now.

One Piece - Popular in Japan
Naruto - Popular in U.S.
BLEACH - Popular worldwide

You can credit BLEACH for being popular worldwide because of the many unique personalities of the series. Ichigo is loved because he really wants to protect people and that’s something most people can relate to. Rukia is loved because she’s not a fragile main heroine and a woman who is tough, though her character should be more relevant. Some of the villains are interesting (especially Ulquiorra). Although there are a LOT of characters, they are what makes BLEACH appealing (even though the story isn’t always too great). There’s also the fact that the story takes place in a very modern setting with fantasy elements. Do people appreciate series that take place in today’s world with a hint of fantasy? What are your thoughts?

Anime fandom has now shown it can take over Twitter. What else can we expect from them in the future?

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Tagged: BLEACH Ichigo Kurosaki Rukia Kuchiki Shonen Jump Tite Kubo Twitter social media social media trends hashtag marketing psychology of Twitter