Manga launched in 2001, inspired TV anime, films, video games, rock musicals

This year’s combined 36th/37th issue of Shueisha‘s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine is announcing on Monday that Tite Kubo will publish the final Bleach manga chapter in the magazine’s next issue, which Shueisha will ship on August 22. The next issue will also have an “important announcement.”

The manga entered its final story arc in February 2012. The manga’s 73rd volume then announced that the 74th volume will be the final volume. Hisashi Sasaki, the former editor-in-chief of Weekly Shonen Jump and the current Vice President for Global Shonen Jump at Viz, revealed four weeks ago that the manga will end in less than 10 weeks. The magazine announced on Monday that the manga would enter its “climax” in the next two chapters.

Kubo launched the manga in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2001, and Shueisha published the manga’s 73rd volume (seen right) on July 4. 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; it published the 66th volume on March 1, and published the 67th volume on Friday, July 5.

The manga inspired a television anime adaptation that ran for 366 episodes from 2004 to 2012. Viz Mediaobtained 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 in June that it will release the television anime series on Blu-ray Disc, and the first volume shipped 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 currently running until Thursday, August 4.

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