New BLEACH official art of Ichigo shared in Shonen JUMP Expo

Tite Kubo’s Bleach may have ended its run some time ago (August 2016), but fans are still madly in love with the series a few years later. Tite Kubo’s responded to that love with a bit of extra Bleach goodness too, in honor of Shueisha’s big anniversary. The mangaka shared a new sketch of Ichigo for Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump exhibit for its 50th Anniversary, and it’s quite a fashionable outing for the series favorite.

This new Ichigo sketch comes as part of Shueisha’s special Weekly Shonen Jump exhibit, running from July 17 until September 30 in Japan, featuring series which made their mark or had a substantial run in the 2000s such as Bleach, Naruto, Haikyu!!, Gintama, Eyeshield 21, The Prince of Tennis, Hunter x Hunter, Assassination Classroom, Hikaru no Go, D. Gray Man, Death Note and more.

Many of the current anime fans have been shaped and molded by the series of this decade specifically. Many fans have ties to series of the 90, but the series of the 2000s had the benefit of the Internet age as the expansion of fansubs and ability to share more than just a few VCR fan video tapes between a few people. Communities became a big part of the anime fandom as major series like Bleach made major headway in the West on television and online.

For those unfamiliar with this epic manga, the series follows the young delinquent Kurosaki Ichigo, who had the ability to see spirits. He soon obtains the power of a Shinigami (Soul Reaper) – one meant to usher lost souls to the afterlife – and now has the duty to defend the living world from monstrous dark spirits known as Hollows.

The upcoming Bleach live-action film has released its first full trailer, along with two other new ones released at the same time. The movie will adapt the first arc of the series, the “Substitute Shinigami” arc. Early reactions to the film have been positive overall, with there talk of even being a new trilogy of films adapting more of Bleach‘s material. If this is successful, then a sequel film with the Soul Society is definitely on the horizon.

The confirmed cast includes Sota Fukushi as Kurosaki Ichigo and Hana Sugisaki as Kuchiki Rukia, MIYAVI as Kuchiki Byakuya, Ryou Yoshizawa as Ishida Uryuu, Taichi Saotome as Abarai Renji, Erina Mano as Orihime Inoue, Tomo Koyanagi as Chado Yasutora, Yosuke Egochi as Kurosaki Isshin, Masami Nagasawa as Kurosaki Masaki, and Seiichi Tanabe as Urahara Keisuke.

The original manga was serialized in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump from 2001 to 2016, and was collected into 74 volumes. It has been adapted into English thanks to VIZ Media, and has sold over 900 million copies in Japan. The series was adapted into an anime by Studio Pierrot from 2004 to 2012, and has four feature-length animations, rock musicals, video games, and a ton of other merchandise.