The Bleach Anime fans and the Bleach Manga fans have always been on different pages about the “love triangle” between Orihime, Ichigo, and Rukia. What did author Tite Kubo want the Bleach fans to focus on? This article will finally clear the confusion regarding the three characters once and for all.
Bleach Author Tite Kubo Confirms the Relationship Between Ichigo and Rukia
Reddit user u/sociostein11 pointed out that Orihime was never the one who came in between Ichigo and Rukia. In the manga series’ chapter “Trials Of The Shattered Shaft,” it turns out that Orihime persuaded Ichigo to save Rukia. The anime series, however, inaccurately depicted or, rather, cut down this particular incident, leading to various misunderstandings regarding the character of Orihime among anime fans. Reddit user u/mfsmg2 says,
The old anime staff initially were only given one year to adapt Bleach and since the manga was in the middle of Soul Society arc at the time they didn’t know how long it was going to run so they decided to remove or trim down scenes to get to SS arc, kinda like how TYBW is removing or rushing scenes in favor of expanding on Cour 3 and 4.
The romantic elements of any series are typically not emphasized in shounen mangas. Even if it did, those moments complement one another. Masashi Kishimoto attempted to include “romance” in the Naruto series between the main characters, such as Naruto and Hinata and Sakura and Sasuke, which was one of the least significant aspects of the plot. Tite Kubo himself affirmed that the Bleach series followed a similar path, just like any other Shounen manga series.
Few fans believe that it is useless to ship Rukiya and Ichigo together since the relationship they have between them is platonic and does not grow beyond that. In an interview with Tite Kubo in “Want Tite Kubo sensei to talk about,” Kubo talked about when and how Orihime and Ichigo started dating in the series.
“Regarding those two, Ichigo tried dating (her) once when he was a university student, but they didn’t start dating properly until they became working adults. However, since “Bleach” is not a romance manga, I’ve always drawn romance as a supplementary component. So I won’t make any statements, even about other characters, but if my portrayal caught people’s attention, that makes me happy.”
So, there is a vital part of the character of Orihime that only anime fans are losing out on. There is a good reason why the scene when Orihime persuades Ishigo to save Rukia was removed. Since Kubo believed that the Soul Society Arc would be the end of the Bleach anime series, it turns out that he skipped informing the staff about these sequences.
“The reason why they cut Orihime scenes is not shipping related, Kubo thought the anime was going to end in Soul Society arc so even when they reached out to him he didn’t tell them anything about his plans. Since Orihime was the only one out of the 4 Karakura humans to not get an important manga spread or in SS arc, they cut out scenes not because of shipping reasons but they just assumed she wasn’t as important as the rest(kinda like Tatsuki or Ganju) and it bit them in the ass later.”
u/mfsmg2
Read the full Reddit thread here:
So Kubo just confirmed that Ichigo was hesitant about saving Rukia in SS arc and it was Orihime’s encouragement that solidified his resolve
byu/sociostein11 inbleach
