Maybe it’s just me. But somehow, the recent 10th-anniversary Bleach manga one-shot reminded me of something that I find intriguing about the manga in the first place.

And that is the Bleach manga cover.

I can’t believe it that it took me the one-shot that commemorates the 10th anniversary of the manga to remind me of that.

If you have never bought the tankoubon version of the manga, you probably don’t see this as something groundbreaking.

But if you’re like me who bought the tankoubon version of the manga, you’ll notice that the Bleach manga cover doesn’t look like your typical shonen manga cover.

I’ll tell you what makes the Bleach manga cover rather fascinating in a moment.

But if you have yet to read the one-shot, you can read it for free right here on MANGA Plus.

Just to let you know that the one-shot does contain spoilers if you’re currently re-reading the revival edition of the manga on MANGA Plus.

But if you already read the manga to the end and love to see your favorite character is making a comeback once again in this one-shot, then be sure to have a look at it.

Not sure if the one-shot is signaling that we’re going to get a sequel somewhere in the future or not.

That’s going to be another discussion for another day.

What’s so fascinating about the Bleach manga cover

If you have seen any of the Shonen Jump manga covers before, you’ll notice that most of the covers tend to be on the colorful side, with a few characters on the cover.

Of course, the book cover for the first volume tends to feature the main character for the most part. But the second book onwards seems to have more than one character.

That makes sense considering that you’ll be introduced to more new characters as the story is progressing.

But that doesn’t seem to be the case for Bleach manga, though.

Unlike your typical cover for Shonen Jump manga, the cover for Bleach manga tends to have only one character with plain white background.

Even if the cover does have a background, the background tends to be minimal.

While the manga cover for the English version omits the subtitle for each volume, the Japanese and the non-English version of the manga is still keeping the subtitle intact.

It’s because of this reason that I find the cover for the manga fascinating since it’s rare to see a simple book cover for a Shonen Jump manga.

And it’s even rarer to see a manga with a subtitle. Bleach is the only manga that has that, as far as I can tell.

It’s not that unusual

Yes, it’s true that Bleach isn’t the only manga that adopts a minimal-looking book cover. There’s plenty of manga series out there that adopt more or less the same approach as Bleach.

For one, Assassination Classroom.

The only thing you see is Koro Sensei’s expression on the manga cover, nothing else. And the expression that he makes differs in each volume.

You can say the same for God Eater 2 manga too.

While a few of the covers have more than one character on them, most of the covers tend to feature one character only.

And just like Bleach, the manga cover also has a minimal background too.

It also inspires how I approach the book cover design for my book

Take a look at all my book covers and you’ll see that all of them seem to feature one character with a minimal background.

Sure, one of the reasons is that it costs money to have more than one character on the book cover. And it costs even more when you want detailed background instead of a simple one.

It’s because of this reason that you only see one character with minimal background on my book cover.

Even if I have the money to spare, I still prefer a minimal background. For some reason, I find it more classy when you have white space on the cover.

Isn’t that how the book cover for Bleach manga looks, for the most part, right?

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy seeing a book cover with a detailed background.

But that can be a little tricky for someone like me who has pathetic graphic design skills. I have a hard time doing a book cover design when there’s detailed background on the cover.

Sure, I can always hire someone to do the book cover design for me.

But for some reason, I just wasn’t satisfied with how it turns out. I find it more satisfying when I do the book cover myself despite having a passable graphic design skill.

If you’re thinking about publishing a book of any kind, this is something that I won’t recommend you to do especially when you’re serious about wanting the book to sell.

But if you think that you have a good grasp of Photoshop, then it doesn’t hurt to do the book cover design yourself.

It’s more impactful too

Believe it or not, we tend to remember the book cover a lot more when it’s simple.

Does it mean that we’re not going to remember the book cover at all when it has so many details on it?

Well, that will depend on individuals.

But for me, I tend to remember the book cover a lot more when it has a minimal background with plenty of white space in it.

After all, there aren’t that many manga series with that kind of book cover.

P.S I’m happy to announce that the third book from the Trigger Locked series, The Virtual Mass Murder will be coming out soon as I write this.

For those of you who are new here, that can seem overwhelming when you don’t even read the first two books.

While you can read the book by itself without having to read from the beginning, it’s a lot easier for you to understand the story when you already read the first and the second book from the series.

To be honest, I have yet to decide on the release date for the book.

But in the meantime, you can download the sample chapter and buy the digital version of the book directly from me on my Payhip store while waiting for the third book to come out.

You can take a look at any of these books right here:

Trigger Locked Book 1: The Mind Control Assassins

Trigger Locked Book 2: A Silent Killer

Don’t forget to use the coupon code SEKINAMAYUBLOG during checkout to receive 25% off on your order.