[7] His next series, Bleach, about Ichigo Kurosaki, a high school student who becomes a shinigami and fights creatures known as Hollows, began running in the same magazine in 2001.
In that program, Kubo was interviewed by Masakazu Morita, voice actor of Ichigo Kurosaki, the main character of Bleach, and answered several questions from fans.
[12] Kubo provided character designs for Madhouse's anime adaptations of Ango Sakaguchi's Sakura no Mori no Mankai no Shita and Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's The Spider's Thread and Hell Screen, which are parts of the Aoi Bungaku series.
His fight scenes are noted for swift cuts and dramatic angle changes between panels, as well as minimal inclusion of background art or splash pages.
[22] Kubo stated that Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball taught him that all villains must be "strong, scary and cool" without exception, and added that to this day no fight scene has shocked him more than Trunks' first appearance.
[23] The action style and storytelling found in Bleach are inspired by cinema, though Kubo has not revealed any specific movie as being an influence for fight scenes.
[24] Kubo has also stated that he wishes to make Bleach an experience that can only be found by reading manga, and dismissed ideas of creating any live-action film adaptations of the series.
[28] When asked about romantic relationships between certain characters, Kubo answers saying that he does not want to turn the series into a love story since he thinks there are more exciting aspects concerning their personalities.
[29] While the Soul Reapers' attacks and arsenal have Japanese names, other characters from the series also use different languages to describe their terms: German words used for powers from the Quincy and English for the members of X-Cution.
[30] Initially appearing in Weekly Shōnen Jump and published by Shueisha in Tokyo, Japan, the manga have been licensed in North America by Viz Media.