There’s a new website in town and it’s a pretty one! The Bleach MX site was updated with all the chapter info not too long ago and it has a very clean feel to it. Also, feel free to check out their brand new English translations of Bleach chapters 368 & 369 which are being released this week. I won’t be reviewing the raws because they aren’t important at this point in time but if you’d like my opinion on them come back later for my Bleach post. If you’re looking for more information on what happened after Ichigo defeated Aizen at the end of this week’s issue then keep checking MU every Wednesday morning. For now though let’s get into the review of the actual website itself, shall we?
The Homepage
The main parts of the homepage are the Bleach logo in the middle, with links to Buy Manga volumes 1 through 74 on top and then chapters 367 & 368 on bottom. On the left side there’s a list of characters that includes their name, picture (if available), powers/abilities and pages where they’re mentioned. If you’re interested in learning about what happened before starting at chapter 367 then you can go back to 361 or 364 in case you missed it or even earlier if you want. The catch is though that when returning to US version site it’ll skip ahead 2 weeks so if I were you I’d use MU link for returning readers since they update every day. Also, feel free to mouseover any of those character images to see what other characters look like.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. What’s wrong with right side? Well that’s reserved for the Bleach news feed which is updated every Monday and it’s pretty much just a bunch of links to different sites discussing Bleach stuff along with an occasional picture. Why they do this on the actual website though when they could’ve just left it on their official Twitter page instead since most people will probably want to check out whatever is happening in current chapter first before anything else? Anyhow, moving onto site’s content itself now…
Legends & info boxes! Oh my!!
Rumor has it there are spoilers around here so tread carefully, young grasshopper ~ Once you’re inside the site the first thing you’ll notice are all of these bottom black & white boxes. I’m not really sure why they did it this way instead of just putting everything together on one page, but it’s definitely a nice touch. The first box tells us Volume 74 will be coming out July 3rd which is the same day as Jump Festa so it should be cool. You can also see that Vols 1-12 and 15-17 are “Coming soon” along with the summaries for those volumes which is nice to know, especially if you’re new to Bleach and wondering where to start.
The 2nd thing we have here has got to be my favorite part because it includes lots of useful information and links having to do with Bleach MX. There’s a schedule for the manga, a note about being able to watch Bleach episodes online and how you can also download the anime from iTunes or PlayStation Video. There’s also a section that tells you where else you can find Bleach like on Neon Alley or Netflix as well as an ad (or what appears to be one at least) to go check out the store if you’re interested in buying those volumes. What I was surprised by though was there doesn’t seem to be any mention of the official guidebooks such as character ones or world guides which would’ve been nice since those are usually pretty fun and informative (I own several myself ^^). There is however a link telling us we can buy them online by going here so maybe that’s an indication they’ll get their own section at some point.
There’s also a bunch of cool buttons down there on the bottom right starting with one that has 3 different chapters (367, 368 & 399) which you can click to go read them and once you do it’ll tell us where we can find out more about Bleach series since like I said earlier there wasn’t any real mention of that stuff aside from this link which takes us back to home page. You can also see what other manga titles Viz is releasing such as One Punch Man (I’ve actually been reading that recently!), Hinomaru Zumou and Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign . And lastly there’s a place for forums which unfortunately seem deserted.
Bleach MX Online Reading of Chapters
Bleach is a popular manga and anime that was created by Tite Kubo. The manga has been published in Japan since 2001 and was later released as an anime series. Bleach MX is an online site where readers can read the manga chapters as they are updated, which happens weekly on Monday.
It also includes other content such as summaries for previous chapters and volumes of the manga, news about the latest episodes of the anime, and a link to purchase copies of Bleach from their store. There isn’t much content related to other media forms such as books or merchandise; instead, it only features a link to purchase these items from their store. There also appears to be a forum which appears to be inactive at the moment.
Bleach MX List of Episodes
The site also lists the different episodes of Bleach that are currently available to watch online. It includes information related to season, title and episode number as well as its original air date. Users can scroll through this page or select one of the tabs to view different seasons. This link will take you directly to the list for season 1 episodes .
There’s also a section where users can download episodes (in Spanish) which is nice if you don’t like using streaming sites, but may be difficult for some people since there isn’t an English option unfortunately! You can however use Google Chrome or another browser with automatic translation in order to make it easier to navigate whether you prefer reading in Spanish or not though. There’s also plenty of manga chapters available here for reading as well.
Clicking on an episode will take you to a page with its description along with information about the original air date, studio, character list and staff credits. You can also watch trailers for each of the episodes which is nice if you don’t want to get spoiled but would like to get a feel for what’s going on before you watch it! There isn’t much in terms of content related to other media forms such as books or merchandise; instead, it only features a link to purchase these items from their store. The site does include forums , however they appear to be inactive at the moment.
Bleach MX Store
The last section introduces the company selling Bleach products such as manga collections, DVDs and side-stories (which are books that expand the story line of the manga). There isn’t much in terms of content related to other media forms such as books or merchandise; instead, it only features a link to purchase these items from their store.
Overall Review
Overall I think this website has great potential if they can get more active users and figure out how to translate into English for non-Spanish speakers like myself unfortunately! It’s nice to see that they’re selling Bleach products because after reading some of the chapters online it makes me want to buy them too (but at least I have something in mind if one day I decide I’d like to spend my money on them ^^). The forums look really cool too but since there aren’t many active users.
