All Color but the Black: The Art of Bleach by Tite Kubo

"All Color But the Black" is a collection of chapter heading art and special features that appeared in Japanese manga compilations that fans in America never got to see.

This artbook contains 86 color pages of most of the characters in the story. Ichigo, the hero of Bleach, features in a great deal of them, but then again, later in the book, the Captains of the various companies of the Soul Society also come in for a great deal of pictures.

My favorite has to be 13 pictures of the Soul Society Captains, each with an accompanying calligraphic saying that is about them. For instance, Kenpachi's is "Do Not Fear Death. Toy with it instead. Carnage!" and Aisen's is "From the Heavens, From the Stars, And from even Higher", which perfectly describes his ambitions in the series. And Unohana's is "Supreme Healing, A white Flower smiling quietly".

There's a lot to love for Bleach Fans in this Artbook, and at the end, the author and artist describes why he enjoyed (or didn't enjoy), drawing each picture in the book, or what he still likes about it now in particular. Composition, maybe, or use of color. But for American fans of Bleach, the chance to see this artwork in stunning color that they may only have seen in black and white in the reprinted, translated tankobon (the reprinted manga pages that make up manga books published in the US), will outweigh the small numer of pages and thinness of the book (about 50 pages). At roughly twice the price of one manga, though, this isn't a bad buy at all, but unless you are a raging fan of Bleach and Tite Kubo's artwork, you won't miss much by looking but not buying.