Tite Kubo

Pen name Tite Kubo, also Kubotite (久保 帯人 Kubo Taito), real name Noriaki Kubo (久保 宣章 Kubo Noriaki, born June 26, 1977) is a manga-ka. He started drawing manga in High School, where he was a member of his Anime Club. It was in High School that he originally wrote his first manga, "Zombie Power," and had a few editions published. Later in his career, Kubo created a new manga, called Bleach, and submitted it to Weekly Shonen Jump in hopes of having it published. Bleach was originally rejected from Shonen Jump due to similarties to another manga being serialized in the magazine, known as Yu Yu Hakusho. Although Bleach did extraordiarily well when presented to a control group of readers, Kubo was disheartened by the rejection of his manga. This all changed, however, when Akira Toriyama, creator and artist of the manga Dragonball, sent him a letter of reassurance and inspiration. Bleach was eventually serialized by Weekly Shonen Jump, and has currently exceeded over two hundred chapters.

Kubo's works include:

• Bleach, his latest series, which is still ongoing in Japan and quite popular, being made into an ongoing anime TV series.
• Zombie Powder, which is a 4 volume series that was stopped by Shonen Jump due to lack of popularity.