Bleach’s Influence on DC’s The New Gods
Eisner Award-winning writer Ram V has detailed that he had a bit of inspiration from Tite Kubo’s ‘Big Three’ shonen manga and anime Bleach on his series, The New Gods. This is not some sort of simple copy and paste homage, Ram V explains he was drawing from Bleach’s core philosophy of power being intertwined between character archetypes to take a deeper look at Jack Kirby’s Fourth World pantheon.
The Bleach Framework: Powerscale, Wagers, and Artistry
In Ram V’s opinion, Bleach arranges a beautiful balance of both powerscaling and more personal decisive investments for characters. “We took inspiration from things like Bleach,” he confirmed. “Yeah, absurd power levels, but still, every fight feels like it has real stakes, and everything feels like, ‘Oh yeah, yeah, okay, it matters.’”
Ram V draws attention specifically to the particularly original, character-specific nature of Bleach’s powers as a framework. “These powers are not… they’re not interesting because they do fundamentally fun things with their powers, you know? Like, on one end, there’s a person who fires a cannon from her hand, but then on the other end is an immortal warrior who fights with an ink brush, you know? It’s great. So that’s the kind of stuff that we’re interested in doing.”
Archetypal Inspiration, Not One-to-One Adaptations
An important detail, Ram V has emphasized he did not make direct parallels. “I don’t think there’s as much of a one-to-one. It’s not like I’m taking these Bleach characters and going, ‘Boom, here you go, the same characters are in here.’”
Ram V did however draw from Bleach for its deep yet ironic archetype and how they are similar to the established, often yet subversive archetypes of the New Gods pantheon. Ram V cites two examples:
Orion and Kenpachi Zaraki: “Kenpachi Zaraki… is perceived as a brute at the very beginning. And then the more you watch… you realize there is a complexity and a nuance… a sense of loyalty, a sense of duty.” For Ram V, this is the “commonality to Orion,” the son of Darkseid who is “this kind of brutish, raging beast of a creature… meant to be this epitome of war for New Genesis.” The series delves beyond his reputation to reveal the complex morality within.
Highfather Izaya and Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto: For the ruler of New Genesis, Ram V looks to Bleach’s former Captain-Commander. “Yamamoto, in his past, was this young Captain who would sacrifice anything to commit to his duty… And we all know Isaiah the Wise was at one point Isaiah the Destroyer.” The suspense for Highfather, therefore, becomes: “What does it mean if you’re now put in a situation where you’re this old, wise, kind leader who has to put all of that aside and go back to being a destroyer for some reason?”
A Lovely Fusion of Manga and Comics
Ram V confirmed that other Bleach archetypes had influenced the comics, naming Sosuke Aizen and Sajin Komamura, as further sources of inspiration. “I’m talking about characters from the anime, but I’m not gonna tell you, ‘This character equals this character’… because that would be besides the point.”
The point, clearly, is to forge a new legend for the New Gods, one that captures the space-operatic scale, beautiful fights, and well-developed character drama that made Bleach a part of the ‘Big Three’, while having an amusing exploration of the multi-dimensional battle Jack Kirby set in motion.
Please read the beautiful comic.
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