Kubo's Lookalike Art, Fanart and Comic, Volume Poems

[http://users.livejournal.com/_debbiechan_/]

A post in which I further spam my own community. Indulge me, please. First, I occasionally have pointed people to Jenni's journal before. metaphore_art  is a great reader so I dig her observations but it's as an artist this time that she's made a veddy interesting post about Bleach that concerns Kubo's drawing style. The physical similarities between Byakuya and Rukia have gotten too ridiculous not to speculate about. Oh Kubo-sensei, first you give us this Kaien and Ichigo resemblance with no clue about it for six years and now this?

A friend of mine observed this morning that Bleach fans are throwing flaming batons in honor of Kubo-sensei lately but she can't seem to see what the fuss is about and feels disappointed and disturbed by the story. I heard similar things expressed from most of my friends throughout the HM arc until the gaiden started--at which point the batons caught fire. Anyone here want to step forward and say "I don't like these flashback chapters?" Do so in this post and I promise I won't hurl pizza toppings. I'm just curious. I've come across exactly THREE fans so far who dislike these current chapters.

Meanwhile, the parade for Kubo goes on all over LJ. Some of us are tossing sakura gently though instead of pitching fiery things. Brad continues to speculate in the time-honored way of non-linear prophecy about the current Bleach chapter and anyone may add to the bleachness  current discussion of -105 here ( recently furato  brought up the question of is that Mayako serving tea to Ukitake and Kaien? Hmm? Could be!)



Now, a fanart rec. Never see enough of this pairing, and Hiyori's actually in a dress in this one. It's so apropos. Gorgeous art.

( Hirako and Hiyori fanart by GrimmiCat )

And another comic.

One has to wonder why Kubo thinks of all the kooky theories people come up with about his work. Actually, he did comment on the phenomenon once in a tankoubon preface; upon overhearing some kids talk about the execution bird in the SS arc being Old Man Yama's ban-kai, Kubo chided himself "try harder, Kubo." And he drew Yamamoto saying "for my sake" on the page.

( Black Sun, White Moon by HaNa )

For those of you who wanted to know wtf adam_epp was referencing when he was making up all those silly poems in this post, chirachira  has a comprehensive list with translations of the poems Kubo has written to preface each of the volumes of Bleach. For the most recent translations of the most recent Bleach volume poems, keep checking this volume poems thread at BA.

The manga is released as a series in Weekly Shounen Jump but later, the chapters are published in compilation books known as tankoubon. Kubo writes a poem for each volume or tankoubon, and I always look forward to them because the man is a crazy fine poet.

Have a happy week. And if anyone wants to write Bleach poetry (silly or serious--it's all the same to me!) go for it!  I've seen plenty appropriations of Kubo's text in fanfic but not enough appropriations of his wonderful poetry!  I want a section in fanfiction.net now: ZARAKI KENPACHI SESTINAS!