Bleach 'Wrath' Fact-Check: Untangling Manga Covers, Episode Titles, and Warner Bros Rumors

Discover in-depth coverage surrounding Bleach 'Wrath' Fact-Check: Untangling Manga Covers, Episode Titles, and Warner Bros Rumors.

While "Wrath as a Lightning" supplied the word, an entirely different project provided the cover art connection. In September 2021, Shueisha launched the Dragon Ball Super Gallery Project, an initiative commemorating the approaching 40th anniversary of Akira Toriyama's franchise. The project invited prominent Weekly Shonen Jump mangaka to redesign one of the 42 original Dragon Ball tankobon covers every month.

Tite Kubo was selected as the second contributor, taking on Dragon Ball Volume 27, the climactic installment featuring Super Saiyan Goku facing off against Frieza on Planet Namek. Kubo redrew the cover in his signature sharp, high-contrast, fashion-forward aesthetic, depicting a menacing Frieza flanked by Goku.

When Kubo's Volume 27 variant dropped, it generated intense social media traffic across Twitter and Reddit. Manga communities extensively shared high-resolution scans of Kubo's cover art alongside news of the upcoming Bleach anime return. Because Kubo rarely draws full-jacket tributes outside his own properties, the phrase "Tite Kubo cover redesign" dominated manga search traffic throughout late 2021 and early 2022. Search aggregators subsequently merged discussions of Kubo's genuine tribute cover with the upcoming "Wrath as a Lightning" anime materials.