Warner Brothers seems to be on an anime kick. We reported earlier that the studio is working on an adaptation of Akira and Heat Vision just pointed out that the WB is in the process of securing the rights to Bleach, the popular manga series written and illustrated by Tite Kubo.

The story follows teenager Ichigo Kurosaki, who has the ability to see spirits and mistakenly absorbs the power of a Soul Reaper (an entity like the Grim Reaper). The Soul Reaper is then stranded on Earth in human form until she recovers her strength, and our little Ichigo must substitute for her, escorting souls to the afterlife and protecting humans from evil spirits.

The Bleach series, which has been continually published in Japan since August of 2001, includes plenty of action, dirty political maneuvering in the Soul Reaper Society and spiritually-gifted classmates.

The manga series spawned a TMNT-like empire in Japan, including an anime television series, three anime feature films, seven rock musicals (!), numerous video games and all the accompanying merchandise.

Viz Media has published numerous English-language versions of the manga series in the U.S. and Canada; Cartoon Network picked up the anime for its Adult Swim block in September of 2006.

Peter Segal (who directed the all-time classic Tommy Boy and Get Smart) and Michael Ewing (who produced each of those) are in talks to produce the film at Warner’s with Viz Media. Reportedly Segal will not be directing the film.

I’m curious to see if Ewing and Segal’s previous work lightens up Bleach, or if they will stay true to darker nature of the material. No word on when the movie will be in theaters.

当真人版《阿基拉》的选角告一段落后，华纳兄弟开始马不停的投身另一部根据日本动漫改编的真人电影：久保带人的《死神》。

早在去年的时候，华纳就已经买下了《死神》的电影改编权，由《初恋50次》导演彼得·西格尔执导。近日，他们力邀《诸神之战2》编剧丹·马祖为其执笔剧本。但对于普通影迷和动漫迷来说，演员阵容或许才是最受关注的环节，参考好莱坞以往改编日漫的案例，结果大多差强人意。

主人公黑崎一护是个拥有能看见幽灵的体质的15岁少年。某日，神秘女孩露琪亚的降临打破了他原本平静的生活。露琪亚告诉一护世上有两种魂魄，一种叫做整灵，是普通的灵；另一种是不管生人死者都攻击的恶灵“虚”。身为死神，自己的工作是将整灵引至一个叫尸魂界的地方，并且消灭“虚”。战斗中，一护偶然间得到露琪亚的能力，成为了代理死神……漫画从2001年在《周刊少年Jump》连载至今，登场人物众多各具特色，故事横跨人类世界、尸魂界、虚圈，设定庞大。除了国内粉丝熟知的TV动画外，该作还分别于06、07、08年和2010年制作推出过四部剧场版。