Title:  Bleach

Creator:  Tite Kubo

Year:  2001

Manga Incarnations:
Bleach - Ongoing series (Viz Media)

Anime Incarnations:
Beach - Ongoing Series (Manga Entertainment)
Bleach the Movie (Unlicensed)
Bleach the Movie 2 (Unlicensed)
Bleach Special (Unlicensed)
Bleach Special 2 (Unlicensed)

Selected Computer Game Incarnations:
Bleach: Shattered Blade - Nintendo Wii (Sega)
Bleach: Blade Battlers - Sony PS2 (Sony)
Bleach: Erabareshi Tamashii - Sony PS2 (Sony)
Bleach: Hanatareshi Yabou - Sony PS2 (Sony)
Bleach: Heat The Soul - Sony PSP (Sony)
Bleach: The Blade of Fate - Nintendo DS (Sega)
Bleach DS 2nd: Kokui Hirameku Requiem - Nintendo DS (Sega)
Bleach: Tasogare ni Mameiru Shinigami - Nintendo GC (Sega)
Bleach: Kurenai no Somaru Soul Society - Nintendo GBA (Sega)

Overview: 
Ichigo Kurosaki is not your typical Japanese teen.  Not only does he have naturally red hair but he can also see and interact with ghosts.  This talent is unwanted and quite annoying to Ichigo, but when a woman in a black kimono walks through his wall his life quickly turns on its head.  The woman is Rukia Kuchiki, a 'soul reaper' whose job is to guide good spirits to the afterlife and destroy evil spirits known as 'hollows'.  She is on the trail of a dangerous hollow that has targeted Ichigo's family, and when she is injured in the ensuing fight she is forced to transfer some of her soul reaper powers to Ichigo so he can fight in her stead.  However, she has underestimated Ichigo's latent spiritual power, and he inadvertently takes all of her soul reaper powers instead of just a portion.  Now left powerless Rukia is forced to draft in Ichigo to do her soul reaper duties and battle against hollows until her powers return.
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Random Trivia:

1.  Ichigo means 'strawberry' in Japanese, and is presumably a reference to the lead character's red hair.

2.  Naruto is also the name of a coastal city in Japan and a whirlpool in the nearby Naruto strait is a popular tourist attraction.  The Japanese word for whirlpool is Uzumaki, so the whirlpool is known as the Naruto Uzumaki - the same name as the main character from Naruto.

3.  The ninjas in Naruto use 'chakra' to power most of their abilities.  Chakra is a type of bodily energy referred to in East Indian mysticism, and many Indian holistic therapies are based around improving or balancing the body's chakra flow.

4.  Naruto was one of the biggest series to be widely subtitled by fans and heavily distributed online for free.  The sheer popularity of the series in the West through illegal distribution was such that it even came to the attention of the Japanese companies, who put such a high price on the license that no Western anime company could afford it.  It is believed that 'fansubbing' actually delayed the official Western release of the series by about two years.

5.  The 'sannin' ninja from Naruto - Jiraiya, Orochimaru and Tsunade - are based on characters from a Japanese folk tale called Jiraiya Goketsu Monogatari.  In the original story the gallant ninja Jiraiya uses his ability to morph into a giant toad in order to defeat his former follower and master of snake magic Orochimaru and win the heart of snail magic master Tsunade.  In Naruto Jiraiya can summon frogs and toads, Orochimaru can summon snakes and Tsunade can summon slugs.

6.  Similarly Naruto's Sasuke Uchiha, Asuma Sarutobi and Sarutobi the Third Hokage are named after Sasuke Sarutobi, a famous fictional ninja that appeared in numerous Japanese stories.

7.  Naruto's home village of Konoha is based on creator Masashi Kishimoto's home town, with the ninja training academy Naruto attends loosely based on a local Japan Self Defence Force base.

8.  The nine-tailed demon fox, or Kyuubi, that is sealed within Naruto's body is taken from Japanese legend.  Foxes were believed to have magical powers in Japanese folklore and the oldest and wisest foxes were said to have multiple tails, up to a maximum of nine.

9.  Creator Masashi Kishimoto admitted to using ninja headbands in Naruto because the goggles the lead character originally wore were awkward to draw.

10.  Masashi Kishimoto has a fear of monkeys after being attacked by one when he was young.
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If you like this try:

Naruto (Manga - Viz Media)
Inu-Yasha (Anime - Fremantle)
Ninja Scroll TV (Anime - MVM)
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