Quite a number of the bigger social game makers in Japan currently try to differentiate themselves by creating new titles based on valuable IP. Case in point: GREE, which today announced it has scored the rights to turn Bleach into a mobile social game in its network.
Bleach is an action manga and anime series that started in 2001 and took not only Japan by storm. Wikipedia says that “volumes of the manga have sold more than 72 million copies in Japan” and that Bleach “is one of the most sold mangas in the United States”.
BLEACH×GREE (tentative title) will be the first social game based on the franchise and hit GREE on feature phones and smartphones next month (in Japan). Needless to say, fans can expect another social card battle game.
Bleach is the second big manga port GREE secured in a few weeks, following Naruto (another action title) in May.
Here are the first BLEACH×GREE screenshots:
