Bleach Pilot Chapter

The Bleach pilot chapter (also known as Chapter 00) was the chapter that Tite Kubo submitted to Weekly Shōnen Jump's editors after the ending of his previous project, ZombiePowder. The chapter was later included with the Bleach: Official Character Book SOULs.

Characters in Order of Appearance

 * Hollow
 * Ichigo Kurosaki
 * Soul
 * Mizuiro Kojima
 * Rukia Kuchiki
 * Orihime Inoue
 * Mr. Inoue (Hollow)

Major Differences
The pilot contains a number of differences that were later dropped by Kubo. Some of those are:
 * Ichigo's hair is colored black on the cover as opposed to his orange hair.
 * After giving her Shinigami powers to Ichigo, Rukia shrinks in size.
 * Orihime dies and is taken to Soul Society at the end of the chapter.
 * Instead of performing konsō, souls are given a ticket to enter Soul Society. The concept of tickets is reintroduced in chapter 546 of the manga, though as a way for living humans to visit Soul Society as guests, instead of as an alternative to Konsō.
 * Hollows do not have masks.
 * Ichigo's shihakushō has a star pattern under both its sleeves, while Rukia's has a flame pattern.
 * Ichigo's Zanpakutō is the size of a standard Zanpakutō.
 * Orihime's father, who had died three years before Orihime's death, arrives to take her to Soul Society. Rukia identifies him as a Hollow and reveals that he killed Orihime so that she would stay with him forever, because she had stopped praying for him and seemingly forgot about him. He is then defeated by Ichigo. This concept was later adapted into the official, with the character of the father being replaced by Orihime's brother, Sora Inoue.
 * Rukia is a member of the 3rd Division.
 * The Kurosaki family runs a mortuary rather than a medical clinic.

Trivia

 * When Tite Kubo first introduced his idea to Weekly Shōnen Jump, it was rejected. Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball, saw the story and wrote a letter of encouragement to Kubo. Bleach (thanks to Toriyama's "importance" in the shōnen domain) was accepted for publication a short time later in 2001.


 * Early plans for the story did not include the hierarchical structure of Soul Society, but did include some characters and elements which did not come into the plot until the Arrancar arc, such as Ichigo's Shinigami heritage.