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Comedy Duo Become Shinigami, Bankai in Bleach x Monster Strike Campaign Ads
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
Monster Strike has gone above and beyond for its collaboration campaign commercials, including hiring live-action actors to appear as characters. Last year the game gathered a variety of celebrities to star as the Sailor Guardians to promote the in-game campaign and a message of freedom of expression. The mobile game's newest collaboration is with Tite Kubo's Bleach manga and staff brought in the female comedy duo Harisenbon for its "Issho ni Bankai" ads.
The ads star Haruka Minowa as a shinigami and Haruna Kondō as her bankai "Konjiki Haruna Jizō", a play on the actual anime's character Mayuri Kurotsuchi's bankai Konjiki Ashisogi Jizō. Like the bankai that appears in the anime and manga, Haruna spews a purple gas from her mouth but it doesn't appear to poison the unsuspecting Monster Strike player or his angry mom.
Minowa said that when she heard about the Shinigami role, she felt it was "like destiny, I was born to do this commercial."
The collaboration launched within the game on May 2. Characters Rukia Kuchiki, Ichigo Kurosaki and more appear in the game with recorded lines. The game's official site has multiple prize campaigns underway, including the chance to win a year's supply of meat.
Kubo launched Bleach in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2001, and ended it in August 2016. Viz Media published the manga in North America digitally in English as Shueisha published new chapters in Japan. Viz Media is also publishing the manga in print. The manga inspired a live-action film last summer.
The Bleach television anime series premiered in 2004 and aired for 366 episodes before ending in March 2012. Viz Media has released the entire series on home video.
Source: Monster Strike campaign site, Comic Natalie
