from what i hear, tite kubo was encouraged from akira toriyama himself...
though he's work (bleach) was rejected at first due to similarities
and copyrighted materials in respect to yu yu hakusho...
but he changed things around after his encouragement from akir which is now known as bleach, one of the top 10 most popular anime/manga of all time...

i heard the author of one piece is a big fan of dbz
and has alot of reference to it

so maybe who ever is willing to join in the fun to point out the
similarities of bleach to dbz/yuyu hakusho

so ill start

1. uhh zaraki's personally or his character itself resembles vegeta
   from DBZ quite significantly, considering his all-out dignity and his
   desire to fight strong opponents and has a violent streak of nature

2. ganju reminds me of kuwabara for some reason...

3. luffy=goku - big desire for a good old munchies, and stupid in nature
   nami=bulma - smartassed, hotheaded, and pretty girl
   chopper=oolong/puarl - lil animal that transforms
   moria=picolo = in lacking eyelashes
   sanji=ladykiller, attached to nami, as roshi is to bulma

========================================

i didnt wanna make it long, so lets see what other people noticed

well they're all action fighting shonens, so i think its reasonable that they have similarities. yes, plot wise yuyu and bleach are very similar, but for the comparisons you are giving, it could be done for almost any shonen.

Go read cross epoch.

The whole guide to the netherworld thing isn't a new concept, though no idea what kubo's original pitch for bleach was so there's really no connection to yu yu hakusho now.

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