Episode Stats:

Japanese Episode 002:  "Shinigami no O-Shigoto"

(The God of Death's Work)

Corresponding Manga Chapters:  Chapters Two-Three
Anime Air Date (Japan):  October 12th, 2004

The day after Ichigo's battle, he is surprised to find out that his family has no memory of the event!  When he returns to school, Rukia shocks him by appearing in his class, disguised as a new exchange student!  She informs him that he has to take over as the God of Death now while she remains in a sort of loan body.  After being dragged into a battle against a Hollow to save a little kid, Ichigo reluctantly agrees to carry on her work.  Afterwards, Ichigo's classmate, Orihime, is seen walking home with a nasty bruise on her leg.  She tells Ichigo that she hurt it after being hit by a car, but Rukia thinks it has more to do with her deceased brother.  Sure enough, a Hollow bearing the face of Orhime's brother appears and attacks Ichigo, and the young God of Death is horrified to learn that Hollows were once humans.

Thoughts
Ichigo's classmates get introduced in this episode, as does Rukia as one of Ichigo's classmates.  I absolutely loved the way she tried to fit in with his class (using "modern" slang and whatnot), and it's the comedic moments like this that really make me love the series.

The anime deviates from the manga a LOT more than it did in the previous episode.  

Part A

• Ichigo's dream at the very beginning of Chapter Two of the manga is removed from the anime.  In his dream, Ichigo imagines his family berating him for not saving them from the Hollow.  
• In the manga, Orihime daydreams about hooking up with Ichigo.  In the anime, she daydreams about the strange food she'll eat for lunch.  This is the first of many times in which the anime downplays Orihime's crush on Ichigo.
• In the manga, Rukia the high school student is introduced to Ichigo by Tatuki and the other female classmates.  In the anime, she's introduced by Ichigo's male classmates, including Chad--who doesn't make his first appearance in the manga until Chapter Seven!
• In the manga, Ichigo talks about knowing the little boy who he will eventually save in the park.  In the anime, he doesn't even seem to know that much about the little boy.
• In the manga, Ichigo says that he doesn't want to be a God of Death, but that he recognizes that his debt to Rukia is too great to ignore, so he accepts his position.  In the anime, he's much harder to persuade, saying that he'll only help those whom he feels like helping.
• In the anime, Ichigo sends the little boy in the park off to heaven.  He doesn't do this in the manga.
• Right before the commercial break, there's a lengthy scene with Orihime's brother looking in on his sister, being taken by Hollows into their spirit world, and then transforming into a Hollow.  None of this is in the manga.
  

• In the manga, Rukia's reading a horror comic to brush up on hip teenage talk.  In the anime, she's reading more classical literature.
• In the manga, we see Ichigo performing exercises to train him to strike Hollows in the head with one blow.  This training isn't in the anime, mainly because by this point, anime Ichigo hadn't decided to go along with the God of Death job.
• In the manga, Orihime's car accident occurred quite a while before Ichigo and Rukia run into her.  In the anime, it happens right before they run into her.
• Orihime has an arm wound (in addition to her leg wound) in the manga that she doesn't have in the anime.
• In the anime, Ichigo cuts Hollow-Kakei's arm before smashing his skull mask.  In the manga, he breaks open his mask immediately.