Bleach has been an iconic anime ever since it premiered back in 2004. It captured the imagination of anime fans everywhere, running for 366 episodes along with four feature films. For many who grew up with anime in the ’90s and ’00s, Bleach is a staple of their generation. Now, almost two decades later the anime is being concluded with Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War.
Over the (almost) two decades that it has been running, Bleach has had one animation home, Pierrot Studios. They have overseen every episode and every animated film since the beginning, the only time the story was out of their hands was when a live-action Bleach movie was created back in 2018 and produced by Warner Brothers Pictures Japan and Cine Bazar. Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War then, is not going to break tradition and is still in the seemingly capable hands of Perriot Studios.
Founded in 1979 by former anime director and animator, Yuji Nunokawa, the animation studio has been in charge of numerous hit anime shows, including Naruto, Tokyo Ghoul, Yona of the Dawn, and Black Clover. Along with these anime, Bleach has to have been one of the studio’s most successful series. adapted from Tite Kubo’s manga of the same name, it follows the classic shonen manga tropes that draw in so many fans.
The story revolves around the character of Ichigo Kurosaki, a high school boy, who, after meeting the Soul Reaper, Rukia Kuchiki, becomes a Soul Reaper himself, protecting people from evil spirits whilst sending good spirits to a dimension known as the Soul Society. The story has seen the character continue to evolve, and now, in its last story arc, we will finally see the end of Bleach. It was revealed back in 2020, at the “Bleach 20th Anniversary Project & Tite Kubo New Project Presentation” livestream that Kubo’s final manga arc would get an adaption, with the trailer and visuals released at the Jump Festa ’22 back in Dec. of 2021.
This last story arc from the manga is being adapted into four cours, with the first 13-episode cour having aired on TV Tokyo already last year, from Oct. 11 to Dec. 27. The second cour premiered on July 8 of this year. Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War has seen animator, director, storyboard writer, and visual artist Tomohisa Taguchi (Twin Star Exorcists) step on board as the series director and series compositor, Shiro Sagisu (musician) and Masashi Kudo (character designer) also on board. Ichigo’s voice actor Masakazu Morita is also back to continue breathing life into the character.
