The release date of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War has been confirmed as October 2022, with the anime season set to fall 2022.
Bleach’s latest arc was initially put into production as part of the Bleach 20th anniversary project. Weekly Shonen Jump Issue 17, 2021 reported that Bleach Season 17 will adapt the Thousand-Year Blood War storyline from creator Tite Kubo’s Bleach manga series, meaning the anime will adapt the ending of the Bleach manga.
On December 16, 2021, the latest Weekly Shonen Jump news was leaked, confirming that the new Bleach anime will air in the fall of 2022. The release date of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War was officially confirmed during Jump Festa 2022, which took place on December 18-19, 2021.
In addition to the Bleach Season 17 announcement, Jump Festa 2022 featured announcements for Spy X Family, World Trigger, Jujutsu Kaisen, Dr. STONE, My Hero Academia, Chainsaw Man, Platinum End and many other anime.
A Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War trailer preview video was also released during the Jump Festa 2022 event.
As of the latest update, Weekly Shonen Jump or any other company involved in the production of the anime has not officially confirmed the exact release date of Bleach Season 17. Once the news is officially confirmed, this article will be updated with the relevant information.
The original Bleach anime ran from October 2004 to March 2012, ending with Episode 366 of Bleach Season 16. Presumably, Bleach’s new season will be called Bleach Season 17 and begin with Bleach Episode 367.
The number of episodes of Bleach 2022 has not yet been announced. However, the Thousand-Year Blood War arc is made up of hundreds of chapters in the manga, so the Bleach 2022 anime will likely take many courses.
A “cour” is a three-month TV broadcast based on the physical seasons, and anime seasons usually have between 10 and 13 episodes per cour. That means there will likely be Bleach season 18, 19, and so on.
The main staff and animation studio producing the Bleach 2022 anime season were announced at Jump Festa 2022.
Studio Pierrot produced the original 16 seasons. Known for producing long-running anime series like the Black Clover anime (see our article on the Black Clover season 4 anime), it’s no surprise that the studio returns to produce the new season of Bleach. .
Bleach character designer Masashi Kudo and composer Shiro Sagisuo both return.
The biggest change to the main staff, however, is that director Tomohisa Taguchi (Akudama Drive, Kino’s Journey) replaces the previous director, Noriyuki Abe. The new director will also write the series composition.
The Bleach Season 17 opening (OP) theme song music and ending (ED) have not yet been announced.
Additionally, there was a Bleach 2020 project animating the Bleach: Burn The Witch storyline. Directed by Tatsuro Kawano (animation director for one season of the Psycho-Pass anime series), the Bleach OVA episode is produced by animation company Studio Colorido. (See below for more details.)
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Updated December 18, 2021: Added Bleach Season 17 release date time frame, trailer, studio, staff and Japanese cast.
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Updated November 16, 2021: Bleach Thousand Year Blood War announcement confirmed for Jump Festa 2022.
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Updated August 24, 2020: Bleach: Burn The Witch release date confirmed! Added trailer, important visual and Crunchyroll streaming info.
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Updated March 20, 2020: Bleach: Burn The Witch anime stills and trailer added. Bleach: Thousand-Year War trailer added.
This article contains all that is known about Bleach Season 17 (Bleach 2022 anime/Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War) and all related news. As such, this article will be updated over time with news, rumors and analysis. In the meantime, let’s get into what is known for sure.
Bleach 2020 OVA Episode Adapts Burn The Witch Manga One-Shot
Anime fans hoped that the Bleach 2020 announcement would launch the new season of Bleach soon. The good news is that the anime will be back relatively soon for a Bleach OVA episode.
Studio Colorido is producing the new episode for release in 2020. The studio is best known for producing Pokemon: Twilight Wings.
The studio is a subsidiary of Twin Engine, which owns the anime licensing rights for big names such as the Dororo anime and the Vinland Saga anime (see our Vinland Saga Season 2 anime article).
Director Tatsuro Kawano was the animation director for Psycho-Pass 2. He was also the director for the fourth opening of the Boruto anime series.
Bleach: Burn The Witch was a one-shot manga chapter that Kubo released in Shonen Jump back on July 16, 2018. It was Kubo’s first new Bleach manga chapter since August 2016.
Originally, Weekly Shonen Jump announced in mid-August 2020 that the Burn The Witch manga would have only four chapters, but then a week later it was announced that Burn The Witch Volume 1 would be released on October 2, 2020. , if a manga series is just one volume, it will be displayed without a number.
Viz Media will digitally publish the official English translation of the Burn The Witch manga.
The two main Bleach characters for this story are Noel Niihashi and Spangle Niniii. They are voiced by Japanese voice actors Yuina Yamada and Asami Tano respectively.
Bleach: Burn The Witch is set 12 years after the Quincy Blood War and tells the story of two witches who work for the Soul Society in Reverse London.
In this world dragons are real, and in the distant past they caused the most deaths in London.
Modern Londoners can’t see dragons, so it’s up to the people in Reverse London to control the dragons and protect the people from a fiery death.
Bleach manga compared to the Bleach 2022 anime
The anime is based on the Bleach manga series by artist and writer Tite Kubo. The Bleach manga, published in Weekly Shonen Jump from 2001 to 2016, ended Volume 74 with Bleach Chapter 686.
The official English translation of the Bleach manga was released by the North American publisher VIZ Media. The English Bleach Volume 74 was released in October 2018.
The anime followed the story of the manga until episode 64, when multiple original anime storylines were introduced to give Kubo more time to create new manga chapters. These filler episodes continued until Episode 110, but after that, the anime continued to rely on filler several times over the years.
Episodes 128 through 137 and Episodes 168 through 189 and Episodes 230 through 265 and Episode 311 through 342 were all fill. Needless to say, this amount of filler is unusual for an anime series, so reading the Bleach manga is like a different experience.
The Bleach Season 16 anime ended by adapting the Lost Substitute Shinigami arc, which was covered by manga chapters 424 through 479.
Bleach Season 17 anime continues with the Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War arc (aka the Quincy arc), which spans chapters 480 through 686. Presumably the anime won’t rely too much on filler episodes this time around.
Therefore, assuming Bleach’s new season adapts the entirety of the storyline, the anime could adapt the ending of the Bleach manga. But it will last several seasons as we are talking about more than 200 chapters, which is almost a third of the entire manga.
The good news is that only English-speaking manga readers can now read ahead. The bad news is that the new season of Bleach will likely be the end of the anime series unless a sequel to the Bleach manga is announced.
Bleach Season 17 cast announced
Here’s the Japanese voice cast for the Bleach 2022 sequel:
- Masakazu Morita as Ichigo Kurosaki
- Fumiko Orikasa as Rukia Kuchiki
- Noriaki Sugiyama as Uryu Ishida
- Yuki Matsuoka as Orihime Inoue
- Hiroki Yasumoto as Yasutora Sado
- Kentaro Ito as Renji Abarai
- Shinichiro Miki as Kisuke Urahara
- Satsuki Yukino as Yoruichi Shihōin
- Binbin Takaoka as Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto
- Houko Kuwashima as Suì-Fēng
- Shouto Kashii as Rōjūrō toribashi
- Aya Hisakawa as Retsu Unohana
- Masaya Onosaka as Shinji Hirako
- Ryotaro Okiayu as Byakuya Kuchiki
- Tetsu Inada as Sajin Komamura
- Akio Ohtsuka as Shunsui Kyorakuo
- Tomokazu Sugita as Kensei Muguruma
- Romi Park as Toshiro Hitsugaya
- Fumihiko Tachiki as Kenpachi Zaraki
- Ryusei Nakao as Mayuri Kurotsuchi
- Hideo Ishikawa as Joshiro Ukitake
- Naomi Kusumi as Ichibē Hyōsube
- Yuji Ueda as Ōetsu Mimaiya
- Tomoyuki Shimura as Tenjir Kirinji
- Rina Satou as Senjumaru Shutara
- Ayumi Tsunematsu as Kirio Hikifune
- Takayuki Sugo as Yhwach
- Yuichiro Umehara as Jugram Haschwalth
- Shunsuke Takeuchi as Askin Nakk Le Vaar
- Ayana Taketatsu as Bambietta Basterbine
- Yuki Ono as Bazz-B
- Yumi Uchiyama as Candice Catnippo
- Natsuki Hanae as Gremmy Thoumeaux
- Satoshi Hino as Lille Barro
An English dub of Bleach Season 17 has not yet been announced. Let’s just be thankful that Bleach season 17 is finally happening.
Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War anime spoilers (plot summary/synopsis)
The last time we watched Ichigo Kurosaki, he had lost his powers and was struggling to get them back with the help of Rukia Kuchiki. With the help of other members of the Soul Society, he took on Kugo Ginjo.
In the present, the hard-won peace is broken when Hollows mysteriously begins to disappear and no one knows who is behind it. Finally, a new group of warriors calling themselves the Wandenreich attacked.
The Wandenreich, which translates as the Invisible Realm, is a secret group of the Quincy. A thousand years ago, the Quincy lost the war with the Shinigami and they escaped and created a shelter. They have bid their time and slowly gathered their power.
When the Wandenreich launch an attack on the Soul Society, all-out war begins between the Quincy and the Shinigami. The Soul Society’s survival is put to the test, and Ichigo must survive super-intensive training to have a chance to fight back.
Unfortunately, anime fans will have to wait until the Bleach 2022 release date to see what happens. Stay tuned!
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