Bleach is one of my all-time most talked about series on multiple different anime forums. It's not a series that I could 100% sure say I enjoy the most or think is the best, but the world and the characters that Tite Kubo created had some weird kind of pull to them that just made me come back to the series week after week. Characters like Rukia Kuchiki, Shunsui Kyoraku, Ichigo Kurosaki and his family, Mayuri Kurotsuchi, Aizen Sousuke, Urahara Kisuke, Yoruichi Shihouin, Kenpachi, Unohana, Neliel, Grimmjow, Nnoitra, and so many others such as Hitsugaya, were intriguing in their own rights. There have been series like Kimetsu no Yaiba and Jujutsu Kaisen and so on that were inspirect from many aspects of Bleach, but none of them felt as right for me. For example KnY is almost like hopping right into Hueco Mundo arc Bleach with the main character Tanjiro holding a black katana (Tensa Zangetsu) and with his friends he goes against a group of 10 villains that have been marked by their power level. The same as Aizen giving Espadas power via the hogyoku. KnY is a fine shounen and a great-looking anime but it's just lacking compared to the build up Bleach had until they got to Hueco Mundo.
After the animated series ended in Japan, I hopped right into the manga. The beginning of the arc was insanity. While Bleach was always about Soul Reapers/Shinigami, the series rarely killed off important characters. The Thousand Year Blood War was thus incredibly entertaining to talk about weekly with other fans and it, honestly, was the peak of 2011-2013 of Shounen Jump, and much above its peers in entertainment.
The Thousand Year Blood War was the final arc of Bleach, telling the story of Quincies versus Soul Reapers from chapters 480 all the way to 686, so the arc lasted for nearly 200 chapters, or four years. After the arc we had the Can't Fear Your Own World epilogue series with an interesting corrupt noble as a villain along showcase of couple of the missing bankais (though we'll probably never see Aizen's) and some history lessons about the origin of the world created by the Soul King (Reio).
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| Tite Kubo's famous great minimalistic approach to art packs a punch. |
Now though, four years later since the end we got a new announcement for Bleach called Bleach: face again that has to do with the Bleach story itself. Now, the announcement could be anything from a new game to the animated series getting a continuation, but regardless... anything Bleach related is nice to see. But that's not all! At the same time of Bleach: face again being revealed in March of 2020, Tite Kubo also reveals his new series project.
After the end of Bleach Tite Kubo (the original author of Bleach) had been working on multiple projects, from the CFYOW novels to Bleach Brave Souls mobile game by KlaB (possibly the most high-quality anime mobile game as it feels like a real game instead of your usual gacha game) to Bleach JET artbook (an actually real high-quality paper artbook than what manga series get aside from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure) being released to the new Sakura Wars game that also gets released in English in Spring of 2020 nicely near the same time as Bleach: face again and Kubo's new series. There will be a lot of Kubo next spring to look forward to.
I know that many people really hope that Bleach: face again would be the announcement of the anime returning since 2012. It's been 8 years since the end of the Studio Pierrot's long-running adaptation. However even if that won't happen - it will still be something that Tite Kubo thinks is worthy of Bleach's 20th anniversary, and that's good enough for me as the guy does have understanding of the art medium. I think what's interesting here is that Bleach: face again is said to be the
20th anniversary project. Bleach manga began in 2001, so 20th anniversary means that they'll be releasing something for 2021 and announcing it in 2020. The timeframe for this sounds similar to how
Dragon Ball Super: Broly was announced before being released, so could we be possibly even getting a new Bleach film? Anything's better than nothing, I guess. I'm interested in seeing what the future holds for Bleach. But even more so I'm interested in reading a new series by Kubo as he did create the Burn the Witch manga one-shot couple years back - that was released in a volume along with Bleach JET artbooks - which had entertaining worldbuilding aspects to it. The main character for it wasn't overly interesting but I felt I would have wanted to see him get god-like overpowered to see what he does with all the power he gets.
Anything Kubo brings out I'll be there. I'll also be getting Sakura Wars for PS4 along with Final Fantasy 7 Remake as the game looks really enjoyable, the soundtrack and characters seem fun. Let's get it!
