Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War: Episode 1 Review

gamerant.com:

The following contains spoilers for Episode 1 of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War «The Blood Warfare,» now streaming on Hulu & Disney+.Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War, the final arc in the Bleach franchise, aired its first episode «The Blood Warfare» on October 11, 2022, at 11:30 am EST. Coming off a ten-year-long hiatus, Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War has big shoes to fill with many fans of the original series expecting an epic finale to this highly-anticipated anime series.

Tite Kubo, the show's original manga artist and creator, and Studio Pierrot, the show's original animation studio, have come together to complete the Bleach franchise. This new series, however, came with many changes that left some fans in a state of disappointment and confusion. First, Disney+ obtained the rights to the entire Bleach franchise, causing Crunchyroll, a popular anime streaming app, to abruptly retire the series from their platform. Hulu+ managed to retain its rights to the original and new series of Bleach; however, this is only applicable within the United States, as Disney+ is streaming the new series worldwide. Second, while many of the original cast and crew have returned for the finale, there was a major turnaround with Tomohisa Taguchi replacing Noriyuki Abe as the main director.

As a quick recap, the original Bleach anime series ran from 2004 to 2012 with sixteen total seasons. Since the anime was discontinued after the Fullbring arc, the final episode shows Ichigo Kurosaki and Rukia Kuchiki going their separate ways, Ichigo staying in modern-day Japan, and Rukia returning to Soul Society.

For avid watchers of the anime, this came as an anti-climatic conclusion to the exciting buildup the series created. The new series starts from