The adaptation of Bleach’s final story arc fully reaches the point in the manga where Tite Kubo clearly began to rush and the story suffered greatly as a result, a few long-awaited Bankai being the only real highlight, but is the anime any different? Well, yes! Kubo has had a direct hand in the creation of this “cour”, more so than the others, showing how he clearly knows how weak the original is and has sought to improve it, and improve it he has! Plus one of the long-awaited Bankai was still adapted (the other will land in Cour 4) and adapted really well, so bonus point all around! Let’s take a look…

The anime adaptation of Bleach’s final manga arc (I guess that’s still technically accurate…) continued with 13 more episodes of the Thousand Year Blood War arc, not only adapting the manga faithfully but adding brand new scenes created by Tite Kubo himself to plug some plot holes and make sure to add more shine to the Royal Guard for good measure. The only issue is that this is where the arc in the manga took a dramatic down turn that it never corrected out of, instead just offering up some fun fights here and there, and while the new material helps it a bit, a lot of the narrative mistakes are still present here. Want to know more? Read on!

While it already feels like I’ve reviewed this 100 times due to covering it on Anime UK News for various articles, it’s time to actually take a deeper dive into the first chunk of the anime adaptation of Bleach’s final story arc (for now!): The Thousand Year Blood War. I’ve gone on record as saying the actual manga version of the story is … not great, but given the crazy animation quality plus the amazing returning voice cast and music composer this was a great weekly watch. Let’s take a look!