With its release window less than a month away, Bleach fans finally got an official premiere date for the highly anticipated Thousand-Year Blood War anime on Sunday. The new anime is set to premiere on October 10.
The announcement was made on VIZ Media's official Twitter, with accompanying text that simply read, "The wait is finally over", followed by something else fans have been on the lookout for – confirmation that the new Bleach will be simulcast. The confirmation of the broadcast date comes after the advance screening event for the first two episodes, which was hosted in Tokyo.
Accompanying the news was the very exciting new trailer which features more clips from scenes assumed to be from the first episode, showing off what Studio Pierrot has been really pushing for – the elevation of the series' animation.
Bleach looked good in the past, but the trailers and key visuals, the special font being used, as well as news of Tite Kubo's direct involvement, in the promotion of the upcoming return of the Shounen Jump classic point toward the idea that this project is being done with elevation in mind.
The new trailer begins with scenes in Soul Society, where the 12th Squad Captain, Mayuri Kurotsuchi, explains that the anomaly where a Hollow's very existence is destroyed can only mean one thing. Overlooking the fictional in-universe main region of Karakura Town, a whelpling Shinigami assigned to the area wonders why a novice like themselves has been dispatched to the one place on Earth that yields the most Hollow sightings, before being completely surrounded. As the situation appears to worsen in severity, the familiar sighting of orange hair, and a huge sword before Ichigo Kurosaki introduces himself is one of the sweetest moments of the new trailer, not to mention the reprisal of one of series music composer Shiro Sagisu's most masterful works, On the Precipice of Defeat.
Showing off dazzling new visuals, character designs, cast members and various scenes from the upcoming war between the Shinigami and the Quincies, the trailer also features the new opening and ending themes for BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War. They are Scar by Tatsuya Kitani and a Hiroyuki Sawano-produced song titled Saihatte (The Furtherest End). The cast members joining the production include the actor KENN (Jaden (Judai) Yuki, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX) as Berenice Gabrielli, Takahiro Fujiwara as Jerome Guizbatt, Wataru Komada as Asguiaro Ebern and Daiki Hamano as Luders Freigen. The series' direction will be undertaken by Pierrot's Tomohisa Taguchi (Akudama Drive), while legacy series character designer Masashi Kudo returns for the same role, while legendary composer Shiro Sagisu returns to do the music once more.
BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War will begin airing on TV Tokyo on October 10 at 24:00 JST (October 11, midnight), with VIZ media confirming that there will be a simulcast. Where the new BLEACH will be simulcast is yet to be revealed; however, according to Oricon, the series is slated to run for four non-consecutive cours, which could span up to 52 episodes.
Source: VIZ Official Twitter