Bleach has been one of my favorite anime series since it first premiered on Adult Swim in 2006. Now, almost 20 years later, I'm finally feeling vindicated for keeping this series so close to my heart--even through the darkest times for Bleach.

Out of the Big Three anime, Bleach was by far the one that appealed to me the most. I wasn't a fan of One Piece's art style, and I've always found Naruto unable to hold my interest. With Bleach, though, I was hooked from the beginning, but I knew it was really something special by the time the Soul Society arc got underway. It was a sprawling, epic story with characters for everyone. If you watch Bleach and can't find a favorite, you've done something wrong. Watching on a regular basis became a habit, and Bleach ended up being with me throughout high school and college.

Bleach Has Suffered Problems Throughout Its Run

Watching the Anime Had Its Ups and Downs

Of course, watching the Bleach anime meant dealing with the large amounts of filler as well, although it usually didn't bother me too much. The filler began to become a bigger problem late in the Hueco Mundo arc, when fights would stop mid-battle for a filler episode, or worse, filler arc. Watching on a week-to-week basis meant that it could be months before a fight resumed, which was beyond frustrating. That eventually led me to check out the manga, although I never got in the habit of reading the manga from week-to-week.

Adult Swim would eventually drop Bleach from its lineup without finishing its run, leaving me to find the last few episodes on streaming. It took me a while to find out that the end of the anime wasn't the end of the manga, and that there was actually a whole other major arc afterward. And then, I discovered that the anime had been canceled, and that final arc was never going to get animated at all. It was very disappointing, so I began researching the final arc to learn what I could about it before deciding whether to read the manga's ending. That's when I saw the manga was struggling, too.

Fan opinions of the Thousand-Year Blood War arc were pretty negative at the time, with many feeling it had gone on for far too long, and then accusations that the ending itself was rushed and unsatisfying. It was hard to be enthusiastic about engaging with the final arc knowing that, and so I put it off for quite some time. I eventually read it, but I did it so quickly that it didn't really stick in my mind the way other parts of Bleach had. That was a disappointment on its own, and it made me feel like some of the criticisms had a point. It seemed like it would be the end of Bleach, and it wasn't a great note to leave on.

Bleach's Glorious Return With Thousand-Year Blood War

The Anime Finally Came Back to Finish What It Started

Bleach wasn't the first time I'd watched an anime series that ended before the manga's real ending, so eventually I just moved on, but I still had a lot of positive feelings about Bleach. During the pandemic, my wife and I took turns sharing old anime that the other had never seen. She showed me Yu Yu Hakusho, while I showed her Bleach. We rewatched the entire series (minus filler) and I was reminded of how great it really was at its best. A few months later, they announced that Thousand-Year Blood War would be getting adapted at long last, and the fandom exploded in a way that I'd never seen.

An anime adaptation was an opportunity to fix the mistakes that Thousand-Year Blood War's manga arc had made. It could fix the ending to be less rushed, and focus on what was important to streamline the story. When it came out that the anime would be 4 parts, fans rejoiced again, feeling that this confirmed the intent to improve it, and soon we knew Tite Kubo would be advising as well. Things were looking great for Bleach, and what had been a wildly popular series 15 years earlier could now begin to regain some of that popularity all over again.

There's also the anniversary one-shot which Kubo produced in that timeframe, which offered the beginnings of a whole new mysterious arc that fans (including myself) are still dying to see continue. It felt like at last, Bleach was really back, and that the glory days were here again.

Thousand-Year Blood War Did Everything It Needed and More

The Anime Adaptation Has Been Excellent So Far

Finally, Thousand-Year Blood War began to premiere, and everything I might have been worried about was immediately laid aside. It wasn't censored, showing the full brutality of the manga's fights; it was loyal to the manga, but also wasn't afraid to cut unimportant moments in order to keep the story moving. As we moved into part 2, it became apparent that it was willing to make the kind of big changes that fans had been hoping for, making changes that fans had wanted to see forever, like Shinji's Bankai. Part 3 was even better in that regard, adding many new scenes.

Bleach's dark period, between the end of the manga and the announcement of the Thousand-Year Blood War adaptation, was a rough time to be a fan of the series, especially seeing how One Piece continued on, and Naruto's world had lived on through Boruto. However, the wait for the adaptation was 100% worth it, and the anime fans are getting now is definitely leagues better than what we'd have gotten back in 2016. It was worthwhile sticking at Bleach's side, even as it became radically less popular, if only for this glorious time right now.

Personally, like most other fans, I simply can't wait to see Part 4 of Thousand-Year Blood War and find out how it will all end this time. I have every confidence it will be the ending that Bleach truly deserves, and one that will ensure people are still talking about the series for decades to come.