Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War Anime Streams on Hulu in U.S., Disney+ Internationally

Viz Media announced on Monday that Hulu will stream Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War, the television anime based on the "Thousand Year Blood War" arc of Tite Kubo's Bleach manga, in the U.S., beginning on October 10 at 11:30 a.m. EDT. The anime will stream on Disney+ internationally.

The anime will run for four cours (quarter of a year) with breaks in between. The show will premiere on October 10 at 24:00 (effectively, October 11 at midnight) on TV Tokyo and its affiliates, and will stream on 20+ services in Japan, including Hulu and Disney+.

Viz Media will hold the North American premiere at New York Comic Con on October 8. NYCC noted that the premiere event will be ahead of a "simulcast" of the anime.

The anime will cover the rest of the original manga up through its ending.

Tomohisa Taguchi (Twin Star Exorcists, Kino's Journey - The Beautiful World, Akudama Drive) is replacing Noriyuki Abe to direct the anime at Studio Pierrot. Masashi Kudo is returning as the character designer, and Shiro Sagisu is returning to composing the music.

The cast includes:

• Masakazu Morita as Ichigo Kurosaki
• Fumiko Orikasa as Rukia Kuchiki
• Noriaki Sugiyama as Uryū Ishida
• Yuki Matsuoka as Orihime Inoue
• Hiroki Yasumoto as Yasutora Sado
• Kentaro Ito as Renji Abarai
• Shinichiro Miki as Kisuke Urahara
• Satsuki Yukino as Yoruichi Shihōin
• Binbin Takaoka (replacing Masaaki Tsukada) as Genryūsai Shigekuni Yamamoto
• Houko Kuwashima as Suì-Fēng
• Shouto Kashii as Rōjūrō Ōtoribashi
• Aya Hisakawa as Retsu Unohana
• Masaya Onosaka as Shinji Hirako
• Ryotaro Okiayu as Byakuya Kuchiki
• Tetsu Inada as Sajin Komamura
• Akio Ohtsuka as Shunsui Kyōraku
• Tomokazu Sugita as Kensei Muguruma
• Romi Park as Tōshirō Hitsugaya
• Fumihiko Tachiki as Kenpachi Zaraki
• Ryusei Nakao as Mayuri Kurotsuchi
• Hideo Ishikawa as Jūshirō Ukitake
• Naomi Kusumi as Ichibē Hyōsube
• Yōji Ueda as Ōetsu Mimaiya
• Tomoyuki Shimura as Tenjirō Kirinji
• Rina Satou as Senjumaru Shutara
• Ayumi Tsunematsu as Kirio Hikifune
• Takayuki Sugo as Yhwach
• Yuichiro Umehara as Jugram Haschwalth
• Shunsuke Takeuchi as Askin Nakk Le Vaar
• Ayana Taketatsu as Bambietta Basterbine
• Yūki Ono as Bazz-B
• Yumi Uchiyama as Candice Catnipp
• Natsuki Hanae as Gremmy Thoumeaux
• Satoshi Hino as Lille Barro
• Wataru Hatano as Hidetomo Kajōmaru
• KENN as Berenice Gabrielli
• Takahiro Fujiwara as Jerome Guizbatt
• Wataru Komada as Asguiaro Ebern
• Daiki Hamano as Luders Friegen

Tatsuya Kitani, who performed theme and image songs for the "Bleach Ex" exhibition, is singing the opening theme song "Scar," while SennaRin is singing the ending theme song "Saihate" (The Farthest Reaches).

The show's Japanese returning cast also includes cast members who have not appeared in the anime, but are reprising their roles from the Bleach: Brave Souls game.

The show's English dub cast will feature some returning cast members.

The Thousand Year Blood War arc is the final arc of the manga, and covers volumes 55-74.

Kubo launched Bleach in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2001, and ended it in August 2016. Viz Media published the manga in North America digitally in English as Shueisha published new chapters in Japan. Viz Media also published the manga in print. The manga has 130 million copies in circulation.

The manga inspired a television anime adaptation that ran for 366 episodes from 2004 to 2012. Viz Media obtained the television and home video rights to the anime in 2006. The series premiered with an English dub in Cartoon Network's Adult Swim that same year, and eventually aired all the episodes by 2014. Crunchyroll and Tubi TV are no longer streaming the original series, but Hulu is streaming the series.

The anime franchise also includes four films and two OVAs. Additionally, the franchise has also inspired video games, novels, stage plays, and a live-action film that opened in July 2018.

Source: Viz Media's Twitter account