Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War has released its final trailer. The official Bleach anime YouTube channel and X account posted "THE LAST PV" yesterday (October 16th), teasing Ichigo Kurosaki's final battle with only two episodes left before the TV anime ends. Episode 49 airs this coming Monday (October 19th) in Japan, and Episode 50, the last episode of the series, airs a week later (October 26th).
The trailer opens on the Bleach logo and "The Blood Warfare," then runs through the titles of all four parts of the anime in brush lettering before cutting to the last fight. The back half is covered in deep reds and blacks, with Ichigo charging in with his blade blazing. It ends on the line "Ichigo Kurosaki's final battle." Check it out below:
The official anime account shared the trailer with the message "The final blood war that engulfs the three worlds, the World of the Living, the Soul Society, and Hueco Mundo, begins." Several of the anime's staff members reposted it with short notes of their own, including chief director Tomohisa Taguchi, who wrote "The time has come to keep the promise I made a month ago. The last 2 episodes!" Ichigo's voice actor, Masakazu Morita, kept his even shorter: "Here we go."
Why The Last Two Episodes Were Delayed
Episodes 49 and 50 were supposed to air earlier, but the anime's production committee pushed them back last month (September 12th). In its notice, the committee said it was changing the schedule to raise the quality of the anime heading into the climax and to deliver the series in the best form possible all the way to the final episode. It apologized to fans for the wait and said the whole staff was working on the finish with full dedication.
To fill the gap, TV Tokyo aired a four-week "Climax Selection" that traced Ichigo and Yhwach's path to their final showdown. The rebroadcasts were Episode 7 "BORN IN THE DARK," Episode 28 "KILL THE KING," Episode 46 "THE END," and Episode 48 "THE END TWO WORLD."
The delay also changed the time slot. The Calamity aired on Saturdays at 11:00 p.m. through Episode 48, but the last two episodes air on Mondays at midnight on TV Tokyo and its affiliates, with BS TV Tokyo following a day later. Streaming in Japan starts the following Tuesday at noon. The delay hit the home video release as well, as the Blu-ray and DVD box for Part 4 and the third original soundtrack were moved to March 24th, 2027.
How To Watch The Finale In English
VIZ Media confirmed that the final English subbed episodes will stream on October 19th and October 26th at 8:30 a.m. PT, on Hulu on Disney+, where the English dub of The Calamity is currently on Episode 7.
The Staff Bringing Bleach Home
The Calamity is the fourth and final part of the Thousand-Year Blood War anime, and it premiered back in July (July 25th). Pierrot Films is producing the anime, with Taguchi as chief director and Hikaru Murata as director. Taguchi and Masaki Hiramatsu handle series composition, Masashi Kudo designs the characters, and Shiro Sagisu composes the music. Creator Tite Kubo is credited for the original story and as general supervisor. Morita leads the cast as Ichigo, with Takayuki Sugo as Yhwach.
Singer-songwriter jo0ji performs the opening theme for the final part, "I-BULL." In his comment on the official site, he said that as someone who grew up watching Bleach, getting the job made him happier than anything, and that the series taught him many kinds of courage, from standing up to others to believing in people and protecting them.
A Big Send-Off Is Planned
Fans in Japan have plenty of ways to celebrate the ending. A marathon screening of Episodes 41 through 49 will take place on October 25th, the day before the finale, at United Cinemas Aqua City Odaiba, followed by a talk show with Morita, Noriaki Sugiyama (Uryu Ishida), Kubo, Murata, and animation producer Sadahiko Tominaga. The anime will also close out with Bleach Fes., a two-day finale event at Makuhari Messe's Makuhari Event Hall on February 27th and 28th, 2027, with a huge cast lineup that includes Morita, Fumiko Orikasa (Rukia Kuchiki), and Sho Hayami (Sosuke Aizen).
Kubo ran Bleach in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump from 2001 to 2016, and the Thousand-Year Blood War arc covers the last 20 volumes of the 74-volume manga. The original TV anime ran from 2004 to 2012 and stopped short of this arc, so fans waited a decade before Thousand-Year Blood War premiered in October 2022. Four years later, the anime is finally reaching the end of the story.
Are you watching Episodes 49 and 50 as soon as they drop, or are you saving them to binge the full ending once it is out?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.