Tite Kubo has explained one of the most talked-about moments in the final season of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War, and his answer reaches all the way back to when he was writing the original manga.
Speaking at a special screening and talk event in Japan over the weekend, held right before the anime's final episode, the creator revealed that a storyline where Orihime Inoue dies was something he once considered for the manga. He also shared the simple rule he uses whenever the anime team asks to add something that was never in his original story.
Kubo's Rule For Anime-Original Scenes
The event screened Episodes 41 through 49 of The Calamity, the fourth and final part of Thousand-Year Blood War, before a talk with Ichigo voice actor Masakazu Morita, Uryu voice actor Noriaki Sugiyama, director Hikaru Murata, animation producer Yoshihiko Tominaga and Kubo himself. The stage greeting was also streamed live on the official Bleach anime YouTube channel.
When the conversation turned to the anime-original material, including Orihime's shocking development, Kubo said he was very happy with how it turned out. He then explained that the anime staff regularly sends him proposals for original scenes, asking whether they can do something or what he thinks of an idea. According to the official event report, his test is whether he ever tried to work that route into the original manga, even just once.
That is a revealing detail. Fans have spent years debating which parts of the Thousand-Year Blood War anime are new and which ones Kubo intended all along. By his own account, the original scenes that make it to screen are not random additions. They come from paths he had at least considered when he was drawing the story.
Orihime's Death Was A Real Possibility
Kubo then confirmed that Orihime's death was one of those paths. He said a route where she dies existed while he was writing the manga. Following that original idea, he told the staff which technique to use, a move he says already existed in his setting notes, and asked them to use it for the scene.
Kubo did not name the technique in the event report, so it is unclear exactly which move he meant. He also credited the anime staff for bringing the material to such a high level of quality, saying that part was down to their hard work.
The scene in question comes from Episode 45, "DEFEND YOU," which was made entirely from anime-original material. Tominaga said it was the first episode of The Calamity where general director Tomohisa Taguchi handled the script, storyboards and direction himself, and that Taguchi wanted cinematic, smooth movement and lip sync for such an important episode. Morita admitted he was stunned when he saw the finished episode on TV, since the cast records before the animation is complete. Sugiyama added that seeing it with the music, colors and effects in place was overwhelming.
More Behind-The-Scenes Details
Kubo also revealed a small but important change he asked for in Episode 49, "THE BLADE." In the scene where Ichigo swings Zangetsu at Yhwach across all three worlds at once, Kubo said the first version had a different blade landing first. He told the team the first strike had to be Ichigo's, and they swapped the order.
Murata explained that the episode returned to the manga's path with Episode 46, Uryu's fight with Haschwalth, which the team had planned since the third part. He also said the team gave each version of Yhwach slightly different highlight colors in the living world, the Soul Society and Hueco Mundo, so viewers could tell them apart even though the character is drawn almost entirely in black.
Finally, Kubo teased the last episode, "DEATH and STRAWBERRY," which is set ten years after the war. He said the staff adapted it faithfully but that he drew some extra details, including small characters who only appear in the finale. He even revealed he designed two new middle-aged men for it, though he was not sure if one or both would be used.
The End Of A Long Road
The final episode aired in Japan this week on TV Tokyo, bringing the Thousand-Year Blood War anime to a close after the last two episodes were pushed back to improve their quality. We covered the run-up to the finale when the series dropped its last trailer with only two episodes left. Tominaga said that after five or six years on the project, he had mixed feelings about finally seeing it end.
Knowing that Kubo signed off on the anime's original scenes based on ideas he once had for the manga makes the series feel even more like his own complete vision of the story.
Were you surprised to learn that Kubo once considered a route where Orihime dies, and which anime-original scene from Thousand-Year Blood War stood out to you most?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.