Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War Reveals New Color Key Visual

A new colored key visual has been released for the highly anticipated Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War anime series. The visual showcases the Shinigami group facing off against Yhwach and his Quincy army. The direct follow-up to the Bleach anime franchise will premiere in October 2022. 

A previous version of the same key visual was released on July 2, 2022 in a harsher, darker visual tone. 

The returning voice cast includes Masakazu Morita as Ichigo Kurosaki, Fumiko Orikasa as Rukia Kukichi, Noriaki Sugiyama as Uryu Ishida, and Takayuki Sugou as main villain Yhwach. Additional cast for the Soul King’s Royal Guard consists of Naomi Kusumi as Ichibe Hyosube, Youji Ueda as Oetsu Nimaiya, Tomoyuki Shimura as Tenjiiro Kirinji, Rina Satou as Shutara Senjumaru, and Ayumi Tsunematsu as Kirio Hikifune.

The voice actors for Yhwach’s group include Yuuichirou Umehara as Jugram Haschwalt, Shunsuke Takeuchi as Askin Nakk Le Vaar, Ayana Taketatsu as Bambietta Basterbine, Yuuki Ono as Bazz-B, Yumi Uchiyama as Candice Catnipp, Natsuki Hanae as Gremmy Thoumeaux, and Satoshi Hino as Lille Barro.

The production staff includes Tomohisa Taguchi (Akudama Drive) as director and series screenwriter, Masashi Kudou (Sakura Wars the Animation) as character designer, and Shirou Sagisu (Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time) as music composer. Studio Pierrot is handling the animation production.

Michio Hasegawa (Shadows House), Sei Komatsubara (Fate/Grand Order Final Singularity – Grand Temple of Time: Solomon), and Kumiko Takayanagi (Akudama Drive animation director) are the chief animation directors, while Satoshi Sakai (Attack on Titan Final Season effect animation director), Yoshihiro Kanno (Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld action animation director), and Yeong-Hoon Jeong (Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld sub-designer) are the action effects animation directors. Yoshio Tanioka (Akudama Drive) is also serving as art director, Saori Gouda (Akudama Drive) as color designer, and Kazuhiro Yamada (Akudama Drive) as photography director. 

Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War marks the first Bleach anime since 2012 and is based on the final arc of Tite Kubo’s original manga series, which ran from August 7, 2001 to August 22, 2016 with 74 tankoubon volumes published in total. The original anime series aired from 2004 to 2012 and has also inspired several anime films. The franchise has also inspired video games, the BURN THE WITCH spinoff series, and a live-action film. 

Viz Media describes the “Thousand-Year Blood War Arc” as:

The peace is suddenly broken when warning sirens blare through the Soul Society. Residents there are disappearing without a trace, and nobody knows who’s behind it. Meanwhile, a dark shadow is also extending itself toward Ichigo and his friends in Karakura Town…

Source: Bleach Official Twitter