Bleach's TV anime signs off after 22 years as Thousand-Year Blood War airs episode 50, "DEATH & STRAWBERRY"
The final episode of Pierrot Films' Thousand-Year Blood War closed the Bleach TV anime that began in 2004, followed by a special ending video set to "Number One" and a 15-illustration visual movie tracing Ichigo's battles.
Ichigo Kurosaki first picked up a Soul Reaper's sword on Japanese television in 2004. Twenty-two years on, the Bleach anime has run out of story to tell. Its 50th and last Thousand-Year Blood War episode, "DEATH & STRAWBERRY," closed The Calamity, the fourth part of the revival, and with it Tite Kubo's saga is fully animated.
A send-off in two videos
The broadcast wasn't left to end on routine credits. The franchise's official X and YouTube accounts released a dedicated closing sequence cut to the familiar track "Number One": the logo, every credited actor and crew member, and raw key frames from the production, signing off with a card that reads "THE STORIES OF BRAVE."
A companion clip, THE STORIES VISUAL MOVIE, retraces Ichigo's fights arc by arc through a run of 15 drawings, ending on a grown-up version of the hero. A fresh "THE STORIES" image of the last battle came out at the same time, as did a trailer introducing the lead of the upcoming game BLEACH: Mirrors High.
How the anime got here
The first television run started in October 2004 and lasted until 2012, totaling 366 episodes plus four feature films. It ended before Kubo's last arc, which he kept serializing in Weekly Shonen Jump until 2016. Collected, the manga spans 74 volumes, with circulation now above 130 million.
That arc finally reached the screen in October 2022, divided into four cours: the opening stretch that year, The Separation in 2023, The Conflict in autumn 2024, and The Calamity beginning July 25, 2026. The final pair of episodes slipped from their original slots so the team could polish them.
Pierrot Films handled the animation. Tomohisa Taguchi led as chief series director, Hikaru Murata served as series director, and Shiro Sagisu wrote the score.
Still to come
Physical media will follow in the spring. On March 24, 2027, Japan gets the fourth box of the arc on disc alongside its third soundtrack album, both wrapped in newly drawn art by character designer Masashi Kudo, and retailer-exclusive box illustrations are already public.
International viewers can catch the whole run on Hulu in America, or on Disney+ across Ireland, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and 46 further markets.
