Bleach (ブリーチ) is a 2004 television anime series based on Tite Kubo’s manga series of the same name. The series was adapted by studio Pierrot, and the staff credits include director Noriyuki Abe, series composition writers Masashi Sogo, Tsuyoshi Kida & Kento Shimoyama, character designer Masashi Kudo, and music composed by Shirō Sagisu. The anime first aired in Japan on October 2004.
Background:
“For as long as he can remember, Ichigo Kurosaki has been able to see ghosts. But when he meets Rukia, a Soul Reaper who battles evil spirits known as Hollows, his life is changed forever.
Now, with a newfound wealth of spiritual energy, Ichigo discovers his true calling: to protect the World of the Living and the dead as a Substitute Soul Reaper.
When Rukia is taken away to face the ruthless justice of the Soul Society, Ichigo and his friends must cross over and do battle in the spirit world…”
Plot Synopsis via Anime Limited, November 2024.
After watching and picking up anime for over a decade I’ve finally got my hands on one of the most popular anime shows out there – Bleach. Sure, it’s not as big as One Piece or Dragon Ball, but the popularity of the anime and manga has continued to stick around even after the manga came to a rather sudden end.
I remember it was around 2016 that the manga was being forced to rush to its conclusion due to either weakening sales in Japan and reaching very low ranks on the Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. Saying that, pretty much anything that doesn’t reach the top rankings in Weekly Shonen Jump has had its story rush to its conclusion or were straight up cancelled. Food Wars! was a perfect example of a series that definitely wanted to stick around but had to rush to the finish line as it declined in popularity and rankings. Shonen Jump Plus so far has been a safe haven of sorts because there’s a lot of anime on that platform that would have suffered had they serialised on Weekly Shonen Jump, and I do wonder if there was a scenario where if Bleach had moved over to Shonen Jump Plus, the manga would have cooked long enough to wrap up everything at a steady pace.
In fact, the anime also had challenges of its own. Bleach‘s adaptation started in October 2004 and stayed on air until March 2012, and by that point the manga was still on-going for another two years. I don’t know the exact reason but I suspect it was a combination of low ratings, declining popularity in Japan, and the studio may have wanted to wait until the final arc was done before adapting more. The anime ended before split-cour and seasons having breaks in-between were normalised more, and Kuroko’s Basketball I recall being one of the first Shonen Jump titles to break away from the long-running format in favour of seasons with 25 episodes each with no filler, which was successful enough given that series adapted everything without issue and since there were breaks meant the quality and pacing weren’t affected either.
Either way, despite all that, Bleach remained popular with the international audiences, supported by having TV runs for many countries outside Japan, plus dubs and was one of the few big shows to have a legal stream available for fans on Crunchyroll in 2010, before the anime scene blew up to even greater feat thanks to Attack on Titan, Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen and My Hero Academia. Remember the late 00s to early 2010s was an era when many regions including the UK & Ireland weren’t able to access as many shows as you could nowadays. The manga was also accessible in English thanks to Viz Media, and sold well enough to remain in print alongside having re-releases in omnibus and box set formats plus artbooks and novels. In Japan, there were also numerous video games produced by Sony’s Japan Studio of all people plus a good number of characters from Bleach have made appearances into many crossover Shonen Jump games.
Viz Media picked up the rights to release Bleach for North America back in 2006, which included UK & Ireland rights also since their logos were on the UK releases distributed by Manga Entertainment. The later seasons of the anime eventually moved from Manga Entertainment over to KAZE UK which was Viz Media Europe’s UK branch. That branch was not particularly good at their job just so you know. The UK & Ireland home video license surprisingly expired and in 2024 Anime Limited revealed they secured the home video rights for both Bleach and its second series Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War for UK, Ireland and France.
Collector’s Edition Contents:
Bleach is a very long series so it would be crazy for Anime Limited to release collector’s edition in their traditional style for the whole show as it would be too expensive for consumers. So instead we have a different model to cover all of the episodes. As the show is being split into 13 parts, they’re all being presented as limited editions but three of them will also have collector’s edition variations.
Part 1 is one of the few to have this collector’s edition variation (the others being Parts 6 & 10) and it’s presented with a rigid box containing an Amaray case with a slipcase to house the Blu-ray discs and three small art cards. Alongside the case is a thick 220-page artbook that contains character designs and cover artwork for the first 139 episodes or so. The rigid box that comes with this set is designed to house Parts 1-5 (which goes up to episode 139).
The rigid box artwork is free of any information or BBFC content and the info sheet covers the information and specification like previous Anime Limited releases. The collector’s edition Blu-ray has 1000 units printed for an SRP of £79.99, with a limited edition Blu-ray (basically a first print edition that comes with a slipcase and artcards) is available for retailers at an SRP of £49.99.
The series was included as part of their August 2024 early bird line-up which I have ordered from. The set was on offer for £49.99 with the Anime Unlimited membership lowering the cost down to £44.99.
Physical Contents:
- Rigid Box with Amaray packaging, Slipcover and clean artwork
- Info sheet for specification and BBFC description
- 220-page Artbook
- 3 Small Art Cards
On-Disc Contents:
Distributor: Anime Limited
Released: 4th November 2024 (AllTheAnime), 11th November 2024 (Other Retailers)
The collector’s edition Part 1 release for Bleach contains episodes 1-27, across four Blu-ray discs. The discs have been authored and encoded by Viz Media via their July 2016 release for North America.
Audio options available include Japanese with English subtitles and the STUDIOPOLIS, Inc. English dub commissioned by Viz Media. The white subtitles are locked during playback, and the discs are region locked to players set to B.
Blu-ray Specs:
| Languages | English, Japanese |
| Audio | English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 |
| Video | 1080p High Definition Upscaled format 1.33:1 aspect ratio |
| Region | B |
| Subtitles | English |
| Locked Subtitles | Yes |
| Discs | 4 BD-50s |
Blu-ray On-Disc Extra Features:
Disc 4:
- Original Japanese DVD Artwork
- Production Art
- Clean Ending Songs:
- “Life is Like a Boat”
- “Thank You!!”
- “Hoki Boshi”
- Behind the Scenes of Bleach (Interviews with English Cast) (19:34 runtime)
- More from Viz (01:16 runtime)
Unboxing Photos:
Final Notes:
Bleach Part 1 is available to purchase on Blu-ray by Anime Limited in the UK & Ireland. The collector’s edition Blu-ray release (that comes with a storage box and artbook) can be bought through different retailers including AllTheAnime Store, Amazon UK, and Anime-on-Line, while the limited edition Blu-ray (that comes with the slipcase and small art cards) can be bought through different retailers including AllTheAnime Store, Amazon UK, and Anime-on-Line.
(Disclaimer: Amazon links are also included when available. They are affiliated so if you decide to order them, I’ll earn a small percentage if they ship which will help me with any hauls or small bills.)
The Normanic Vault 
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