Anime

Studio Pierrot handled production of the Bleach television series, with Noriyuki Abe directing, Shirō Sagisu arranging the score, and Masashi Kudo designing the characters. The show first aired in Japan on TV Tokyo beginning October 5, 2004, and its opening incarnation wrapped on March 27, 2012 after a run of 366 episodes. For the most part the adaptation follows the source manga faithfully, but at several points it veers off into original storylines.

Since the weekly broadcast pace kept overtaking the still-running manga, whole original arcs were invented to keep from colliding with chapters not yet in print. Fans usually label these the filler episodes, and they include the Bount, New Captain Shūsuke Amagai, Zanpakutō Unknown Tales, Beast Swords, and Gotei 13 Invading Army arcs, none of them from Kubo's pen. A typical episode adapts somewhere between two and four manga chapters, and most close on a brief omake, most often the Shinigami Illustrated Picture Book.

Outside the core show, the property spawned four theatrical movies and two OVAs. Following a lengthy pause, word came in 2020 that the manga's closing arc would at last be animated, and Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War arrived on October 11, 2022, directed and scripted by Tomohisa Taguchi, once more at Studio Pierrot with Sagisu back on music.

Running from October 5, 2004 to March 27, 2012, the first anime reached 366 installments. The earliest 167 episodes were produced in a 4:3 frame, while everything from 168 onward switched to 16:9 widescreen. Crunchyroll simulcast the later episodes, and the English dub found a home on Adult Swim. Word of the Thousand-Year Blood War revival came in 2020, and that continuation premiered on October 11, 2022.

Viewers can stream the series across Hulu, Disney+, Apple TV, and Prime Video, though Hulu's cut of the original run drops the end-of-episode omakes. Masashi Sogo served as head writer over a rotating staff; the writing rotation also drew in Michiko Yokote, Natsuko Takahashi, Tsuyoshi Kida, Kento Shimoyama, and Masahiro Ōkubo. In the Japanese track Masakazu Morita voices Ichigo Kurosaki, a role Johnny Yong Bosch carries throughout the English dub.