FOLLOWING the explosive, black ink-blotted finale to Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War’s (TYBW) second cour (season) in 2023, the anime’s latest instalment continues the escalation of events. Principally, the main villain of the series, Yhwach reversing Ichibe Hyosube’s killing blow and the former’s Schutzstaffel cohorts overwhelm the remaining Squad Zero members.
The final stage for this season and the undated final season is now set, with Yhwach breaching the Soul Palace and turning it into Wahrwelt, a new stronghold from which he would recreate all three worlds with him as a god.
A lot takes place in this season, subtitled The Conflict, but this penultimate series of events is much more contained than the previous two seasons. Instead of the constant back-and-forth between the human, the Soul Society and Hueco Mundo worlds, everything is mostly set in Wahrwelt, with a few exceptions such as the flashbacks.
It is also much easier to follow, as the protagonists and other main characters are split into small groups with their own “paths” to take as they attempt to reach Yhwach. As the anime is adapted verbatim from creator Tite Kubo’s manga, everything is streamlined.
Each episode has no lull nor are there pacing issues as plotting follows a rather rigid formula of groups finding their way around Wahrwelt, them coming across one of the Schutzstaffel members, a lengthy fight ensues, the group initially wins but then the latter pulls a reverse Uno card to become a bigger threat.
It is certainly formulaic but the animation by Pierrot Films is at such a high quality that it is impossible to notice an otherwise minor problem. The art direction, action sequences and even the sound production is impeccable, like the two episode-long fight between Shunsui Kyoraku and Lille Barro.
If a complaint is to be made, it is likely how the main protagonist Ichigo Kurosaki does very little or has limited screen time this season, especially compared with how much the previous seasons and the series as a whole has always been about him.
Even this criticism is negligible as The Conflict is something of an impressive balancing act in between progressing the main conflict and side conflicts while expanding certain parts of the story, particularly the lore and character backstories.
At the same time, Tite Kubo’s heavy involvement in the anime’s production means this creative choice is intentional, with Kubo even expanding aspects that were either not present or had little development in his original source material.
With two of the powerful Schutzstaffel members defeated, the next season will see the final showdown between the surviving main characters and Gerard Valkyrie, Askin Nakk Le Vaar, Jugram Haschwalth and Ychwach himself.
The final season, which will wrap a combined 20-year long anime, is speculated to premiere either at the end of the year or early next year.
Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War is streaming on Netflix.
