Anime

The anime adaptation of Tite Kubo's Bleach manga was produced by Studio Pierrot and directed by Noriyuki Abe, featuring music arranged by Shirō Sagisu. It began broadcasting in Japan on October 5, 2004, on TV Tokyo. It ceased broadcasting on March 27, 2012. A total of 366 episodes were aired before the anime concluded.

Content
The anime version of the story generally follows the manga quite closely, but diverges in some important aspects: in particular, seasons 4 and 5 (Bount arc), season 8 (The New Captain Shūsuke Amagai arc), season 12 and 13 (Zanpakutō Unknown Tales arc and Beast Swords arc) and season 15 (Gotei 13 Invading Army arc) are anime-only arcs, not written by Tite Kubo. Commonly called "filler" episodes, these anime-only arcs were necessitated by the anime's approximately weekly production schedule outpacing the manga, as the manga chapters need to be published before manga-based content can be animated. Roughly, each episode of the anime covers the equivalent of two to four chapters of the manga.

In addition to the regular series, the anime also comprises four movies and two OVAs.

Production
Episodes 1-167 were made and broadcast in 4:3, with episodes 168+ made and broadcast in 16:9 wide screen. The latter episodes of the anime were simulcast on Crunchyroll, and the English dubbed version aired on Adult Swim. The anime is still available on Crunchyroll as part of their archived library.


 * Production Studio: Studio Pierrot
 * TV Network: TV Tokyo


 * Director: Noriyuki Abe
 * Music: Shirō Sagisu
 * Character Designer: Masashi Kudo
 * Art Supervisor: Takagi Satoko
 * Colour Supervisor: Ueki Hideo
 * Writers: Masashi Sogo, Kento Shimoyama, Tsuyoshi Kida, Natsuko Takahashi, Michiko Yokote, Masahiro Ōkubo