User blog comment:Lemursrule/BLEACH 310 Review: S.O.U.L (sorry on unacceptable lateness)/@comment-1351982-20110225203048

On an unrelated note, I found out why Bleach is cropped to 4:3 on AS. Apparently a fan a few weeks ago asked on Facebook about it.

Question: Bleach episode 190 came out last night on Adult Swim and i'm sure that u guys know that in japan episode 190 is the first episode broadcast in 16:9 format but yet when I watched it last night it had been cropped to 4:3. Why was episode 190 cropped to 4:3 when it should have been 16:9 HD widescreen???

And Viz replied: Thanks for watching, and good eye! Currently Cartoon Network/Adult Swim doesn't accept the Japanese broadcast format(16:9), so we deliver the 4:3 version to Cartoon Network. *sigh*

The actual case is likely that AS does not want to pay for the HD broadcast fee and the SD broadcast fee (very pricy) so this gives me the indication it will be in widescreen on dvd, and I am going to email Viz later about the possibility of blu-ray. The reason FMA Brotherhood is in widescreen is because it was not actually made in HD, Bones pulled a fast one and made it in SD and upscaled it to HD for broadcast and blu-ray releases. Studio Pierrot is one of the few animation studios that makes and broadcast in HD for all of their current productions.