Bleach Season 17: Release Date, Trailer, Plot, Cast and More

Bleach, the manga, debuted in 2001 and 20 years after its debut, Tite Kubo returned with a one-shot manga chapter (that leaves space for a new manga arc) and an even bigger piece of news – after 10 years, Bleach will finally adapt the final manga arc and give the anime its proper conclusion in the season 17 of Bleach.

Season 17 of the anime Bleach was initially announced to air in 2021, but it was ultimately delayed to 2022, with the show’s premiere scheduled for an October 10, 2022 release date. The anime will finally adapt the Thousand-Year Blood War arc, thus giving the series a proper conclusion 10 years after 2012’s disappointing cancellation.

The rest of this article is going to bring you all the known and unknown information related to the 17th season of Bleach. You’re going to find out about its release date, whether there is a trailer, what the story will be about, and much more about one of the “Big Three” anime, whose return we cannot wait to see.

Bleach Season 17 release date

The first episode of Bleach premiered on October 5, 2004 in Japan. It used the old 4:3 ratio and despite Pierrot’s rather shaky animation, the show became an absolute hit, as fans loved the darker approach when compared to Naruto and One Piece. Kubo’s manga was among the most popular at the time and although it took a while before Bleach built its story, it eventually became far superior to most other anime series.

The adaptation went smoothly for the most part, with the exception of a large(r) number of filler episodes scattered throughout the series, as well as four filler seasons, which distracted fans from the main plot. The fillers were inserted because the anime came too close to the manga in terms of plot, so the producers had to give Kubo more time to write before actually adapting it. The structure of the series is as follows:

The original airing amounted to a total of 366 episodes and while everyone expected the anime to continue, Bleach was simply canceled.

It is assumed that Bleach was canceled because the production costs became too high, while the anime itself was too close to the manga so the producers had to either make another filler arc, which wasn’t profitable, or wait for Kubo to finish, and the waiting ultimately led to the anime’s cancellation, which was as a shame, as the final arc was on the same level as the Aizen arc that was the core of the original anime.

But, in early March 2020, a 20th Anniversary Bleach Project was announced, which was revealed later that same month.

Kubo released a new manga chapter detailing the events in the world of Bleach after the manga’s final arc, a new spin-off manga Burn the Witch (which would, in the meantime, receive an anime adaptation), and – the return of the original Bleach anime series!

This news excited a lot of fans, as it was now officially confirmed that the manga’s final arc would be getting a proper anime treatment.

The show was initially scheduled for a 2021 release, but that never happened, probably due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but maybe also because the producers wanted to make the adaptation perfect.

Now, for a while, we did not have any proper news about the release date of Season 17 of Bleach, until the December 2021 Jump Fest panel confirmed, officially, that Bleach would return to the screens in October 2022, for the Fall 2022 season, which is always the best season for anime series:

The news was unofficially leaked on Twitter a couple of days before we got an official confirmation:

On September 11, 2022, it was finally confirmed that Bleach would be coming back on October 10, 2022.

Bleach Season 17 trailer

When the initial 20th Anniversary Project was announced, we actually got a teaser trailer that confirmed the 17th season would be adapted. You can check the teaser for yourselves:

Now, this teaser did not reveal a lot, but it did confirm that the Quincy War saga would ultimately get adapted, revealing a collage of images from the manga that we would be seeing on the screen. The release date was announced for 2021, but as we have explained above, that has shifted to 2022.

Now, since then, no new information has been released until December 2021’s Jump Fest, when we got to see more information.

Jump Fest, as was announced, revealed several new pieces of information about the upcoming season, including the release date, but it also included another teaser trailer with a lot of new visuals related to the new season of Bleach. You can check the awesome trailer for yourselves:

A second trailer, highlighting even more new characters and with a lot of additional scenes, was released on July 3, 2022.

A final trailer was released on September 11, 2022, revealing even more footage from the upcoming episodes, as well as confirming the October 10, 2022 release date. You can check it out here:

Bleach Season 17 plot

As we know, season 17 of Bleach is going to adapt the Quincy Blood War arc. We’re just going to give you an introduction to the whole arc, trying not to spoil that much about the bloody events that happen in it.

Yhwach first appears when Luders Friegen returns to Silbern, the base of the Vandenreich. He sees Luders arguing with Asguiaro Ebern, which makes him angry. He, therefore, declares that he hates conflict and cuts Luders’ arm as punishment for arguing, which results in him falling to the ground in great pain.

Luders having difficulty getting up, Yhwach allows him to speak to him while lying down. Only, he will cut off his legs since he does not need them. He then kneels in a hurry and Yhwach questions him wryly about his estimate of the five days of preparation necessary for the war against Soul Society.

He laughs at him, even asking if he is a prophet but the latter refutes this title, which therefore prompts Yhwach to ask him why he had told him about the future when he only wanted to know what was happening. at the moment before completing it. He then focuses on Ebern. Yhwach admits he has no reason to praise or blame him, as he has effectively delayed Ichigo Kurosaki.

He, therefore, says that his role is over and that the latter will be one of the stones of the building of peace in his death and then kills him. Jugram Haschwalth then asks Yhwach if it is okay to kill the Arrancar as he is a soldier who can fight.

Ignoring this remark, Yhwach climbs the stairs that have just formed in a chamber behind his throne and claims that he can acquire as many Arrancars as they want thanks to the Hueco Mundo since he is under their control given that they keep Tia Halibel prisoner.

They then discuss Ebern’s locket that was used without successfully sealing Ichigo’s Bankai. Yhwach admits that “hotheads” sometimes come in handy and that a special plan will be needed to ward off Ichigo. He orders Haschwalth to ask the Jagdarmee to bring back Arrancars with guts.

Later, when he learns that a fight between Ichigo and Quilge Opie is underway, he knows this is the perfect opportunity to invade Soul Society and then summons all the Stern Ritters to invade the Seireitei.

Bleach Season 17 cast

Now, the Quincy War arc introduced a lot of new characters into the franchise, so expect to hear some new voices when the season finally hits the screen. Also, a lot of characters die in this arc, so expect to hear some of the voices for the last time.

As far as the actors are confirmed, we still don’t know who will return and who will not, but we assume that Masakazu Morita (Ichigo Kurosaki), Fumiko Orikasa (Rukia Kuchiki), and Ryotaro Okiayu (Byakuya Kuchiki) will reprise their roles, since they all appeared during the presentation of the 20th Anniversary Project back in March 2020.

The official cast list, including some new faces that are going to have their debut in Season 17, was revealed in December 2021, as part of Jump Fest‘s presentation, when we got to see all of the main cast members for season 17; additional names were revealed in Summer 2022, several months before the anime’s premiere. The currently known cast members are:

This is, of course, not the whole cast list and more names are to appear throughout the series but we’re glad that our initial expectations related to the cast were correct, as we assumed that all of the original cast members would return (save for Tsukada, Yamamoto’s original voice actor, who died in 2014).

Who will animate Bleach Season 17?

Initially, there was no official information on the studio that is going to animate Bleach season 17. We do know that the season is not going to be censored, and knowing how violent the manga was, we know that there will be a lot of gore and raw content in the show’s new season.

Some leaks suggest that MAPPA will be taking over the animation from Pierrot, who animated the original anime, but until we get an official confirmation, we’ll just have to wait and see. Pierrot’s initial animation was somewhat problematic, but as the original run approached its end, the animation became truly great and we don’t really see why they’d change the animators.

The official confirmation came in December 2021, when the Jump Fest event officially revealed that Studio Pierrot would animate the Thousand-Year Blood War arc, which made us here at Fiction Horizon really happy.

Tomohisa Taguchi (Twin Star Exorcists, Kino’s Journey – The Beautiful World, Akudama Drive) is replacing Noriyuki Abe to direct the anime at Studio Pierrot.

Masashi Kudo is returning as the character designer, and Shiro Sagisu is returning to composing the music. Sagisu’s return also made us very happy, as his work on the original series produced some truly memorable compositions.

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