It took a long time for Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War to come to Germany. Now you can stream the sequel and 366 episodes of the original anime on Disney+.
Update, 20 February 2023: Meanwhile, Disney+ has added German subtitles for the first 200 episodes of Bleach. When subtitles for further episodes as well as Thousand Year Blood War will be added and what the situation is regarding a German dubbed version has not yet been officially announced.
Here’s the original news:
Besides Naruto and One Piece, Bleach is also one of the Big Three: the three most popular manga and anime in the mid-2000s. The original anime is now being continued with the sequel Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War, giving it a well-deserved conclusion after an 11-year break.
Disney+ kept Bleach fans waiting for a long time. Four months after its launch in Japan, Thousand Year Blood War is finally available in Germany. You can now stream the first season with 13 episodes on Disney+. And not only that: the streamer has also added all 366 episodes of the first Bleach series to its programme. But there’s a catch.
Finally on Disney+: Bleach continues after 11 years
Based on Tite Kubo’s long-running Mange series, the anime series Bleach tells the story of teenager Ichigo Kurosaki, who is drawn into a supernatural conflict between death gods called Shinigami and soul-eating spirits called Hollow. From this, an epic story unfolds, which was brought to a conclusion in the manga in 2016. The anime adaptation originally ran from 2004 to 2012 for a total of 366 episodes.
Watch the trailer for Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War here
Despite Bleach’s monumental length, the series was unable to carry the manga through to its conclusion. After many years of uncertainty, the redemptive message finally came: a sequel anime will also adapt the last major story arc of the manga template in 52 episodes (4 seasons).
In Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War, the mysterious group of the Wandenreich invades Soul Society and the centuries-old conflict between Shinigami and Quincy escalates into a devastating war.
Damper for anime fans: Bleach is not (yet) available in German
Thousand Year Blood War boasts a 9.1 rating on IMDB, so anime fans are right to be euphoric about the launch of the first 13 episodes of the new Bleach series on Disney+. If there weren’t a small problem.
Unfortunately, all 379 episodes of Bleach and Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War are not available in German. On Disney+, you can only watch the two series in the original Japanese with English subtitles or with an English dubbed version.
Those who want to watch Bleach in German or in the original with German subtitles will be disappointed for the time being. It is not yet known whether a subtitle option or even a dubbed version will be released in the near future.
However, a complete release of Bleach in German is not possible at the moment. So far there is only a dubbed version for 205 of the 366 episodes of the original series. These have been released on DVD and Blu-ray.
