Bleach: the new season and where things stand after episode 366

Have you watched the anime Bleach, and did you finish it? The first TV run stops at episode 366, on March 27, 2012, short of the manga's final arc. That arc is Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War, the season that premiered in 2022 and still has episodes 49 and 50 ahead.

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Information about Bleach

Synopsis: Ichigo Kurosaki is fifteen, and he can see ghosts and speak with them. He meets Rukia Kuchiki, a Shinigami, and finds out that his spiritual power is high enough to take on their work. Shinigami send souls to the Soul Society or to Hell, defeat Hollows and purify them, and keep the number of souls balanced between the worlds.

Details: Tite Kubo wrote and drew the manga for Weekly Shonen Jump. It ran from August 7, 2001 to August 22, 2016, and Shueisha collected it in 74 volumes. Studio Pierrot produced the TV series, which aired from October 5, 2004 to March 27, 2012, for 366 episodes.

Filler episodes of that first run: 33, 50, 64-108, 128-137, 147-149, 168-189, 204-205, 213-214, 228-266, 287, 298-299, 303-305, 311-341, and 355. Episodes 109 and 342 mix manga scenes with anime-original material, so they sit beside those blocks. Thousand-Year Blood War adapts the final manga arc, without those long anime-original stretches.

New season of Bleach

Episode 366, "Changing History, Unchanging Heart", ends Ichigo's fight with Ginjo, and Tsukishima's last attack comes in the same episode. That closes the Lost Agent arc. The manga continues from there into the Thousand-Year Blood War, the war between the Soul Reapers and the Quincies led by Yhwach.

For years the practical question was whether Bleach would get a new season at all. Studio Pierrot returned for that final arc. Tomohisa Taguchi directs it, Tite Kubo is credited as general supervisor, and the broadcast is split into four parts.

• The Blood Warfare: 13 episodes, from the TV Tokyo premiere on October 11, 2022 (announced as October 10 at 24:00) through December 27, 2022.
• The Separation: 13 episodes, from July 8 to September 30, 2023.
• The Conflict: 14 episodes, from October 5 to December 28, 2024.
• The Calamity: 10 episodes, premiering on July 25, 2026. Episodes 49 and 50 are the last two.

In the United States, VIZ Media streams the subtitled episodes on Hulu. Disney+ carries the subtitled stream internationally. The production moved episodes 49 and 50 so the climax could be finished at a higher quality. Subtitled episode 49 streams on Monday, October 19, 2026, and episode 50 on Monday, October 26, 2026, both at 8:30 a.m. Pacific on Hulu. The English dub of those two episodes is set for November 23 and November 30, 2026, at the same hour on Hulu.

Read the manga of the Bleach anime

You can follow the story past episode 366 in the manga. Volumes 55 to 74 collect the Thousand-Year Blood War, the arc the new anime is adapting. If you want that story on the page, open the manga at volume 55. The earlier volumes are what the first 366 episodes were drawing on.

A live-action film released in 2018 retells the beginning of Ichigo's story, separate from the episodes that continue after 366.

If episode 366 is behind you, the remaining TV story is those last two episodes of The Calamity, and volume 55 is there if you would rather read the war than wait for them. If you are still in the first run, the filler numbers above mark the long blocks that were made for television.