Bleach Creator Teases Major Surprise for Anime’s Final Season

Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War is going to be making its return for its final season of episodes later this Summer, and the creator behind it all is teasing a major surprise for fans with the anime’s grand finale. Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War is returning for its fourth and final wave of episodes, and fans have been curious to see how the anime is going to be tackling the final few chapters of Tite Kubo’s original manga. Because what we’ve seen thus far, the anime is not afraid of adding new materials or scenes that were not in the manga’s version of the story.

Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War Part 4 – The Calamity will also be featuring Tite Kubo helping out with the anime’s production much like seen in the previous three parts, and Kubo shared a special message with fans as part of his Klub Outside group. Teasing work that he’s doing on one of the episodes coming in this final season, Kubo also teased the debut of a brand new character that was never seen in the manga’s version of the grand finale.

Bleach Creator Teases New Character for Final Season

“Right now I’m doing a bit of character design work for the final episode of the Bleach Anime!!,” Kubo teased. “When you see it, I want you to think, ‘Hey — this guy wasn’t in the manga, was he..?!’.” This message does come with a lot of theories behind it as not only are fans wondering whether Kubo means this new character is actually going to appear in the final episode, or whether or not they will play some kind of crucial role in the final season. But the bigger question is whether or not this is a new character coming to the anime entirely.

Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War‘s previous parts have seen adjustments to their events as Kubo has thought to flesh out some of the final arc in different ways, and that’s included canonical materials from the side novels and other releases that weren’t seen in the manga. It’s the same kind of situation here as this new character might just be someone from the side novels coming to the anime. Or if we’re lucky, it could be someone brand new altogether that fans are surprised by. We’ll just have to see how it develops.

When Does Bleach’s Final Season Come Out?

Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War Part 4 – The Calamity will be making its premiere in Japan sometime this July as part of the Summer 2026 anime schedule, but a concrete release date has yet to be announced as of the time of this writing. The anime has been licensed for a release in the United States by Viz Media, so it’s likely that it will be streaming with Hulu (and Hulu on Disney+) when it premieres in Japan. But that has yet to be fully confirmed as of this time.

You’ll want to make sure you catch up with everything that has been released thus far because Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War is not only going to end the new anime for this final arc, but it’s capping off an anime experience that fans have been waiting to see end for two decades at this point. It’s going to be a big deal.

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