Bleach Censored Its Anime More Than Fans Realized

Bleach may have concluded in both anime and manga, but fans are still looking over the series to see if any new piece of information can be found. The story of Ichigo Kurosaki, a young high school delinquent who finds himself in the world of reapers and hollows, had a long popular run as a Shonen series, but unfortunately ended in 2012. While a spin-off series that explored a different part of the world was released titled “Burn The Witch“, Bleach fans are still waiting to see if the franchise will make a comeback. During that wait, one Reddit User found an interesting tidbit when comparing the manga series to its anime counterpart.

Reddit User F_Water displayed two scenes from the manga that portrayed the characters of Rangiku and Hiyori being injured just a tad more than the anime had originally portrayed:

In the anime itself, characters tended to mostly receive sword slashes that were externally non-lethal, with many fan favorites managing to escape from what should have been ghastly ends. Clearly, while these scenes aren’t particularly gory, they don’t leave much to the imagination in terms of the damage that was inflicted to both female characters here.

Ichigo and company made a return recently with the live action Netflix series, but much like the anime, blood and guts were few and far between when it came down the Soul Society fighting with the Hollows, or amongst themselves. Whether or not we’ll see an entirely new interpretation of the series remade in animated format is still anyone’s guess, but it should be interesting to see if they take a page from the manga in terms of more adult content.

What do you think of the censorship seen in Bleach’s anime? Would you like to see Bleach return in an animated format at some point in the future? Let us know in the comments or feel free to hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics and anime.

Bleach was first created by Tite Kubo for Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump, running from 2001 to 2016. The series follows the young delinquent Ichigo Kurosaki, who has the ability to see spirits. He soon obtains the power of a Soul Reaper – one meant to usher lost souls to the afterlife – and now has the duty to defend the living world from monstrous dark spirits known as Hollows.

It has been adapted into English thanks to VIZ Media, and has sold over 900 million copies in Japan. The series was later adapted into an anime by Studio Pierrot from 2004 to 2012, and has four feature-length animations, rock musicals, video games, and a ton of other merchandise. You can currently find the series now streaming on Hulu. There’s also a live-action adaptation on Netflix.