English Dub Review: Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War “A” “KILL THE KING” ;“THE DARK ARM” ;“THE BETRAYER”

Overview:

The battle between Squad Zero and Yhwach’s Royal Guards for the Soul King rages on.

Ichigo and his friends hurry to the Reio Greater Palace to stop Yhwach.

Ichigo tries to remove the impaled sword from the Soul King and save his life.

Ukitake takes the place of the slain Soul King by releasing the power of Mimihagi.

Our Take:

I was beginning to wonder when we would get the premiere of part three of Bleach but I didn’t expect this. We got four episodes off the bat, I don’t know if they plan on releasing it in multi-episode blocks but I wouldn’t be too upset because I missed this show. I’m a little spoiled because I didn’t get into this series until 2021 and I’m pretty sure it was already announced that it would be coming back, I didn’t have to wait ten or more years like other people.

One benefit of the ten-year gap is that animation has come a long way, and I love seeing these characters with a fresh coat of paint. Something that isn’t much of a benefit is that a lot of the voice talent hasn’t reprised their roles. Don’t get me wrong; I love Aleks Le, and he does a great job, but I miss hearing Liam O’Brien as Ukitake.

We also got the long-awaited fight between Ichigo and Uryu, and it was about as sad to watch as you would think. I hate seeing friends fight and I’m still holding out hope that Uryu has some big plan and will be on Ichigo’s side at the end of it all but it’s starting to feel like that might not be the case. Uryu also seemed surprised about something when he attacked Ichigo, perhaps he didn’t know that Ichigo has Quincy blood as well.