After 24 years, Bleach is officially entering its final era

When Tite Kubo’s Bleach first arrived in the early 2000s, it anchored the shonen boom. As one-third of the legendary “Big Three” alongside Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto and Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece, it helped define an era of supernatural action storytelling, even though Bleach had a slightly different tone than its peers. It was always less concerned with the linear, “train-to-get-stronger” hero’s journey popularized by Dragon Ball Z, leaning instead into a moody, punk-rock aesthetic and focusing on the strange weight of duty that comes with death itself.