Recently at the anime’s Japanese premiere event, Bleach voice actor Noriaki Sugiyama who voices Uryu Ishida shared that the massive cast of the series is causing recording delays for other anime works (via Anime News Network). Specifically, he mentioned that he has heard that during the recording days for Bleach, other productions aren’t able to get a hold of their voice actors.
In case you missed its announcement, Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War is an anime adaptation of the Bleach manga arc of the same name. It covers Volumes 55 to 74 of the manga and serves as the series’ conclusion. The original Bleach anime run was 366 episodes long and ran from October 2004 to March 2012. While the initial run had an ending, it was not a definitive conclusion as the story continued in the manga which ended in August 2016. Given that Bleach’s return is 10 years in the making, it makes sense that the show has a stacked cast of voice actors. These VAs include returning cast members such as Kentarou Itou, Show Hayami, Masakazu Morita, Romi Park, Yuki Matsuoka, Fumiko Orikasa, and Akio Ootsuka, among others. These voice actors are joined by new cast members, including Natsuki Hanae, Daiki Yamashita, Asami Seto, Yoshitsugu Matsuoka, Koichi Yamadera, KENN, and more.
When asked about Sugiyama’s story, cast members Morita and Orikasa (the voices of Ichigo and Rukia, respectively) confirmed that this was indeed the case. Morita even shared a story about how he went to other job sites where he experienced some staff complaining about the scheduling issues brought about by the massive Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War cast. These complaints came from several production companies, and even Morita’s manager. In response, Morita could only apologize. Thousand-Year Blood War is set to release in Japan on October 10, 2022, and it will be 4-cours in length. Ahead of its Japanese release, the anime will get a North American premiere at this year’s New York Comic-Con. Currently, there’s no word yet on where the series will be simulcast outside Japan. Though an announcement is expected by fans following its NYCC 2022 premiere. Hopefully, it gets a simulcast announcement soon as some fans are worried that it won’t get one at all.
