Bleach Watch Order: Original Series to Thousand-Year Blood War, in order
“One long original run, four Thousand-Year Blood War parts, and three movies you can take or leave.”
Bleach doesn't really have a complicated watch order, it has a long one. The original run is 366 episodes released as a single continuous show from 2004 to 2012, and then, after a ten-year wait, Thousand-Year Blood War picked the story back up and finally finished it. That's the whole shape of it.
Watch the original series first, straight through. It covers the Soul Society arc, the Arrancar war, and everything up to the point where Tite Kubo's manga was still being written faster than the anime could adapt it, which is why the show eventually had to stop mid-story instead of ending properly.
The movies here (Memories of Nobody, Fade to Black, and Hell Verse) are standalone side stories built around original villains who never show up in the manga. None of them are required. Watch them if you want more Ichigo and company between arcs, skip them if you're only here for the main plot.
Then comes Thousand-Year Blood War, and this is the part people actually search for. Studio Pierrot didn't release it as one season, they split it into four separate cours across four years: the first part in 2022, The Separation in 2023, The Conflict in 2024, and The Calamity, which is airing right now as of this writing. Watch them in that order, right after the original series' ending, since Blood War picks up directly from where 2012 left off with nothing recapped beyond the one dedicated clip special.
The handful of specials and OVAs scattered through the list (Memories in the Rain, the Rukia's Rescue special, Sealed Sword Frenzy, the Karaburi short, and the Gotei 13 omake) are comedy bits and bonus footage from the original run's DVD releases. Fun if you're deep into the cast, invisible if you skip past them.
At the end, it's really two shows and three bonus movies: the original 2004 series, then Thousand-Year Blood War's four parts, and everything else is a detour you can take or leave.
Strat from here
The route
a short prologue tying into the first movie, released just before the TV series began.
a clip-based TV special.
a side-story special built around an original villain, non-canon.
Standalone side story built around an original villain, not required for the main plot.
Standalone side story, not required for the main plot.
Standalone side story, It's not important, but if you want you can skip it.
a clip-recap of the previous cource, useful only as a refresher.
That's the whole route, captain.
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