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Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War anime goes on 1 month hiatus as studio looks to improve animation quality ahead of climax
Fans have been waiting since 2016 to see the finale of Bleach animated, so a few more weeks won’t hurt.
NewsbyTrent Cannon, Senior Contributing writer
Published on Mon Sep 14 2026
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Fans have been waiting a very long time to see the final episodes of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War. However, they’ll have to wait a little longer for the grand finale, as the next two episodes of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War have been delayed by one month to help bring the animation quality up to the standard fans expect.
The announcement camethe same day that Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War Episode 48 aired. Citing a desire to “improve the quality as we approach the climax and deliver the series to everyone in the best possible way until the final episode,” the production committee has delayed Episodes 49 and 50 until midnight on October 20 and 27 in Japan. This also marks a change in timeslot, as previous episodes have aired on Saturdays rather than on Mondays.
While fans streaming Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War will have to wait over a month for the next episode, Japanese fans watching them air on TV will get a selected group of episodes that serve as a recap of the action so far. The upcoming broadcast schedule for Bleach is:
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September 19: Episode 7 “Born in the Dark”
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September 26: Episode 26 “Kill the King”
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October 5: Episode 46 “The End”
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October 12: Episode 48 “The End Two World”
While it hasn’t been confirmed how many episodes this season of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War will have, this delay likely pushes the eventual final episode of the series into November. Of course, fans have been waiting over a decade for the finale of the manga to be animated, so what’s another few weeks?
The next episode of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War has been delayed to October 20, 2026.
Each week, Popverse’s resident anime expert Trent Cannon runs down the latest and, dare we say “greatest,” in anime and manga in Popverse Jump. Some recent columns have included…
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Trent Cannon: Trent is a freelance writer who has been covering anime, video games, and pop culture for a decade. (He/Him)
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