Look, we’re not trying to freak out anime fans here…but you might honestly have something to freak out about, ok? But let’s rewind a bit for those not in the full know. The “Holy Shonen Trinity” was a set of three manga that became three anime via their arrival in Shonen Jump, and they became some of the most popular stories around no matter the form they were in. One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach were their names, and fast forward to now, two of them are going on with their animes (either as the main series continues or as a sequel series). The odd duck out was Bleach, which had its anime canceled before its manga story was fully told. Thankfully, things were announced to finally be changing via Bleach Thousand Year Blood War.
This would tell the final stories of the manga (while also apparently revising some of what came before), and according to the manga’s creator, there would be no restrictions on it. Confused? Well, Bleach as a manga was known for its violence and gore. It wasn’t just monsters getting sliced up, it was people. So, Tite Kubo did an interview to note that things were going to go all out with the animation style this time around to really grab the danger and violence that this final set of stories were meant to show.
Fans were naturally very happy about that, especially given the visual styles and overall acclaim that some violent anime like Attack on Titan was getting. But now…there’s a potential roadblock. Via what? Well, via Disney+. Because some are reporting that the streaming service has gotten the streaming rights to Bleach Thousand Year Blood War.
Yep, and this isn’t the only person to post it to be clear, and though it’s not confirmed as a whole, this is why fans are worried, because as you all likely know, Disney as a whole isn’t the best when it comes to violence being shown on their platforms. In fact, the first M-rated content that they were willing to show was the Defenders-verse as they had finally gotten back the rights to the Netflix-first series, and there were issues with that at launch as well.
The other issue here is that Disney+ got the rights to another anime before this, and it’s region locked for reasons fans can’t understand. If this was to happen to Bleach…it would definitely cause an uproar.
It’d also be very odd due to how you’d have bet something like Crunchyroll would’ve gotten it first, but if it’s really Disney+, that’ll raise some eyebrows for sure.
Only time will tell, but you can very much hear the begging that Disney won’t censor anything if they do indeed get the anime.
Source: Twitter
