For almost a decade, everything was pretty quiet on the front of Bleach, but now one of the former big three manga is back in full force — and its spiritual pressure may be a bit overwhelming.
With the return of the Thousand-Year Blood War anime, Bandai Namco also dropped the official opening movie for Bleach Rebirth of Souls while Studio Pierrot also released a special 20th anniversary trailer for the show.
The 3D fighter’s opening goes for all the style points you could imagine for Bleach by cutting out most colors except for those that represent the protagonist, Ichigo Kurosaki, with black, white and orange that gives cool and almost eerie tone to the video.
Fans are treated to some simple yet slick transitions between the main cast in a way that’s almost reminiscent of the anime’s first opening Asterisk (including the rotating camera shots) mixed with the character cards from the TYBW.
There is something else that certainly stands out, however, and that’s the music featured in it.
We thought we were maybe hearing things at first, but others pointed out the same thing about the opening.
The song’s opening and chorus sound pretty darn close to Linkin Park’s New Divide (with maybe some What I’ve Done) mixed in there too in a way that’ll definitely turn the heads of the band’s fans.
We currently don’t know the song title or artist behind the opening track here, so it’s unclear if this was perhaps an intentional homage or just a coincidence.
At the same time, it does take us back to the good old days of Linkin Park AMVs (anime music videos), so that’s another part of the nostalgia trip that is today.
Bleach’s animation studio also celebrated this occasion with a 20th anniversary trailer for the anime where they quickly recreate a bunch of the franchise’s most iconic shots and scenes in the new TYBW art style.
Our only gripe is it only lasts about a minute, and this doesn’t seem to indicate that Bleach is getting a full-on anime remake like The One Piece that fans have been clamoring for.
But it’s still pretty darn cool to see.
From what they’ve shown off so far, Bleach’s first console game since 2011 appears to only focus on the initial three or so story arcs between the Substitute Soul Reaper, Soul Society and Arrancar plots, which means we’ve seen nothing really of the Fullbringers or Thousand-Year Blood War content.
Rebirth of Souls is being developed by Tamsoft, who also created the Battle Arena Toshinden games, and seems as though it may be more than just your typical anime arena fighter — but that’s something we’ll go further into soon.
Bleach Rebirth of Souls is currently slated to release in early 2025 for the PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S and PC while the Cour 3 of the Thousand-Year Blood War arc is now airing.
You can check out the new game opening as well as the 20th anniversary trailer below.
Banner image via Linkin Park – New Divide.