Bleach is taking on Demon Slayer and Chainsaw Man in US theaters

Can legacy alone push Bleach into Demon Slayer territory at the box office?

Bleach is coming to the big screen. Announced earlier this week, the first three episodes of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War — The Calamity are slated to premiere in U.S. cinemas, inviting everyone to experience the very beginning of Bleach’s final arc on the biggest screen possible. It’s an exciting proposition for long-time fans of the series, but is it exciting enough to give Demon Slayer a run for its money?

Let’s not forget, Bleach is among the early “big three” of manga, a set of Shonen Jump properties that earned cultural dominance in the 2000s. Surely rubbing shoulders with the likes of One Piece and Naruto should give Bleach enough staying power to challenge relative newcomers like Chainsaw Man and Demon Slayer in theaters, but it’s hard to say.

The original run of the Bleach anime culminated with episode 366 after 16 seasons, before it could adapt the final arc of Tite Kubo's manga. However, the series made a surprising return in 2022 with Thousand-Year Blood War, which picked up right where the story left off, with a modern look and stellar production values. Bleach already had a fairly large following before the new arc dropped, but Thousand-Year Blood War pushed it into the stratosphere with critical and commercial acclaim — it’s still among the highest-rated anime series of all time on IMDb.

The four-part anime series is coming to a close with the release of The Calamity this summer, and its debut in theaters may prove a major event given the staggering hype behind the arc’s culmination. However, Bleach is facing a pretty high benchmark. In North America, Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle grossed $131 million, while Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc made $43 million, which are mind-blowing numbers for anime films.

Bleach has an impressive legacy in anime, and its audience is far larger now than it was in the 2000s. The new series alone reportedly raked in 62 million hours of watch time on Hulu, according to Variety. If there is anyone who can put current cultural hits like Demon Slayer and Chainsaw Man in their place, it’s Ichigo Kurosaki.

Ichigo, the main character of the series, is what makes Thousand-Year Blood War stand strong against newer rivals. The shonen series is a lot less ensemble-coded, offering a more identity-driven approach by focusing on Ichigo and his strife against Yhwach, the father of all Quincy. The narrative also feels complex due to its fragmented storytelling, which is currently building toward a decades-in-the-making climax with the Soul Reapers on one side and the Quincy on the other. How could you not want to experience that on the largest screen possible?

However, capturing a theatrical audience might be harder when it’s just a set of episodes versus a full-length film. Both Infinity Castle and Reze Arc felt like cultural events, whereas The Calamity isn’t the full story. Its release in theaters feels much closer to Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution, which was a theatrical compilation of season 2 plus the first two episodes of season 3. The "film" reportedly made around $16 million in North America, which is paltry when compared to the box office numbers mentioned above, and shows that TV episodes don’t often translate well to the cinema.

We’ll have to wait and see if nostalgia can beat star power. Given that Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War – The Calamity is set to include new and revised material, anticipation is at a fever pitch, raising the question of whether longtime investment can convert into the kind of turnout modern anime blockbusters now demand.