Usually when you think ‘Disney Plus’ one of the last things you would associate that with is anime. But the company’s desperation to increase subscriber numbers means they will branch out to as many different avenues as possible.
One business move that has many people scratching their heads is the company acquiring the North American streaming rights to the upcoming Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War series; The long awaited follow up to the popular Bleach series that ended ten years prior.
One of the anime community’s biggest concerns over this business venture is the issue over simulcasting. Many have worried that Disney Plus will forgo releasing the episodes the same day they release in Japan, something that services like Crunchyroll have been known to do.
It is believed that Disney will either release episodes weeks after their Japanese release or will wait until all 60 episodes air then release them in bulk.
But according to the popular Bleach YouTube fan channel @JaymesHanson the series will not be simulcast on Disney Plus; At least according to some of his sources:
Well… here goes…
— JaymesHanson (@JaymesHanson) August 30, 2022
From 2 sources.
Bleach will not be Simulcast.
This will be a major issue for the series as the issue of piracy is rampant across the anime industry. Why? Because of the lack of availability. Licensing and business deals outside Japan leave many shows, films and manga series unavailable in certain parts of the world.
With Bleach fans not having access to the series when it officially releases in Japan they aren’t going to subscribe to a service they already had no interest in the first place. Instead they are going to go all Pirates of the Caribbean and watch the show through “other means”.
Bleach fans been waiting a decade to see their series have a finale. Other shows like One Piece, Naruto and Dragon Ball have had a constant stream of content over the decade while they are starved for new episodes; So you bet they’ll do what they can to watch the first episode when it drops.
Source: animesenpai.net
Pirates & Princesses (PNP) is an independent, opinionated fan-powered news blog that covers Disney and Universal Theme Parks, Themed Entertainment and related Pop Culture from a consumer's point of view. Opinions expressed by our contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of PNP, its editors, affiliates, sponsors or advertisers. PNP is an unofficial news source and has no connection to The Walt Disney Company, NBCUniversal or any other company that we may cover.