I was covering the Valorant Masters Tokyo tournament in Japan when I unknowingly stumbled upon the Bleach Thousand Year Blood War exhibition debut.
I couldn’t decide how long I wanted to extend my trip for, so I randomly picked a couple of extra days with no real plans. Like all weebs, I spent most of my time and money at Animate.
The first Animate I visited was in Akihabara, where I bought up Psycho Pass Providence merch. Seeing that I spent a bomb, the staff decided to include an Animate promotional booklet in my plastic bag, perhaps encouraging me to spend more.
I almost threw it away but decided to flip through it back in the hotel room. That was when I stumbled upon a half-page advertising the Bleach Thousand Year Blood War exhibition.
Having missed out on the Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man exhibitions earlier in the year, I was thrilled that I could finally attend my very first anime exhibition in Japan. Enthusiastically, I called up my fellow weeb friend living in Tokyo and together, we took the elevator to the eighth floor of the swanky new Animate building at Ikebukuro, its biggest outlet in Tokyo.
Warning: Major spoilers if you haven’t watched Bleach Thousand Year Blood War.
The Bleach Thousand Year Blood War exhibition totally exceeded my expectations
Called Space Galleria, an exhibition area within the Animate itself, we paid US$14 each to get a ticket on opening day, June 30.
Since we were incredibly early, there was hardly anyone else around, and we could take our time to soak in every panel.
A strong male figure, Yhwach, greeted us at the entrance with his grimacing smile. Don’t ask me why, but even the simple Bleach Thousand Year Blood War acrylic board got me exited.
Photo and video taking were restricted, so unfortunately I could not capture the scene between Yhwach and Aizen, which was cleverly staged such that it made you look left and right throughout the animated dialogue. Our emotions were also stirred when a recap of the animated series played, edited in black and white like a film noir, which was very stylish.
We then stepped into a blue-lighted walkway that recapped fight scenes in the first cour while the OST was playing, highlighting many of the invading Quincy at Soul Society. Naturally, Jugram Haschwalth caught my eye.
Whetting our appetite, we finally reached the main hall of the exhibition which contained many large panels to admire. In the middle, “KILL THE SHADOW” was spelled out. We couldn’t figure out why this phrase was chosen until we walked around and realized that it contained exactly 13 letters, each featuring a Gotei 13 captain with pained, poignant expressions.
Another wall was dedicated to Yamamoto’s battle with imposter Yhwach, reminding us of his tragic demise. I especially liked how the panel uses brush strokes to convey the power of these two characters, as well as hues of reds and blues to visually guide our eyes.
Every wall panel was worth staring at, but the real highlight of the main hall has got to be the original Gotei 13. They were never really fleshed out in the original manga, but thankfully for fans, Tite Kubo drew them out in detail in the anime.
We don’t even know some of their names, what more powers, but they sure look cool here.
The second hall showed stills of the Zero Squad as well as Ichigo’s origin story involving his Quincy mom and shinigami dad, which took on a completely different color palette. Clearly, I wasn’t very interested because I didn’t take any photos of those panels.
The most captivating wall in this section was Retsu Unohana and Kenpachi Zaraki’s… backs.
I like how the exhibition used a silhouette of them in action, and once again, color, to evoke emotion within a timeline. Stills of their first meeting are embedded within their future clashing of swords. Poetic, in more ways than one.
The end of the exhibition expectedly coincides with where the first cour of the anime left off — with Ichigo getting his new Shikai. The cutout of our beloved protagonist also includes Tite Kubo’s signature at the bottom, which was a nice touch.
A second display showed his two black swords in real life — solid bases for cosplayers to model after.
Perhaps the best part of the Bleach Thousand Year Blood War exhibition was saved for last. My friend and I absolutely adored this character wall, which printed outlines of each character’s (half) face and their names in English on an assigned color.
Orange for Ichigo, baby pink for Orihime, ice blue for Toushiro — like his bankai — mysterious purple for Lord Aizen, and a dark gray and white for Äs Nödt.
For the others, we weren’t too sure about their color choices. Why Byakuya is more white than Sakura pink, or why Shinji ended up leaf green, we’ll never know.
The most disappointing part? These character squares aren’t sold in the shop so we couldn’t take them home. Sad.
The Bleach Thousand Year Blood War exhibition runs from June 30 to July 31 at Animate Ikebukuro’s Space Galleria in Tokyo, and from September 1 to October 2, 2023 at Animate Osaka Nihonbashi Annex’s Space Gratus in Osaka.
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