Taguchi Says Bleach TYBW Episode 45 Took Over A Year To Produce
Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War Episode 45 stayed in active production for more than a year, director Tomohisa Taguchi wrote on X after the fourth cour, The Calamity, finished airing.
1 source 22m ago
Reporting from 1 source: Animehunch.
Why it matters
Taguchi's own accounting puts a number on what a single high-priority episode costs in time and drawings, and it comes as the final cour hands Studio Pierrot's production assistance work to Studio KAI for the episode's heaviest character acting.
Key Facts
- Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War Episode 45 was in active production for over a year, according to director Tomohisa Taguchi.
- Episode 45 used approximately 23,000 in-between animation drawings, matching the series finale as the most drawing-intensive episode.
- Taguchi directed, wrote, and storyboarded Episode 45 himself.
- Studio KAI provided production assistance on the episode, with Takahito Katayama as one of its animation directors.
- The episode centers on the battle at Wahrwelt between Ichigo Kurosaki and Yhwach.
The episode used about 23,000 in-between drawings, matching the finale as the adaptation's most drawing-heavy episode, against the 3,000 to 5,000 typical of a weekly TV anime. Taguchi directed, wrote, and storyboarded it himself.
Taguchi wrote on X that the production period spanned more than a year, and that the hardest problem was deciding how carefully the episode could be built inside that window. Complex 3D CGI and compositing sat alongside the 2D volume, which he placed near the very top of all episodes through 45. The episode is mostly anime-original material, set at Wahrwelt where Ichigo Kurosaki faces Yhwach. It introduces Blood Chain Ichigo, a form designed and named by Tite Kubo, and closes on Orihime's attempt to reject herself and Yhwach from reality, with the title card shifting from DEFEND YOU to LIFE TO DEFEND YOU under an acoustic take on Rasen by 9lana.
Written with AI by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited. See our editorial policy.
Add Yomimono as a preferred source on Google