Bleach: Project Hogyoku (2024) - redefinition of the original anime

Bleach: Project Hogyoku is a fan edit of the original Bleach anime adapting the first 54 volumes of the manga in one episode each. This edit tries to stay as faithful to the canon material of Bleach as possible by removing any filler and references to filler within canon story arcs, while keeping canon anime-exclusive scenes and episodes such as the Forest of Menos and Harribel’s backstory intact. The “memories in the rain” episode, which was originally full of filler has been replaced with the OVA version that is more faithful to the manga. Certain episodes have also been rearranged to both better reflect the order of events in the manga and improve the flow of the story, particularly during episodes that cut back and forth between multiple fights. Audio edits are also made, such as with Nelliel’s adult voice and making some music tracks flow better between scenes. Each episode includes an opening and ending theme taken from the original anime and cuts out any recaps, omakes, title cards, commercial bumpers, and “to be continued” screens. In total, Project Hogyoku includes 11/15 openings and 21/30 endings.

Inspired by the Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War anime, Tite Kubo’s volume poems and title cards are used in Project Hogyoku. The poems and title cards are taken from the official Viz Media English translation of the Bleach manga. Rather than being placed at the end of each episode like with the Thousand-Year Blood War anime, they are usually placed near the beginning of each episode. However, the position of the title card varies with the episode and where I thought would be best to put it.