In the 2000's, few franchises were as large as Bleach in anime. It made up one of the three biggest franchises in Weekly Shonen Jump for over a decade, and even when it ended it was still more popular than tons of other anime and manga, even if it never quite hit the heights of the Soul Society arc.
Along those lines, the Bleach films were also incredibly popular for a time, with studio Toho putting out a new one every year several years in a row. Though there's only four of them, anyone looking to marathon the franchise before Bleach makes its return might want to learn when each film came out, and what episodes they should watch them after.
4 Bleach: Memories of Nobody
Memories of Nobody premiered in December 2006. It’s directed by Noriyuki Abe, who’s known for his work on Boruto these days. Memories of Nobody introduced Blanks and the Valley of Screams. The Blanks were souls which got lost on the way to the Soul Society and forgot their identity, and the Valley of Screams is their home. It also has Ichigo and Rukia meet Senna, another Soul Reaper who turns out to be a Shinenju, a being made up entirely of the Blank souls.
Senna is kidnapped by exiles from Soul Society who want to get revenge on the world by destroying Soul Society and the human world by forcing it to combine with the Valley of Screams. With Ichigo working together with Rukia, the two of them face their biggest challenge in convincing their comrades to help them save Senna. One of the better anime films, Memories of Nobody is best watched after episode 117 of the anime.
3 Bleach: The DiamondDust Rebellion
DiamondDust Rebellion came out in December 2007, a year from the original Bleach film. Again directed by Noriyuki Abe, the script was done by Michiko Yokote and Masahiro Okubo. This time the story itself is about the genius captain of Squad 10, Toshihiro Hitsugaya. When he and his squad are given an assignment to watch over a special artifact known as the King’s Seal, things quickly go bad when the group is attacked by an old Soul Reaper known as Soujiro Kusaka.
However impossibly, both Kusaka and Hitsugaya managed to develop a zanpakuto with both the same name and powers. This makes Hitsugaya look all the more guilty when the King’s Seal is stolen and Soul Reapers looking for him seem to have been attacked by Hitsugaya’s zanpakuto. Turns out, Hitsugaya and Kusaka were meant to fight to the death for the power of Hyorinmaru, but Kusaka found a way to get his revenge even after being defeated. Meant to be watched after episode 125, every Hitsugaya fan should give this film a watch.
2 Bleach: Fade to Black
The third Bleach film, Fade to Black, was originally released in December 2008, once again just a year from the last movie. At the time the franchise was massively successful so it’s unsurprising that they tried to get so many films out as quickly as possible.
The central story of Fade to Black starts out with a pair of children that are able to wipe the memories of even Soul Reapers. Their first attack involves going after Mayuri Kurotsuchi, completely erasing his memories and leading to him wiping out part of Soul Society. But the big goal of their attack is erasing Rukia’s memory, then convincing her they were friends a long time ago.
With no other knowledge than the two of them, Rukia decides to go with them. Fortunately, while everyone else seems to have forgotten Rukia, Kon is able to help Ichigo remember who she is, and the two of them wind up in Soul Society trying to figure out what’s happened to her. Once again, people having forgotten who he is leads to him being attacked by a ton of Soul Reapers in Soul Society, and he’s only narrowly able to escape and discover the mystery behind Rukia’s disappearance. This isn’t one of the stronger Bleach films, but it should be watched after episode 125 for those who need to watch this film.
1 Bleach: Hell Verse
The last Bleach film, this movie came out in December of 2010, two years after the third film. The poor critical reception to Fade to Black likely lead to this movie being delayed a bit, but the fourth film doesn’t do all that much better.
The story is about Ichigo and the other Soul Reapers getting involved with a group of masked spirit beings from hell appear in the normal world. These masked spirits turn out to be beings trying to hide out from being sent back to hell. Eventually, Ichigo and the others draw the attention of the leader of the Sinners—the masked beings attempting to hide in the normal world, and as a result Ichigo’s sisters are kidnapped.
This presents a rather predictable problem for the Bleach films. Once again it’s about a character that’s been kidnapped that Ichigo has to go figure out how to get them back. This is the most common Bleach plot, and re-using it for the films didn’t work in anyone’s favor, which is why this was the last of all the Bleach films even though the anime continued for another two years. Check it out after finishing up episode 299.