AN-35: Bleach [Part 1]

The 1000 Year Blood War Arc is just around the corner, so we decided that it would be a great time to bring on the Ban-kai and board the Bleach band wagon!!

Que the nostalgia! Seriously, so many throw backs and memories from the mid 00's while listening to the audio that made up the first ~18 months of this iconic anime. Like Naruto, Bleach is a member of "The Big Three" and similarly is a bit hit or miss when it comes to the team's musical decision making. However, unlike Naruto, part 1 of Bleach contained much more successful OP's and ED's. As a matter of fact, 7 of the 8 OP/ED sequences landed in Oricon's top #40, 4 of them peaked in the top #10, 3 were top #5 and 1 (the very first OP) went straight to #1 and stayed in the top #20 for almost 6 months. Pretty damn impressive.

The OST was a lot of fun to analyze, especially because all of those pieces were just so damn recognizable and uniquely "Bleach." We did get a bit critical, though, after learning of the jazz background and vast experience that composer Shiro Sagisu had under his belt going into this production. We did our best to not be overly judgmental of the experimental nature of some of these arrangements, but even knowing the music production tech of the times they certainly could have made better compositional and track mixing decisions (like dialing back on the often overused plastic sounding synthesized instruments).

That being said, we think it's a very important OST for anime fans to listen to! So throw on those kimonos, unsheathe your zanpakuto, and lets to a ride the reishi realms of the mid 2000s!!

Final rating: 3.65/7

YouTube Playlist: AN-35: Bleach [Part 1]

Instagram: @animenoisepodcast

TikTok: @animenoisepodcast

YouTube Channel: AnimeNoise

linktr.ee/animenoise

CashApp: $emberbb

Check out our merch on Etsy! AnimeNoiseWorks