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Crunchyroll to Simulcast Bleach TV Anime on June 8

The Crunchyroll media-distribution website has announced on Wednesday that it will simulcast Studio Pierrot and TV Tokyo's television anime adaptation of Tite Kubo's Bleach manga. The simulcast will start with the latest episode, #274, next Tuesday at 2:30 a.m. PDT. Episodes 266 to 273 will also be streamed next Tuesday, and information about the planned release of the remaining older episodes "will be provided at a later date."

Crunchyroll's simulcast will be available to Premium Subscription members in high definition one hour after each episode's first airing on Japan's TV Tokyo station, and for free in standard definition one week later. The simulcast will be available in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The streamed episodes will use English subtitles from Viz Media.

In the original manga, a 15-year-old boy named Ichigo Kurosaki becomes a Soul Reaper — a "Shinigami" or "God of Death" who protects humans from the "Hollow" spirits that prey on them. Viz Media is publishing the 31st manga volume in North Amercia this month, and it also showed the anime version on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block and released episodes on DVD. The Hollywood Reporter newspaper's Heat Vision blog reported in March that the American film studio Warner Brothers "is in the process of securing the movie rights to" Tite Kubo's Bleach supernatural action manga series.

Image © Tite Kubo/Shueisha, TV TOKYO, dentsu, Pierrot

Update: More background information added.