The 10 Best Anime Like ‘Bleach’

For anime connoisseurs who are well aware of the most popular series of the 2000s, they’ll surely know about the holy trinity of shonen anime: Naruto, One Piece, and Bleach. Of these three, perhaps it is fair to say that Bleach lagged behind and that was mainly because the series went on an indefinite hiatus after 366 episodes. In comparison, the other two even longer shonen series never lost momentum in the same way.

Thankfully for fans, even though hope seemed slim at that point, the series made a return nearly a decade later. In November 2021, it was announced that the last story arc of Tite Kubo’s manga was to received an anime adaptation. The much-anticipated Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War, which is divided into four cours, premiered in the fall of 2022, an ambitious project that brings to the screen the epic climax of the story – a massive confrontation between the soul reapers of Soul Society and the Quincy.

Whether you’re waiting for more episodes of the Thousand-Year Blood War or just looking for something new that can evoke the same thrill of watching Bleach, this list might help you.

Jujutsu Kaisen

It is easy to tell that Jujutsu Kaisen creator Gege Akutami is a fan of Tite Kubo’s work and has drawn inspiration from Bleach. The curses in Jujutsu Kaisen are reminiscent of the hollows in Bleach, but instead of being souls that haven’t passed on, cursed spirits are born out of negative human emotions. Similarly, jujutsu sorcerers use cursed energy instead of reiryoku and their objective is to exorcise curses in opposition to purifying hollows. If you’re looking for a shonen series that perfectly balances the comedic and the serious, full of twists and turns and vibrant and enthralling fight sequences — which MAPPA beautifully animates — Jujutsu Kaisen is an optimal choice.

Chainsaw Man

Also incredibly animated by Studio MAPPA, Chainsaw Man is currently shorter than the previous entry on this list, with only 12 episodes of season 1 out, which do not even encompass the whole of part 1 of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s manga. In this series, instead of hollows or curses, soul reapers or jujutsu sorcerers, there are devils, embodiments of people’s fears, and devil hunters. Chainsaw Man is probably gorier than the other shonen that have already been mentioned, its dark humor may be even edgier, sometimes downright shocking, and the main characters are definitely more morally ambiguous than in Bleach.