Country of origin Japan Original network TV Tokyo | No. of episodes 20 | |
Original release July 4 (2007-07-04) – December 5, 2007 (2007-12-05) | ||
The seventh season of the Bleach anime series is named the Arrancar: The Hueco Mundo Sneak Entry arc (破面・虚圏 潜入篇, Arankaru Weko Mundo Sennyū Hen). In the English adaptation of the anime released by Viz Media, the title of the season is translated as the The Hueco Mundo. The episodes are directed by Noriyuki Abe and produced by TV Tokyo, Dentsu, and Studio Pierrot. The twenty episodes featured in the season are based on Tite Kubo's Bleach manga series. The episodes' plot follows Ichigo Kurosaki's journey to Hueco Mundo to rescue Orihime Inoue, who was kidnapped by the arrancar under the command of former Soul Reaper captain Sōsuke Aizen. Although episodes focused on the character Ashido Kanō were not featured in the manga due to timing issues, Kubo still helped the anime staff to show them in the anime.
The season began airing on July 4, 2007 in Japan on TV Tokyo and ended on December 5, 2007. The English adaptation of the Bleach anime is licensed by Viz Media, and this arc began airing on July 11, 2009 and ended on September 26, 2009 on Adult Swim in the United States. Five DVD compilations, each containing four episodes of the season, were released by Aniplex between December 19, 2007 and April 23, 2008 in Japan. While Viz Media released a single DVD volume on September 21, 2010 featuring the season's first episodes, the entire season has only been released within others DVDs. Episodes 132 and 133 were also released in Viz's seventh English DVD box on December 21, 2010. Episodes 134-145 were released on March 22, 2011 as Viz's eighth compilation while the remaining ones were released on June 21, 2011. Manga Entertainment released the first volume from the season on September 26, 2011, while the second one is due to October 17, 2011. A collection of the two volumes is slated for a release on December 12, 2011.
The episodes use four pieces of theme music: two opening themes and two closing themes. The opening themes are "Alones" by Aqua Timez, used for the first twelve episodes, and "After Dark" by Asian Kung-Fu Generation, used for the remaining episodes. The ending themes are "Daidai" (橙, lit. "Bitter Orange") by Chatmonchy, utilized for episodes 132 to 143, and J-pop singer Kousuke Atari's "Tane o Maku Hibi" (種をまく日々, lit. Seed-Scattering Days), used for the rest of the episodes. To promote the second Bleach featured film, Bleach: The DiamondDust Rebellion, the opening and closing credits for episode 151 use footage from the film, which was released on December 22, 2007.