Back in 2018, Tite Kubo and Weekly Shonen Jump revealed a strange new chapter in the universe of the mangaka’s legendary Bleach universe: the story of two Witches safeguarding a secret alternate London from the threat of monstrous dragons. Now, it’s becoming an animated movie too — one you’ll see in just a few months.
Crunchyroll has dropped the first look at Burn the Witch, an adaptation of Kubo’s original one-shot manga by Tatsuro Kawano (of Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress fame). Set in a contemporary alternate London, Burn the Witch — which is currently being serialized in Shonen Jump as a weekly miniseries in the run-up to the film — follows two powerful young witches, Noel Niihashi and Ninny Spangcole, members of the western branch of Bleach’s Soul Society, the mystical afterlife where souls and their guardians reside until they’re reincarnated in the human world.
Noel and Ninny work as agents for Wing Bind, a secret organisation that operates in “Reverse London” to protect the living world’s version of the city from dragons. The creatures rampage in secret across this alt-layer of the city, causing havoc responsible for a whopping 72% of all fatalities in the city since its time began. This is all despite them being unseeable to the average human though still dangerous for regular citizens of Reverse London to make contact with.
You’d think they’d be more concerned about invisible dragons murdering the hell out of people willy nilly, but hey! Thank god for witches like Noel and Ninny, who’ve been specially trained to contain and control the draconic population in an attempt to get those numbers down.
You won’t have to wait all that long to see if they succeed in their quests: Burn the Witch will broadcast in Japan on Amazon Prime Video on October 2, and stream internationally on Crunchyroll, from October 3.