Granblue Fantasy x BLEACH Closes August 3 at 20:59 JST: Ichigo and Yoruichi Are Free Permanent SSRs
BLEACH: Echoes in the Blue Hollow closes at 20:59 JST on August 3, 2026, which is 11:59 UTC. It opened at 17:00 JST on July 22, so the whole window is 12 days and just under 4 hours. That is the number the collab turns on, because two of its four playable BLEACH characters cost nothing and stay on the account forever, and the other two stop being obtainable the second the clock runs out.
Ichigo Kurosaki is an SSR, Dark, Defense type, and he is free. Clearing INTERLUDE #01 hands him over. Yoruichi Shihoin is an SSR, Light, Attack type, also free, from INTERLUDE #02, which went live on July 27 at 17:00 JST. Neither is a gacha pull and neither expires. Everything else in the event does.
What Survives August 3 and What Does Not
The split is the only thing worth checking before the window closes. Anything in the left column is a permanent addition to the account. Anything in the right column is obtainable during the event and by no other route afterwards.
| Free, and permanent once obtained | How |
|---|---|
| Ichigo Kurosaki, SSR, Dark, Defense type | Clear INTERLUDE #01 |
| Yoruichi Shihoin, SSR, Light, Attack type | Clear INTERLUDE #02, live since July 27 |
| Byakuya Kuchiki, Kenpachi Zaraki and Mayuri Kurotsuchi, Wind SSR summon | Event Shop, 300 tokens, limit 1, delivered 3-star uncapped |
| Zangetsu (Dark) and Asauchi (Fire) | Four shop steps each, plus quest and raid drops |
| Five collab 10-pulls, 50 draws | Story progress and the Substitute Soul Reaper mission set |
| Obtainable only before 20:59 JST, August 3 | Note |
|---|---|
| Toshiro Hitsugaya and Rangiku Matsumoto, one duo SSR, Balance type | Collab Draw only |
| Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck, SSR, Attack type | Collab Draw only |
| Kisuke Urahara summon | Collab Draw only |
| Konpaku Anima | Event only, no other use, and the sole 4-star uncap material for both weapons and the trio summon |
A unit already pulled from the Collab Draw stays on the roster after August 3. What ends is the route in. The uncap material is the harsher one: a Zangetsu or an Asauchi left below 4-star on August 3 is stuck at 3-star with no path forward, because Konpaku Anima has no other source in the game.
Four Playable Units, Two of Them Free
<!-- image: official Cygames collab art, Ichigo Kurosaki, SSR Dark, GBF ink style, needs press-kit URL -->Cygames announced twelve BLEACH characters on July 15 and kept a thirteenth as a silhouette. It was Yoruichi, and she arrived with the second half on July 27. That is four playable units in total, not one.
The paid side is smaller than the character count suggests. Toshiro Hitsugaya and Rangiku Matsumoto are a single duo SSR occupying one slot, and Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck is the other. Those two entries are the entire Collab Draw roster on the character side, with Kisuke Urahara as the draw's summon.
The element of the two draw units is not settled. GameWith prints Toshiro and Rangiku as Light. The erin5 breakdown prints them as Water and calls Nelliel Wind. The wiki renders elements as icons with no crawlable text. Two sources contradict each other at different tiers, so no element is published here for those two.
One correction worth making before pulling: Byakuya, Kenpachi and Mayuri are not three premium characters. They are one Wind SSR summon stone, sold in the Event Shop for 300 tokens with a limit of one, and it arrives already uncapped to 3-star. At least two English write-ups filed them under premium summon characters. It is free shop stock.
The free draw count is the other reason the paid side stays small. Five collab 10-pulls, 50 draws in total, come from story progress and the Substitute Soul Reaper mission set. A separate batch of 30 limited gacha tickets carrying a July 31 expiry was reported by a single Japanese blog and stays at T3.
Every Date, JST and UTC
| Beat | JST | UTC |
|---|---|---|
| Title reveal | June 22, 2026 | June 22, 2026 |
| Full details published | July 21, 2026 | July 21, 2026 |
| Event opens, Collab Draw opens | July 22, 2026, 17:00 | July 22, 2026, 08:00 |
| Anime final cour premieres | July 25, 2026, 23:00 | July 25, 2026, 14:00 |
| INTERLUDE #02, Yoruichi, second half | July 27, 2026, 17:00 | July 27, 2026, 08:00 |
| Daily mission set opens | July 28, 2026, 05:00 | July 27, 2026, 20:00 |
| Event and Collab Draw close | August 3, 2026, 20:59 | August 3, 2026, 11:59 |
The Collab Draw starts and ends with the event, in the wiki's own words. The daily mission set is the shortest fuse inside the window: it opened on July 28 at 05:00 JST, resets at 5 a.m. JST and pays 50 Crystals a day until the close.
The Anime Came After the Collab, Not Before
The Thousand-Year Blood War adaptation had not finished when this event opened. Cour 3, The Conflict, aired from October 2024. The final cour, The Calamity (千年血戦篇-禍進譚-), premiered on July 25, 2026 at 23:00 JST on TV Tokyo, and the official PV title states the broadcast slot outright.
The collab opened three days ahead of that premiere. That ordering is the reason it exists: Cygames put a free Dark SSR Ichigo in front of every Granblue player in the 72 hours before the last cour of the anime started airing. Coverage that files the collab as a follow-up to a finished anime has the causality backwards.
The Japanese cast came across with the characters. Morita Masakazu voices Ichigo, Okiayu Ryoutarou plays Byakuya, Park Romi plays Toshiro, Matsutani Kaya plays Rangiku, Kiyoto Arisa plays Nelliel, and Suwa Toshiyuki returns as Grimmjow. Kugimiya Rie, Nakao Takashi, Tateki Fumihiko, Kosuge Takahiro, Sato Daisuke and Yasumoto Hiroki fill out the rest.
The in-game voiced trailer carries an official English string, and it is the cleanest statement of what the event is about:
The sky splits open. Vacant creatures vanish from another world, while blue skies are enveloped by the darkness of the night. Empty prayers respond to countless cries, shifting into forgotten memories as they swallow these two realms. Agents of death join forces with the Singularity to defend against the looming abnormalities. Where will the wishes of the hollow rest?
The Boss, the Shop and the Grind
<!-- image: in-game screenshot, Collab Draw screen, no local asset -->Hollowfied Monster is the event boss, and it scales from Lvl 25 with 1,620,000 HP up to Nightmare 120. Its 50% trigger casts Cero, a Dark hit at 500% against all allies, which is the one mechanic worth building around on the higher tiers.
The difficulty ladder runs Normal, Hard, Very Hard, Extreme, Extreme+, Maniac and Maniac 2 on the solo side, Very Hard, Extreme and Extreme+ as raids, then Nightmare 60, 100 and 120.
Event Shop stock beyond the characters is standard collab fare with one line worth flagging. Three Damascus Crystals sit at a limit of 15, and the wiki notes explicitly that they are not carried over into story-event drawbox stock. Premium 10-Part Tickets run 300 tokens with a limit of 30. Coronation, Lineage and Intricacy Rings, Sunbeam and Nightshade Earrings, and stickers for Ichigo, Urahara and Nelliel round it out.
A companion campaign called BLEACH Big 7 ran alongside, covering login stamps, the Substitute Soul Reaper missions, job-unlock support for Samurai and Kengo, the Urahara Shop for SSR weapon uncap materials, Mayuri's stat drugs and Yoruichi's EXP training. The wiki confirms the campaign exists, but its own page is unreachable and the seven-pillar breakdown comes from a single blog, so it stays T3.
Reruns Are Rare, Not Routine
Granblue Fantasy's Collaboration Event overview states the position plainly: collaboration rewards are obtainable only during the event period. Reruns have happened, Tales of Asteria among them, but they are extremely rare. Most Granblue collabs never come back at all, and the minority that survive do so by being archived into permanent Side Stories.
No rerun and no Side Stories archiving has been announced for Echoes in the Blue Hollow as of August 1, 2026.
The closest precedent on record is Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, which ran December 8 to 20, 2020 and brought Tanjiro, Zenitsu, Inosuke, Giyuu Tomioka and Kyojuro Rengoku. It is the better comparison than any of the game-side crossovers: another Shonen Jump property, another anime-timed slot, 13 days against this one's 12. Persona 5, Code Geass, Attack on Titan, Detective Conan, Idolmaster Cinderella Girls, Love Live and Street Fighter V fill out the verified list. There has never been a Granblue Fantasy x One Piece collaboration, despite it appearing in secondary write-ups.
No previous BLEACH collaboration has run in Granblue Fantasy either. The wiki files this event with no rerun banner and no prior entry.
This Is the 2014 Browser Game
Echoes in the Blue Hollow is an event in Granblue Fantasy, the browser and mobile turn-based RPG Cygames launched on March 10, 2014. AP costs, raid tiers, weapon grids and a Collab Draw screen are all systems specific to that title.
There is no BLEACH content in Granblue Fantasy: Relink, in Granblue Fantasy: Versus, or in Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising. The single YouTube video promising a Relink crossover resolves to a fan channel, not to Cygames. Anyone searching for the collab on a console is searching for something that does not exist.
The event was localised. The wiki carries in-game English strings for every item, Substitute Soul Reaper Medallion, Reishi Crystal and Konpaku Anima included, and an English voiced trailer file sits alongside the Japanese one. Granblue Fantasy runs one service with a language toggle, so there is no separate global version to wait for.
The story cast pulls from both sides. Lyria, Vyrn, Narmaya, Okto, Azusa, Cassius, Isaac, Chichiri and Uruki appear on the Granblue side, with Nemu Kurotsuchi, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, Pesche Guatiche, Dondochakka Birstanne and Bawabawa non-playable on the BLEACH side.
Three Things That Will Decide Where This Lands
Whether Echoes in the Blue Hollow gets archived into Side Stories. That is the only route by which a player who missed the window can still recruit Ichigo and Yoruichi, and it is the one thing worth watching for an announcement on. Nothing has been said.
Whether Konpaku Anima ever returns. The wiki says the material has no other use and no other source. If it stays event-locked, every Zangetsu and Asauchi below 4-star on August 3 is permanently capped, which turns a free weapon into a half weapon.
Whether 12 days becomes the standard collab length. Demon Slayer ran 13 days in December 2020. This one ran 12 days and 4 hours, with the second half withheld until July 27, which is a compressed shape for a collab carrying four SSRs and 50 free draws. The next Granblue collab will settle it.
FAQ
Did I lose Ichigo when the BLEACH collab ended? Only if you never cleared INTERLUDE #01 before 20:59 JST on August 3, 2026. Ichigo is a free SSR handed out by the story, and once he joins he stays on the account permanently. The limit is on the window to obtain him, not on how long you keep him.
Is Ichigo a free unit or a gacha pull in Granblue Fantasy? Free. He is an SSR, Dark element, Defense type, awarded for clearing INTERLUDE #01. He was never in the Collab Draw.
Who is the second free BLEACH character? Yoruichi Shihoin, an SSR, Light element, Attack type, awarded for clearing INTERLUDE #02. She was the thirteenth silhouette Cygames held back on July 15 and she went live on July 27, 2026 at 17:00 JST.
Which BLEACH characters are behind the gacha? Two entries only. Toshiro Hitsugaya and Rangiku Matsumoto share a single duo SSR, and Nelliel Tu Odelschwanck is the other. Kisuke Urahara is the Collab Draw summon. Byakuya, Kenpachi and Mayuri are one free Wind SSR summon stone from the Event Shop, not three characters.
Will the Granblue Fantasy BLEACH collab rerun? No rerun has been announced, and reruns are extremely rare in Granblue Fantasy. The wiki's own collaboration overview states that collab rewards are obtainable only during the event period. A minority of collabs get archived into permanent Side Stories instead, which has not been announced for this one.
How many free draws does the collab give? Five collab 10-pulls, 50 draws in total, earned through story progress and the Substitute Soul Reaper mission set.
Is the BLEACH collab in Granblue Fantasy Relink or Versus: Rising? No. It runs only in the 2014 browser and mobile Granblue Fantasy. No BLEACH content exists in any Granblue console title.
What is Konpaku Anima and can I still get it? It is the uncap material that takes Zangetsu, Asauchi and the Byakuya, Kenpachi and Mayuri summon to 4-star. The wiki states it has no other use and is obtainable only during the event, so anything left below 4-star at 20:59 JST on August 3 stays there.