TV Anime 'Chihayafuru' Gets Third Season

The Chihayafuru Fan Kanshasai event in Awara held on Sunday announced that a third anime season for the Chihayafuru franchise has been greenlit. The anime is planned to broadcast via the AnichU timeslot of Nihon TV in 2019.

Yuki Suetsugu writes and illustrates the competitive karuta manga series, which began its serialization in the second 2008 issue of Kodansha's Be-Love bimonthly josei magazine. Kodansha has published 37 compiled manga volumes, with the most recent shipped on February 13 this year. A four-volume spin-off novel penned by Yui Tokiumi was published between 2012 and 2013 with a manga adaptation, drawn by Oto Tooda, currently serializing. The series won the second Manga Taisho award in 2009 and the 35th Kodansha Manga Award in the shoujo manga category in 2011.

Madhouse animated the series' first two seasons. The first 25-episode season was broadcast in Fall 2011, and was followed by another 25-episode TV anime that aired in Winter 2013. An OVA episode was bundled with the manga's special 22nd volume, released in September 2013.

The first two of three live-action film adaptations of the series were screened in Japanese theaters in 2016, titled Chihayafuru: Kami no Ku and Chihayafuru: Shimo no Ku, respectively. The third and final film, Chihayafuru: Musubi, is scheduled to screen on March 17 this year.

Kodansha Comics USA has been publishing the manga series digitally since February 14, 2017. The ninth digital volume was recently released on Tuesday. Sentai Filmworks licensed the anime's first two seasons for North American distribution. The first Blu-ray and DVD volume with English dubs was released in September 2017, and will be followed by the second season listed to ship this year.

Source: Mantan Web

Chihayafuru 3 on MAL