The Ao Ashi Season 2 anime TV series will resume the story of high school football player Ashito Aoi joining Team A in the aftermath of Esperion B vs Tokyo Musashino. But when will Aoashi Season 2 come out?
The studio and main staff making Ao Ashi Season 2 hasn’t been announced yet.
For the first season, the anime project was produced by animation Studio Production I.G., which is best known in recent times for making Psycho-Pass, Moriarty the Patriot, and the Haikyuu!! anime series (Haikyuu!! Season 5 when!?).
In the future, the Ultraman Season 3 release date is in 2023. The company is also the producer of Attack On Titan Season 4 Part 3, although Studio MAPPA is still doing the animation work.
The Ao Ashi Season 1 anime project was helmed by director Akira Satou (Release the Spyce). Jun Soga (storyboarding for Jouran: The Princess of Snow and Blood) was the assistant director. Writer Masahiro Yokotani (The Devil is a Part-Timer! Season 2, Re:ZERO) wrote the scripts.
The project had many character designers, including Manabu Nakatake (High School DxD Hero), Toshie Kawamura (Bucchigire!), Asuka Yamaguchi (Noblesse), and Saki Hasegawa (My Hero Academia, Vinland Saga, Jujutsu Kaisen). Nakatake and Yamaguchi were also chief animation directors. Composer Masaru Yokoyama (Urusei Yatsura 2022, Classroom of the Elite Season 3) created the music.
The Ao Ashi Season 2 OP (opening) and ED (ending) theme song music hasn’t been announced yet.
For the first season, the Ao Ashi OP “Mushinhakusuu” was performed by Alexandros, while the ED “Blue Diary” was performed by Rinne. The Ao Ashi Part 2 OP “Presence” was by Superfly, while the second ED “Color Lily no Koibumi” was by Kami wa Saikoro wo Furanai.
The first season of Aoashi was streaming from Spring 2022 to Summer 2022 with English subtitles on Crunchyroll, Netflix Japan, and Disney+ international (not Netflix USA, Disney+ USA, VRV, HIDIVE, Hulu, Funimation, or Amazon Prime Video). Disney+ was only streaming the episodes internationally in Southeast Asia in Hong Kong, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Taiwan.
On August 6, 2022, it was announced that the Ao Ashi Episode 19 release date was delayed to August 20, 2022. The delay was due to the Obon public holiday.
The first season’s finale, Ao Ashi Episode 24, will release on September 24, 2022.
The 24 episodes will be released as two Ao Ashi Blu-Ray/DVD volumes on September 28, 2022, and December 21, 2022, respectively.
This article provides everything that is known about Ao Ashi Season 2 (Aoashi Season 2) and all related news. As such, this article will be updated over time with news, rumors, and analysis. Meanwhile, let’s delve down into what is known for certain.
Ao Ashi Season 2 release date predictions: Is late 2023 possible?
As of the last update, Studio Production I.G., Shueisha, NHK, Bandai, or any company related to the production of the anime has not officially confirmed the Ao Ashi Season 2 release date. Nor has the production of an Aoashi Season 2 sequel been announced.
Once the news is officially confirmed this article will be updated with the relevant information.
In the meantime, it’s possible to speculate about when, or if, the Aoashi Season 2 release date will occur in the future.
The Ao Ashi reviews have been much higher than average for a team sports anime. Reviewers will often compare the Aoashi anime to the critically-acclaimed Haikyuu!! anime series.
As for similarly-themed football/soccer anime, recent examples include Farewell, My Dear Cramer, Futsal Boys!!!, and Shoot! Goal to the Future. None of those series have received good reviews. It will be interesting to see how Ao Ashi fares against the upcoming Blue Lock anime by Studio 8bit, which is best known for producing That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime.
From a financial perspective, the first season was regularly featured in the Top 10 of Crunchyroll’s popular anime list in Spring and Summer 2022, but it’s not a shoo-in for renewal like SPY x FAMILY Part 2.
Another positive data point is that the anime broadcast gave a huge boost to the sales of the Ao Ashi manga in Japan. In just Spring 2022, the manga series made the Oricon Top 10 manga list for April (#10 with 231k copies sold), May (#7 with 267k copies sold), and June 2022 (#5 with 429k copies sold).
To put the sales numbers in perspective, in February 2022, before the anime premiered, the manga had over 10 million copies in circulation. By June 2022 the manga had over 12 million copies in circulation, and by August 2022 it was over 15 million copies in circulation.
Therefore, it’s very likely that the anime production committee will have Ao Ashi renewed for a second season. They may have even secretly started pre-production if they predicted how popular this football anime would become.
Notably, Ao Ashi producers Rui Kuroki and Morihiro Fumi also worked on the Haikyuu!! anime series. Haikyuu!! Season 1 ran from April 2014 through September 2014. Haikyuu!! Season 2 followed up in October 2015 through March 2016.
Assuming that the producers of the Aoashi Season 2 anime follow a similar pattern as Haikyuu!!, it’s possible that the Ao Ashi Season 2 release date could be in late 2023.
Crunchyroll’s Ao Ashi Season 2 English dub
Crunchyroll’s Ao Ashi English dub release date for the first season was on April 23, 2022, which was only several weeks behind the series premiere on April 9, 2022.
Here was some of the main members of Crunchyroll’s Ao Ashi dub cast:
- Ciarán Strange (Richard in Requiem of the Rose King) as Ashito Aoi
- Eric Vale (Trunks in Dragon Ball Z Kai) as Tatsuya Fukuda
- Marisa Duran (Lou/Louise in SHADOWS HOUSE Season 2) as Hana Ichijo
- Monica Rial (Bulma in Dragon Ball Z Kai) as Noriko Aoi
- Blake McNamara (Seth Rich Cutter in Appare-Ranman!) as Shun Aoi
- Kim Morton as Kogure
- Meg McClain as Nanami
- Kelsey Maher as Sawa
Presumably, now that Funimation is being phased out by Sony, Crunchyroll’s Ao Ashi Season 2 English dub release date will be announced in the future after Aoashi Season 2 has first premiered with Japanese audio and English subtitles.
Ao Ashi manga compared to the anime
The story for the anime TV series is based on the Ao Ashi manga by writer/illustrator Yuugo Kobayashi and writer Naohiko Ueno.
Serialized in Shogakukan’s Weekly Big Comic Spirits magazines since January 2015, the manga is up to Ao Ashi Volume 29 as of August 30, 2022. In Summer 2022 there were already over 300 chapters published.
In July 2021, a spin-off series called Ao Ashi: Brother Foot (Aoashi Burazaofutto) launched. The spin-off focuses on Ashito’s brother Shun.
Unfortunately, no publisher has announced an official Ao Ashi manga English translation for North America. Thankfully, there are fan translation projects that have kept up with the latest chapters.
Considering that the project was produced by Production I.G., it’s no surprise that the anime stayed true to the source material. However, some dialogue was either condensed or skipped due to the time constraints of the episodic TV format.
The only major change by the anime was to cut a small scene from the manga where Ashito imagined himself being taken advantage of by pervy old men in Tokyo. There were also some minor tweaks here and there.
The pacing of the anime adaptation was pretty much perfect. The first two episodes only covered six chapters and from there Episode 3 adapted 6.5 chapters.
The adaptation pacing of the first season averaged about 5 chapters per episode. Here’s a guide to how the anime adapted the manga chapters.
- Ao Ashi Episode 3: Chapters 7 – 13.5
- Ao Ashi Episode 4: Chapters 13.5 – 19
- Ao Ashi Episode 5: Chapters 20 – 22
- Ao Ashi Episode 6: Chapters 23 – 27
- Ao Ashi Episode 7: Chapters 27 – 32
- Ao Ashi Episode 8: Chapters 33 – 37
- Ao Ashi Episode 9: Chapters 38 – 42
- Ao Ashi Episode 10: Chapters 43 – 46
- Ao Ashi Episode 11: Chapters 47 – 51
- Ao Ashi Episode 12: Chapters 52 – 56
- Ao Ashi Episode 13: Chapters 57 – 62
- Ao Ashi Episode 14: Chapters 62 – 66
- Ao Ashi Episode 15: Chapters 67 – 70
- Ao Ashi Episode 16: Chapters 71 – 74
- Ao Ashi Episode 17: Chapters 75 – 79
- Ao Ashi Episode 18: Chapters 80 – 83
- Ao Ashi Episode 19: Chapters 84 – 88
- Ao Ashi Episode 20: Chapters 89 – 92
- Ao Ashi Episode 21: Chapters 93 – 98
- Ao Ashi Episode 22: Chapters 99 – 105
- Ao Ashi Episode 23: Chapters 105 – 111
- Ao Ashi Episode 24: Chapters 111 – 117
All in all, as predicted the first season’s finale, Aoashi Episode 24, found a stopping point corresponding to the ending of Volume 12: Chapter 117.
It’s the best stopping point since it corresponds to the aftermath of the Tokyo Musashino vs Esperion B match. The revelation that Ashito was moving up to Team A is a major turning point in the story.
Ao Ashi Chapters 116 and 117 offered a great celebratory mood that’s the best way to finish the season despite the warning from the coach that Ashito could be demoted. Plus, the best scene to end with is the rainy scene where Hana kisses Ashito on the forehead after he admits how much her support has meant to him.
The actual final moments of the finale were quasi-anime original. They were inspired by the first several pages of Chapter 119.
The good news is that there is plenty of source material available for making Ao Ashi Season 2. Only about a third of the chapters available in 2022 were adapted by the first season.
Better yet, English-only manga readers can jump straight to reading Ao Ashi Chapter 118 online.
Aoashi Season 2 anime TV spoilers (plot summary/synopsis)
A new chapter has begun in the Tokyo Metropolitan League. Faced with an undefeated foe, Ashito was doubting himself and Tachibana was losing confidence… But now that foe is toppled by Ashito scoring a goal and proving himself as a playmaker… and he’s been promoted to Esperion A!
Joining Ashito in Team A is Ootomo, Kuroda, and Togashi. Ashito believes that if he can get recognition here, he’ll get a contract signed with the top team right away.
However, Ashito is warned that he needs to hone his expectations for the A-League at first. While Ashito has big dreams, the Esperion A team is known as the “strongest” for a reason and he struggles every day!
But Togashi, Ootomo, and Kuroda are also struggling. It’s all they can do to keep up with the high level of Team A. Ashito is able to leave his mark in attack, but his defense is full of holes…
Although Ashito is shocked by the surprisingly high level of the competition, he is not daunted, and he does his best to keep up… As a result of his hard work, Ashito eventually earns a spot on the bench in Esperion A’s next round of the Premier League competition.
Will Ashito be able to make his dreams come true?
Unfortunately, anime fans will have to wait until the Ao Ashi Season 2 release date to watch what happens next. Stay tuned!