The Arifureta Season 3 release date is on the horizon now that the production of the third season has officially been confirmed.
The anime TV series will continue the story of the soon-to-be-finished light novel series. But when will Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest (Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou) Season 3 come out?
On September 10, 2022, it was officially confirmed that Arifureta Season 3 was greenlit for production. The news was announced during The Arifureta OVA Advance Screening & Talk Show held at Shinjuku Piccadilly Cinema in Tokyo. On the occasion, the key visual leaked only a day earlier was officially revealed (see below).
On September 9, 2022, anime news leakers Sneaky and Sugoi LITE both claimed that Arifureta Season 3 is in production and that the official announcement would be made public soon. Coincidentally, Anime Geek also predicted that an announcement would take place in Summer 2022.
Furthermore, Anime Geek is predicting that the Arifureta Season 3 release date will be in 2024. (Please see the prediction section below for more details.)
In addition to the Arifureta Season 3 announcement, it’s already been confirmed that an Arifureta Season 2 OVA episode release date is planned for September 25, 2022. (Hence why Arifureta Season 3 was announced in this time frame.)
The OVA episode will be bundled with a special edition of light novel Volume 13, which is ending the main story. The Arifureta Season 2 OVA: The Illusionary Adventure and the Miraculous Encounter (Maboroshi no Bōken to Kiseki no Kaikō) will have a 40-minute runtime. Please see the following trailer that was released on March 31, 2022.
The Arifureta OVA episode teaser features Oscar and Miledi Reisen and Oscar from the first season. Since they are standing side by side with Hajime, the new story will involve the Liberators who are the founders of the Great Labyrinths.
A second commercial was released on June 2, 2022:
In addition, Arifureta Season 2 Episode 13 already came out. The title is “A Mundane Side Trip to the World’s Strongest”. (Please see the unaired episode section below for more details about the special episode.)
The first season had 13 episodes in total in Summer 2019. The second season was only streaming on Funimation and Hulu (not Netflix, Crunchyroll, Amazon Prime Video, etc.) during Winter 2022.
The second season’s finale, Arifureta Season 2 Episode 12, was released on Thursday, March 31, 2022.
- Updated September 10, 2022: Arifureta Season 3 production confirmed.
- Updated July 30, 2022: Added OVA trailer 2.
- Updated June 6, 2022: Arifureta Volume 13 release date, OVA release date confirmed.
- Updated March 31, 2022: Added Arifureta Season 2 Episode 13 story summary and new OVA announcement trailer.
This article provides everything that is known about Arifureta Season 3 (Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest Season 3 / Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou Season 3) 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.
Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou Season 3 release date predictions: Is 2024 likely?
As of the last update, Studio Asread or any company related to the production of the anime has not officially confirmed the Arifureta Season 3 release date. However, the production of an Arifureta 3 sequel has 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 the Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou Season 3 release date will occur in the future.
It was pretty much a surprise when the second season was confirmed to be in production after all the negative news coverage of the first season. Plus, the first-week Arifureta Season 1 Blu-Ray sales in Japan back in October/November was estimated at 2,918 copies, which is good but not amazing.
The Arifureta Season 2 reviews are much improved from the first season. This isn’t too surprising since the first season’s studio change resulted in rewriting the scripts recreating storyboards and animations on a reduced budget.
Meanwhile, the clock was ticking so the schedule was tightly-packed. It’s likely that Asread relied on time-saving measures like the highly-criticized CG-animated monsters that made even the Overlord anime’s 3D Dark Youngs look good in comparison. But at least they were not as bad as the demon battles from the 2022 She Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Man anime.
The second season was a vast improvement in many areas from storytelling to the animation itself. There was a feeling of real tension over Kaori’s “death” since some major supporting characters like Knight Commander Meld Loggins and that other student really did die, never mind much of the Heiligh Kingdom. The ending was satisfying since the much-hated Daisuke Hiyama finally received his comeuppance and we were given a new villain to hate: spiteful Eri Nakamura and her creepy Necromancer powers.
The second season still relied on CGI monsters like the sandworms, fire dragons, skeletons, etc. but at least this time they blended in with the 2D animation rather than jarring audiences (the monster army during the capital invasion was an exception for close-up scenes).
The amount of source material condensing went from appalling to actually quite good for an isekai anime adaptation of a light novel series, which meant the second season was acceptably fast-paced without skipping anything major. In fact, some anime fans felt that Arifureta Season 2 did a better job of adapting the books than The Rising of the Shield Hero Season 2!
Since Studio Asread pulled a Shia out of a magic hat by producing the second season despite all the setbacks, Anime Geek predicted that the anime production committee would have Arifureta Season 3 renewed considering that the TV sequel was arguably a better product overall. We also successfully predicted that the best timing would be in September 2022 when the OVA episode was released.
Therefore, assuming that the relatively small Studio Asread and its 19 employees (not including contractors) continue the project, it’ll be several years before the sequel is ready. As such, we predict that the Arifureta Season 3 release date could be in the 2nd half of 2023 but 2024 is more likely.
FUNimation’s Arifureta Season 3 English dub release date
FUNimation was streaming Arifureta Season 2 with English subtitles during Winter 2022. Funimation streamed the second season in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and Peru.
Here is the Arifureta Season 2 dub cast:
- Matt Shipman as Hajime
- Tia Ballard as Yue
- Amanda Lee as Shea
- Morgan Laure as Tio
- Skyler McIntosh as Kaori
- Kate Bristol as Shizuku
- Lara Woodhull as Myu
- Brandon Potter as Freid Bagwa
- Chris Cason as Mikhail
- Brianna Knickerbocker as Liliana
- Jerry Jewell as Bize
- Orion Pitts as Hiyama
- Bradley Campbell as Eliheid
- Kent Williams as Ishtar
- Justin Briner as Endou
- Patrick Seitz as Meld
The Arifureta Season 2 English dub release date was on February 17, 2022.
Presumably, an Arifureta Season 3 English dub will be produced in the future. However, since Sony bought both Crunchyroll and Funimation it’s very likely that the dubbed version will only be available on Crunchyroll since Funimation is slowly being phased out.
Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest Season 3 anime spoilers (plot summary/synopsis)
Hajime and Yue’s travels become easier once they develop an airship to fly the skies. Their next destination is the Empire, but their adventure quickly becomes grounded when it’s discovered that Shea’s people the rabbit beastmen Haulia are in trouble.
It turns out the Haulia have been fighting against both demons and the Hoelscher Empire. Worse, Verbergen has been sacked and many of the surviving beastmen have been dragged away into slavery. The Haulia are rallied into revolution and it’s not long before the Empire is facing down the strongest of the rabbits.
The story will become more of a blatant harem adventure as time passes. After all, Arifureta Episode 13 ended with Hajime’s classmate Kaori declaring her love for him. She’ll have plenty of competition because the girls have been developing the pecking order with Yue coming out on top… for now.
As for Hajime himself, he only desires Yue and he is committed to keeping a monogamous relationship with the vampire princess. Well, Yue has different plans and she actually starts encouraging Hajime to get with the other girls!
Having saved the Haulia clan from the Empire, Hajime and his friends return to Verbergen. Surrounded by all these rabbit people, it’s not long before Hajime’s feelings for Shia begin to surface and he finally accepts the rabbit girl as his girlfriend… and they even share a kiss!
In his heart, Hajime has even accepted dragon girl Tio Klarus and classmate Kaori as his girlfriends. He even talks about wanting to introduce his harem four girlfriends to his parents once they figure out a way to travel to Earth. (And he’s only halfway done to completing his harem at this point!)
Hajime is still working through his feelings as they travel to their next labyrinth, the Haltina Woods, which is located in the center of the Sea of Trees. But this next labyrinth forces Hajime to work out these feelings even faster than desired since they’re challenged by doppelgangers and the Haltina Labyrinth’s ability to reverse emotions toward comrades.
The situation gets even stickier when a substance slowly causes everyone to give in to carnal desires and feral instincts towards each other. Will they be able to find their way through the most difficult Labyrinth yet as Hajime and the others’ bonds are tested like never before!?
Unfortunately, anime fans will have to wait until the Arifureta Season 3 release date to watch what happens next.
Arifureta Season 2 Episode 13 OVA details
The Arifureta Season 2 Episode 13 release date was on March 23, 2022. The unaired episode will be approximately 25 minutes long and it was packaged with Blu-Ray (BD) Volume 1.
Here is the story summary of the unaired episode, “A Mundane Side Trip to the World’s Strongest”:
“During a break in the trip, Shia asks Yue, who is skilled in handling magic, to teach her some magic tricks. Tio and Myuu agree, but for some reason, Hajime holds them back, saying that they should not do so. Yue’s magic class is then held. Afterwards, Hajime and his friends decide to take a side trip. The town is lined with clothing stores, and they decide to buy Myuu’s favorite clothes. What begins there is not a shopping trip but a mutual exchange of clothes!?”
Similarly, two unaired Arifureta OVA episodes were released with the first season’s BD box set Volumes 2 and 3. They were titled Arifureta Episode 14: Yue’s Diary and Arifureta Episode 15: The Beginning of Love at the Hot Spring.
Arifureta Volume 13 light novel ending the web novel’s main story, while Arifureta Zero Volume 6 ended the spin-off
The story for the Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest series first began with the Arifureta web novel self-published by author Ryo Shirakome on the Shosetsuka ni Naro (Let’s Become A Novelist) website. English fan translations of the web novel are available online for free.
The main story ended in Chapter 179, but the “After Story” is still ongoing, with the author releasing new chapters weekly on Saturdays. It’s a collection of sequel chapters focused on random characters and it’s set years after the main events (for example, a certain bunny girl, Shia Haulia, loves speeding on her motorcycle). As of September 2019, the After Story story was already about as long as the original story.
Starting in June 2015, the web novel began being adapted into the Arifureta light novel series by the original author and illustrator Takayaki. That means characters are developed more and plot points are expanded upon while some details are changed.
As of January 25, 2022, the light novel series was up to Volume 12. The Arifureta Volume 13 release date in Japan is on September 25, 2022. Oddly enough, Amazon already lists the English Volume 13 as coming out on August 2, 2022, but that happened with the English Volume 12 and the release date was pushed back.
The author confirmed in the Volume 12 author’s comments section that the Arifureta light novel’s ending for the main story will be adapted by Arifureta Volume 13. Volume 8 of the light novel series is based on story arc 6 in the web novel. The ending of light novel Volume 9 lined up with web novel Chapter 149, so Volume 13 will finish the remainder.
The story has also been expanded by the Arifureta Zero light novel series, which is set thousands of years before Hajime was summoned to Tortus. The spin-off series already finished in Arifureta Zero Volume 6, which came out on December 25, 2021. At the time, the final book of Arifureta Zero had revealed that the main story was in its climax.
J-Novel Club is releasing the official English translations for both light novel series in North America. The main series will be to Volume 11 in digital eBook format by June 23, 2022, the physical print copies come out on July 26, 2022.
Similarly, the digital eBook release for the English Arifureta Zero was already up to Volume 5 by December 2021. The physical print of Volume 5 was released on March 15, 2022.
Both the main story and the Zero spin-off have been adapted into Arifureta manga series. The main story is written by RoGa and it’s up to Volume 9, while the Zero manga that’s written by Ataru Kamichi is up to Volume 7. Both came out on December 25, 2021.
Seven Seas Entertainment is handling the official English translation of all the main Arifureta manga series, which is up to Volume 8 as of April 12, 2022. The English translation of the Arifureta Zero manga is up to Volume 6 as of May 10, 2022.
The series has also spawned audio dramas and a comedic, 4-panel manga spin-off called Arifureta: I Love Isekai. Written by Misaki Mori, it finished with Volume 4. Seven Seas already completed releasing the comedy spin-off in English by October 2021..
Arifureta manga, light novel series compared to the anime’s second season
The Arifureta Season 1 anime was instantly infamous for skipping the entire beginning of the story in a mad rush to reach the point where Hajime transformed from bullying victim to OP isekai protagonist. Light novel fans were outraged and even anime-only fans were confused since a lot of the drama build-up relied on developing Hajime’s classmates that were transported to this fantasy world of Tortus.
(Similarly, the 2022 The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest anime also skipped the beginning chapters related to the protagonist’s family, although condensing that part of the story was arguably a wise move.)
But the content cutting went deeper by rearranging the story in a non-linear order. This change left audiences confused since the first episode was missing the worldbuilding and character motivations. Instead, elements of skipped story parts were brought back via flashbacks.
By contrast, the manga (which light novel readers also criticize) at least spent three chapters building up the characters before dropping Hajime into the dungeon abyss in Chapter 4. The light novel went even further, using over 100 pages to establish Hajime as a normal guy and showing his relationship with his classmates.
Readers learned how Hajime was being bullied and how he was working hard to build up his mediocre transmutation abilities only to be betrayed. Thus, the biggest failing of the first season was to neglect Hajime’s character transformation.
The anime at least attempted to build a sense of conspiracy by not immediately revealing the identity of the betrayer like the light novel did. But any feelings of mystery were short-lived since the culprit was teased as Daisuke only a few episodes later.
Since anime audiences didn’t really know who this guy was, or why he was motivated to kill Hajime over his jealousy for Kaori’s affection, it was hard to care about Hajime’s revenge or feel anger toward the betrayer. Anime-only fans were still disappointed that Hajime didn’t kill the very-shocked-that-he’s-still-alive Daisuke when they met at the end, but the fact that Hajime didn’t immediately kill his betrayer showed how far he’d grown as a person. (The people calling for Daisuke’s death were appeased by the ending of Season 2, at least.)
As for things Studio Asread got right, the scriptwriter wisely gave five episodes to adapting the remainder of the first volume once Yue came into the picture since it was important that the story develop Hajime and Yue’s relationship. But everything quickly went downhill after that.
The remaining half of the first season rushed through three light novel volumes (at the time, the manga wasn’t finished adapting light novel Volume 3). Skimming all the way to Volume 4 by skipping content was as painful to light novel purists as the literal arse-reaming that Hajime gave Tio Clarence in her dragon form (are there light novel purist masochists who enjoy bad anime adaptations?).
In comparison to the first season, the adaptation pacing of the second season was very slow even though the story still felt fast-paced. But that’s due to the books themselves since the Grand Gruen Volcano was Volume 5: Chapter 1, whereas the Sunken Ruins of Melusine was only Chapter 2. The title of Arifureta Season 2: Episode 7, A New Vow, was named after Chapter 3.
But a good adaptation pacing doesn’t mean that nothing was condensed or skipped. Fishy Mermen violence in Episode 4 and the gruesome battleship fights of Episode 5 were abridged. Episode 7 skipped the return to Ankaji.
The most disappointing omission was in Episode 6 where Kaori bypassed the first illusion using wide-range healing magic. But it made sense to omit this scene since it ran counter to Kaori feeling useless.
All in all, as predicted the ending of the second season, Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou Season 2 Episode 12, found a stopping point corresponding to the ending of light novel Volume 6.
It’s a decent stopping point since there is Yue and Shia’s battle at the capital, Hajime’s fight with Noint, and the betrayal by Eri that serves as the climax. The problem is that Arifureta Season 2 was almost too straightforward since the plot consisted mostly of three back-to-back Labyrinth/dungeon crawls: Grand Gruen Volcano, the underwater Sunken Ruins of Melusine, and the holy Divine Mountain.
At the same time, these dungeon conquests were essentially backdrops to the sub-plots involving the demons, the kidnapping of the teacher Aiko, the betrayal by Nakamura, and the major character development of Kaori Shirasaki. All of the girls were featured in special moments where they stood on their own.
The second season was essentially Karoi’s time to shine since it showed her working through her insecurities and feelings of inferiority. Kaori was also central to the reason why Eri betrayed her fellow students, although since this plot twist was given pretty much no on-screen development or foreshadowing it came off as this crazy-girl-whose-name-I’ve-forgotten-just-snapped-and-now-we-hate-her.
Otherwise, the romantic progression with Hajime’s harem was – dare I say? – Tortus-paced. With Yue defending her turf, the banter between the girls was amusing, but not very consequential. Most of the more interesting character development begins to take shape in light novel Volume 7, which means that anime-only fans will need to wait until Arifureta Season 3 before things get interesting.
The good news is that there is plenty of source material available now for making Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou Season 3. Better yet, English-only light novel readers can jump straight to Volume 7 if they wish to read ahead of the anime.
Unfortunately, by Arifureta Season 2 Episode 3, the anime had already caught up with the main Arifureta manga series. English-only manga readers will likely need to wait years before the manga catches up with the anime again.
Arifureta Season 3 studio, staff, and music
The studio and main staff making Arifureta Season 3 hasn’t been announced yet.
That’s a touchy subject since the first season was supposed to be produced by Studio White Fox (Goblin Slayer Season 2, Re:Zero), but the anime project was delayed by years after the early character designs for Hajime and Yue in the very first key visual was highly criticized by fans.
Worse, the author of the Arifureta web novel and light novel series, Ryo Shirakome, wrote on the Shosetsu ni Naro web novel site that “every time [he] was sent scripts and storyboards for the anime over these past few months [he] writhed in pain in [his] room.”
The anime production committee responded to the controversy in Japan by changing the staff to the point the only remaining staff member related to Studio White Fox was Shigeyuki Korewasa. But he continued work on the Arifureta anime under the name of his own company, Digital Noise.
As a result, production was shifted to Studio Asread (their CEO literally become the Arifureta producer) with White Fox only providing support. Asread was built by former Xebec members and is probably best known for animating Shuffle!, Future Diary (Mirai Nikki), and Corpse Party.
For making the second season, Asread collaborated with Studio MOTHER. The newer company only has one other project o their credit; the Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2202 compilation movie.
In making the second season, first season director Kinji Yoshimoto was replaced by director Akira Iwanaga (The Morose Mononokean).
However, writer Shoichi Sato (Future Diary) returned to write the scripts and series composition. Character designer and chief animation director Chika Kojima also returned for making the second season.
The Arifureta Season 3 OP (opening) and ED (ending) theme song music hasn’t been announced yet.
The Arifureta Season 2 OP “Daylight” was by MindaRyn, while the ED (ending) Gedou Sanka was performed by FantasticYouth. The Arifureta Season 1 OP was “FLARE” as performed by Void-Chords, while the ED was “Hajime no Uta” was performed by DracoVirgo.