Anime fans may be in for a slight upset since it appears that the release date for Attack On Titan Season 3 Episode 13 may be delayed until 2019.
While we know how many episodes Attack On Titan Season 3 will have in total, Japanese fans are noticing that Shingeki no Kyojin Season 3 Part 2 is not being listed for the 2018 fall anime season.
Over on Twitter, some anime fans are reporting that they purchased physical TV guides for the upcoming Japanese broadcasts. Attack On Titan Season 3 Episode 12, Night of the Battle to Retake the Wall, is listed as coming out on October 8, 2018.
If the third season were to resume broadcasting in the fall of 2018, Episode 13 should be listed on October 15, Episode 14 on October 22, and so on, but the printed TV guides allegedly show no additional listings for the SnK anime on NHK, Japan’s national public broadcasting organization.
(Update: Typhoon Trami caused SnK Season 3 Episode 11 to be delayed until October 7, 2018. Therefore, Episode 12 will be delayed a week, as well. The rest of this article remains as originally published.)
What does this mean? It’s possible that the second half of the Attack On Titan Season 3 episodes are a split cour. A split-cour anime is when a single season takes a broadcasting break for a single three-month unit of time.
A recent example would be the second half of Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma Season 3. If Attack On Titan Season 3 Part 2 is handled similarly, then the release date would be in January 2019, the winter 2019 anime season.
Unfortunately, none of this information has been verified. The official broadcast information page for the SnK anime only lists the days of the week that Japanese stations will air the series, but not specific dates beyond the initial premiere.
However, there is some supporting evidence since SnK News noted that a split-cour third season might “explain the lack of solid dates” for Volumes 5 through 7 of the Blu-Ray/DVD box sets.
- Shingeki no Kyojin Season 3 Volume 1: Oct 17, 2018
- Shingeki no Kyojin Season 3 Volume 2: Dec 5, 2018
- Shingeki no Kyojin Season 3 Volume 3: Jan 9, 2019
- Shingeki no Kyojin Season 3 Volume 4: Feb 6, 2019
- Shingeki no Kyojin Season 3 Volumes 5 through 7: To Be Announced.
The first four volumes contain only the first 12 episodes. Back in July 2018, the Japanese language website noted that the Attack On Titan Season 3 release dates for the discs would be “updated from time to time.” This page has not yet been updated.
Attack On Titan Season 4 may be a waiting game, too
If the third season is indeed a split-cour anime, what does that mean for Attack On Titan Season 4? It’s possible the ending of the third season will correspond to manga Chapter 90, which is the ending of Volume 22. Although the manga will be up to Chapter 112 of Volume 27 by the end of 2018, the story thus far does not provide a decent stopping for the anime.
Therefore, similar to how there was a long wait for the second season of Attack On Titan, it’s possible more SnK manga chapters need to be released before production can begin on Shingeki no Kyojin Season 4. For more details, see the full article on Attack On Titan Season 4.