The Chihayafuru Season 3 release date has been officially confirmed to be coming up soon on October 22, 2019. What’s more, original creator Yuki Suetsugu has confirmed that the Chihayafuru manga’s ending is in sight and that the manga’s climax will release in the same time frame as the anime’s third season!
The Chihayafuru 3 premiere was originally scheduled for April 2019 but the anime was delayed. In an official statement, the staff of animation studio Madhouse said they had Chihayafuru Season 3 delayed because they desired to produce the best work possible. Madhouse apologized for the delay and thanked all their fans for the ongoing support of the Chihayafuru anime series.
Director Morio Asaka (Cardcaptor Sakura, Chobits) will be returning to helm the project at studio Madhouse. The biggest change will be to the Chihayafuru Season 3 cast, which shouldn’t be too surprising since the last anime season came out in 2013.
Voice actors Unsho Ishizuka (karuta mentor Dr. Harada) and Toshiko Fujita (karuta club advisor Taeko Miyauchi) both died in 2018. Ishizuka is being replaced by Kenta Miyake, who is famous for playing the Japanese voice of All Might in My Hero Academia. Fujita is being replaced by Yoshino Ohtori, who has played Suneo’s mama in the Doraemon TV series and movies.
However, the voice actors for the three main characters will remain the same. Asami Seto will voice Chihaya Ayase, Mamoru Miyano will voice Taichi Mashima, and Yoshimasa Hosoya will voice Arata Wataya.
The musical group 99RadioService, which produced the opening for the first two seasons, will be returning for performing the Chihayafuru 3 OP song Colorful. The ED theme song Hitomebore (Love At First Sight) will be performed by Band Harassment.
- Updated August 2, 2019: Added new Chihayafuru Season 3 trailer video.
This article provides everything that is known about Chihayafuru 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.
Chihayafuru manga ending soon – How the manga compares to the anime
The story for the anime series is based on the Chihayafuru manga series by author and illustrator Yuki Suetsugu. Released bi-monthly, the manga series is up to Volume 42 as of July 12, 2019.
New volumes are usually released every three to four months. Each volume usually contains either four or five chapters and Volume 42 ends with Chapter 217.
Kodansha Comics is releasing the official English translation of the Chihayafuru manga series online digitally. Unfortunately, the English translation is far behind the Japanese language version, with Chihayafuru Volume 17 having released on June 4, 2019. A new English Chihayafuru volume tends to release every month but sometimes there are large multi-month gaps in the publishing schedule.
Started in December 2007, the creator is planning on ending her Chihayafuru manga by October 2019 at the earliest. Back in February 2019, the manga creator discussed on Twitter how she was told several years ago that the Chihayafuru Season 3 anime would be coming out no sooner than 2019.
Suetsugu was asked if her manga would still be ongoing by 2019, so she originally told them she was targeting the spring of 2019 for reaching the ending. It’s possible that the Chihayafuru Season 3 released date was originally scheduled for April 2019 since Suetsugu originally was expecting to be done by then.
By early 2019, Suetsugu realized she would be unlikely to be finished by even October 2019. However, the Chihayafuru manga’s climax will be releasing in the fall of 2019 so she hopes everyone can enjoy both the manga and the third season of the anime at the same time.
The first two seasons that released in 2011 and 2013 adapted about 93 manga chapters with 50 episodes. Assuming that studio Madhouse maintains the same story pacing with the Chihayafuru Season 3 episodes, that means the third season should find an ending somewhere around Chapter 138 of Volume 26.
Without getting into major spoilers, the ending of Chihayafuru Season 3 will likely end on a major cliffhanger since Chapter 137 contains a story event involving Chihaya and Taichi that fans of the manga are looking forward to seeing animated. While cynics might call that a “go read the manga” ending, it’s possible it could be the setup for another anime Chihayafuru sequel.
The good news is that such a stopping point would leave plenty of room for Chihayafuru Season 4 and 5, with Chihayafuru Season 5 likely being the anime’s ending. The bad news is that English-only manga readers probably won’t be able to read ahead of the Chihayafuru Season 3 anime’s story until mid-2020 at the earliest.
Chihayafuru 3 release date set for October 2019
The official website lists the Chihayafuru Season 3 premiere as being scheduled for October 22, 2019. The anime will be divided up into two cours. A “cour” is a three-month TV broadcasting unit based on the physical seasons and animes usually have between 10 to 13 episodes per cour.
In this case, the Blu-Ray/DVD box set web page revealed that Chihayafuru 3’s number of episodes is 24 in total. That means the anime’s finale in Chihayafuru Season 3 Episode 24 will air in either late March 2020 or early April 2020.
Hopefully, Chihayafuru Season 3 will not be the ending of the anime series. Let’s hope that studio Madhouse sees the manga’s story to the end. Stay tuned!