The Date A Live Season 3 release date has been officially confirmed for January 11, 2019, the Winter 2019 anime season. It appears that the third season will be based on the main light novel series rather than an anime adaptation of Kurumi Tokisaki’s story in Date A Live Fragment: Date A Bullet.
In October 2017, Kadokawa-owned book publisher Fujimi Shobo teased Date A Live Season 3 by creating a website called Date A Time that showed a large clock with Roman numerals counting down. The artwork resembled Kurumi’s left eye so some anime fans hoped that a Date A Bullet anime adaptation announcement was forthcoming.
Despite the countdown clock artwork, the announcement’s key visual also showed off Tohka Yatogami and the Spirit form of Origami Tobiichi instead of focusing on Kurumi.
A year later, a stage presentation at the Fantasia Bunko Dai Kanshasai 2018 event revealed that Dave A Live Season 3 will premiere in 2019. They also specified that the title will be Date A Live 3, which means the Date A Live Kurumi spin-off won’t be adapted any time soon.
The biggest change for Date A Live Season 3 will be the animation studio. Production IMS, which produced the second season, recently declared bankruptcy so J.C. Staff will be handling production.
However, many of the key staff members are returning. Director Keitaro Motonaga is coming back along with character designer (formerly key animator) Koji Watanabe and series composition writer Hideki Shirane.
Returning cast members include:
- Nobunaga Shimazaki as Shido Itsuka
- Marina Inoue as Tohka Yatogami
- Misuzu Togashi as Origami Tobiichi
- Ayana Taketatsu as Kotori Itsuka
- Iori Nomizu as Yoshino
- Asami Sanada as Kurumi Tokisaki
- Maaya Uchida as Kaguya Yamai
- Sarah Emi Bridcutt as Yuzuru Yamai
- Minori Chihara as Miku Izayoi
The biggest addition to the Date A Live cast is Ayumi Mano, who will play the role of the Seventh Spirit Natsumi. A visual teaser shows off the new character.
This article provides everything that is known about Date A Live 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.
Date A Live light novel series compared to the anime
The story for Date A Live Season 3 is based on the light novel series by author Koushi Tachibana. Published since March of 2011, the series is up to Volume 19 as of August 18, 2018. The Date A Live Volume 19 release date has yet to be announced, although historically new books tend to publish around every spring and fall.
A Date A Live manga adaptation started in 2012 but it was short-lived. Mangaka Kakashi Oniyazu released four volumes but the manga was canceled due to the manga artist’s health problems.
Unfortunately, an official English translation of the Date A Live novel series has never been licensed. Even worse, a fan-made translation project stopped in 2015 and the project page was eventually taken down.
Overall, there are 22 episodes (including Date A Live OVA episodes) and a Date A Live movie called Mayuri Judgement was an original story written by Tachibana. The first two seasons adapted the story events all the way up through Volume 7. Funimation has already released the Date A Live dub in English.
Based on the current information, it’s likely that Date A Live Season 3 will adapt Volumes 8 through 11, which cover the story arcs for Natsumi and Origami. The number of episodes for the third season has not yet been announced, so there’s still the possibility the anime could adapt all the way up to Volume 15 with a two-cour/24-episode Dave A Live 3. However, that’s an overly optimistic hope and those story arcs will probably need to wait for Date A Live Season 4.
Date A Bullet anime possible in the future?
The popular Kurumi character plays a pivotal role in the main story arc adapted by Date A Live 3 (see the spoilers below for more details). What’s more, starting with Volume 16, the light novels focused on a Kurumi story arc. Volume 17’s title was even called Kurumi Ragnarok. Starting in 2017, Kurumi received her own Date A Bullet light novel series.
The Date A Bullet light novel is written by author Yuichiro Higashide under the supervision of original creator Koushi Tachibana. The spin-off novel series is already up to Date A Bullet Volume 4, which released on August 18, 2018.
While a Date A Bullet anime is not currently in the works there is certainly enough source material for creating an anime adaptation. The books tell the story of how Kurumi became a Spirit and explains her fixation on killing the First Spirit ever since that person appeared 30 years ago.
Date A Live Season 3 spoilers
Poor Shido always has some sort of problem when attempting to date these Spirits. The third season is set right before Halloween and wouldn’t you know it but the Seventh Spirit named Natsumi just happens to look like a witch. Her abilities include shapeshifting and she uses this power to masquerade as other characters.
Shido not only needs to date this disguised Spirit, but he also needs to find her before Deus Ex Machina Industries (DEM) captures her first! Natsumi challenges Shido to a twisted game of “hide and seek” where if he guesses wrong then the real person disappears.
Things get even more complicated when it turns out Natsumi has transformed Tohka and the other Spirits into needy children. Natsumi has quite a mental complex involving self-loathing which Shido must overcome.
Speaking of complicated, the DEM suffers from infighting and even an assassination attempt. In order to increase her combat power, Origami joins the DEM but is still defeated by a fully charged Tohka.
Origami hates Spirits because one killed her parents five years ago. Losing to Tohka only causes Origami to take even more drastic measures. Without getting into major spoilers, Origami finds herself transformed in an unexpected way.
The ending of Date A Live Season 3 should focus on the story of Volume 11, Tobiichi Angel. The story arc involves time travel, which explains why the initial announcement referenced time and clocks.
Phantom transforms humans into Spirits by using the Sephira Crystal, so Kurumi sends Origami back in time in order to prevent Phantom from creating Spirits in the first place. Shido follows her back five years into the past in order to bring her back. Unfortunately, Origami’s actions have terrible consequences for her family and she is cast into despair.
Anime fans will need to wait until the Date A Live Season 3 release date to watch how Shido resolves these conflicts. Thankfully, fans won’t have to wait too long for Kurumi’s time-travel antics. Stay tuned!