Chihayafuru Anime's 3rd Season Reveals Visual, April Premiere

NTV's official website for the third television anime season based on Yuki Suetsugu's Chihayafuru manga revealed on Monday that the third season will premiere in April and will air on NTV's "AnichU" programming block.

Morio Asaka is returning to direct the anime at Madhouse. The three main cast members will also return:

·         Asami Seto as Chihaya Ayase

·         Mamoru Miyano as Taichi Mashima

·         Yoshimasa Hosoya as Arata Wataya

The first 25-episode television anime season ran from October 2011 to March 2012. The second season, Chihayafuru 2, premiered in January 2013 and also ran for 25 episodes. Crunchyroll streamed both seasons in several countries as they aired in Japan. Sentai Filmworks releasedboth seasons with an English dub on home video. HIDIVE is also streaming the first season with Japanese subtitles and an English dub.

Sentai Filmworks describes the story:

Chihaya Ayase is a beautiful and headstrong young woman with a passion for karuta, a card game inspired by classical Japanese poetry. As a child, Chihaya was introduced to the game by a quiet, gifted transfer student named Arata, and she was instantly drawn to it. Now in high school and reunited with her childhood friend Taichi, Chihaya dreams of finding Arata and the three resuming their love of karuta, only to discover that Arata has quit the game due to personal reasons. Determined not to let Arata's passion go to waste, Chihaya and Taichi form the Mizusawa High School Karuta Club, where they learn that in karuta - as in life - working toward your dreams is the key to winning, even when what you want seems just out of reach.

The 22nd volume of the manga additionally bundled an original anime DVD when it shipped in September 2013.

Suetsugu launched the manga in Kodansha's Be-Love magazine in December 2007. Kodansha published the 39th compiled volume on August 9, and will publish the 40th volume on Tuesday. The manga has more than 21 million copies in print in Japan. Kodansha Comics is releasing the manga digitally in English.

Suetsugu's manga has also inspired three live-action films. The first film, Chihayafuru: Kami no Ku (Chihayafuru: Upper Phrase), opened in Japan in March 2016. The second film, Chihayafuru: Shimo no Ku (Chihayafuru: Lower Phrase), opened in Japan in April 2016. The third film, Chihayafuru: Musubi, opened in Japan on March 17. A five-episode live-action tie-in series, titled Chihayafuru -Tsunagu-, premiered on Hulu Japan on February 20.

Sources: Chihayafuru anime's website, Comic Natalie
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