Chihayafuru Manga Gets Sequel Series With New Main Lead – News

The December issue of Kodansha‘s Be Love monthly magazine announced on Wednesday that Yuki Suetsugu‘s Chihayafuru manga will spawn a sequel series called Chihayafuru plus Kimi ga Tame that will launch in the next issue on December 1.

The new series follows the first-year student Ritsu Nagara, who wants to pursue the card game karuta, but has a number of obstacles in his way. The tagline for the series reads, “What has become of the Karuta club that Chihaya and the others have left behind?”

Suetsugu launched the original manga in Be Love in December 2007. Kodansha Comics is releasing the manga digitally in English.

The final chapter of the original Chihayafuru series debuted in the September issue on August 1, 2022. Be Love‘s published a spinoff side story of Yuki Suetsugu‘s Chihayafuru manga on November 1, 2022. The manga’s 50th and final compiled book volume shipped on December 13, 2022 with the spinoff manga.

The manga inspired an anime, and 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. The third season premiered in October 2019.

Crunchyroll has streamed the series as it aired in Japan. Sentai Filmworks released all three seasons with an English dub on home video. HIDIVE is also streaming the seasons 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.

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 in March 2018. A five-episode live-action tie-in series, titled Chihayafuru -Tsunagu-, premiered on Hulu Japan in February 2018.

Source: Be Love December issue