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Chihayafuru Manga Gets Spinoff Chapter in November

The September issue of Kodansha's Be Love magazine announced on Monday that Yuki Suetsugu's Chihayafuru manga will have a spinoff side story chapter that will debut in the magazine's December issue on November 1. The manga will also appear on that issue's front cover.

The final chapter of Chihayafuru also debuted in the September issue on Monday. The manga's 50th and final compiled book volume will ship on the December 13, and will include a spinoff manga.

Suetsugu launched the manga in Be Love in December 2007. The manga's 49th volume shipped on July 13. Kodansha Comics is releasing the manga digitally in English.

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. The third season was slated to premiere in April 2019 on NTV's "AnichU" programming block, but was delayed to October 2019. Crunchyroll Expo hosted a premiere screening for the anime in August 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 September issue