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Chihayafuru Gets New Live-Action Show Set 10 Years After Ending

An official website opened on Friday to reveal that Yuki Suetsugu's Chihayafuru manga is getting a new live-action television series titled Chihayafuru -Meguri- on NTV in July. The series will feature an original story set 10 years after the ending of the live-action movies. Manga creator Suetsugu is involved with the new show.

The original films' director Norihiro Koizumi is serving as the showrunner. Naoya Fujita, Daisuke Honda, Chiaki Matsumoto, and Kazuhiro Yoshida are directing the series. Monogatari Lab and Suzuyuki Kaneko are credited with the screenplay. Masaru Yokoyama is composing the music.

The first live-action 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.

The final chapter of the original Chihayafuru series debuted in the September issue in August 2022. Be Love's published a spinoff side story of Yuki Suetsugu's Chihayafuru manga in November 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.

A sequel manga titled Chihayafuru plus Kimi ga Tame that launched in Be Love in December 2023. The series follows first-year student Ritsu Nagara.

Sources: Chihayafuru -Meguri- live-action series' website, Comic Natalie