‘Dagashi Kashi’ Season 2 Release Date Confirmed: Dagashikashi Manga Spoilers For Hotaru Shidare, Saya

The Dagashi Kashi Season 2 release date has officially been confirmed. Sometimes known by the synonym Dagashikashi, the anime will continue the story of Dagashi Kashi characters, like the sweets-crazy Hotaru Shidare, Kokonotsu “Coconuts” Shikada, and Saya Endo.

What’s more, the team producing the new Dagashi Kashi anime is going to change, which will be welcome news for some watchers. Some fans of the Dagashi Kashi manga criticized the anime because director Shigehito Takayanagi allegedly favored the character he liked instead of the main heroine. According to Otakomu, the latest issue of Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine has confirmed that Studio Feel will be handing the reins over to Tezuka Productions, with Satoshi Kuwabara as director. Series composition and character design will also be changing hands.

Not all change is good as Weekly Shonen Sunday has confirmed that Ayana Taketatsu will continue to voice Hotaru. Satoshi Motoyama will be returning as sound director. But what will the story be about this time around?

Dagashi Kashi Manga Is Enough Source Material For Dagashi Kashi Season 3

The slice of life comedy is largely focused on the love of Japanese dagashi, which are comparable to American penny candy. Much of the humor relies on nostalgia since dagashi shops are now rare in Japan since the cheap sweets can be purchased in convenience stores. Despite Hotaru’s antics, some fans found the anime to be “kind of boring,” but the MyAnimeList score still managed to be decent despite competing with comedies like Konosuba during that time period.

Fans of the Dagashi Kashi manga probably had difficulty following the anime because it adapted a bunch of random manga chapters in no particular order. The first three episodes covered the first 12 chapters, but slightly out of order, then Studio Feel pulled content from all over the first two volumes. There were also two episodes that were largely anime original content, including Episode 12. The first season also skipped some content, but, all in all, the adaptation went as far as the beginning chapters of the third volume.

The good news is that Tezuka Productions has over 100 manga chapters to use as source material for creating Dagashi Kashi Season 2. Creator Kotoyama first began serializing the Dagashi Kashi manga in Weekly Shonen Sunday in 2014. Each volume comes with about 19 chapters, or between 160 to 168 pages. Dagashi Kashi Volume 7 was released in Japan on March 17, 2017, and the eighth volume is scheduled to release on August 10, 2017.

The anime aired 12 episodes in January of 2016, and Funimation already streamed an English dub. Unfortunately, there is not an official Dagashi Kashi English translation of the manga, but fan-based projects are almost finished with the fourth volume.

Dagashi Kashi Season 2 Release Date

Anime production studio Tezuka Productions has confirmed that the Dagashi Kashi Season 2 release date will be during the 2018 winter anime season. The Dagashi Kashi Season 2 premiere date will be on January 11, 2018 and the anime will air on TBS.

Some fans were surprised to see the announcement of Dagashi Kashi Season 2 at all. The Dagashi Kashi Blu-Ray sales in Japan were not exactly stellar in the first week, selling less than 2,000 units based upon the Oricon charts. However, Crunchyroll News reports that the manga volumes doubled their sales after the anime adaptation was announced, averaging over 400,000 copies per volume sold by January of 2016.

Dagashi Kashi Season 2 Spoilers

The story of the second season of Dagashi Kashi will likely begin somewhere near the beginning or middle of the third manga volume. Chapters 39, 40, 42, and 43 were already adapted, but it’s possible the anime will continue to focus on the rom-com aspects of the story. After all, Dagashi Kashi Volume 3 contains many elements that push forward the main plot.

Poor Kokonotsu thinks he finds an opening to support his desire to become a mangaka when Kokonotsu’s father, Yo, and Hotaru discuss the creator of ume jam. It turns out the aging man does not automatically want his sons to take over the family business, and Yo and Hotaru both admire the reasoning behind this declaration. Unfortunately, the moral of the story is ignored and Yo still insists that he take over the dagashi store. Hotaru even goes out of her way to insist that Kokonotsu create his own dagashi.

Besides the usual hijinks surrounding the candies, things get a little hot for Kokonotsu when he decides to draw sexy manga characters based on Hotaru and Saya. The problem is that he accidentally left these drawings with Saya’s brother, To, at the Endo household. Worse, the character based on Saya had her chest notably reduced in size. Candies, of course, are used to power up his body so he can make the 1.5 kilometers run to the house before Saya notices.

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— TV?????????2??? (@anime_dagashi) August 11, 2017

Fans hoping to see either Hotaru or Saya connect romantically with Kokonotsu will probably love it when Hotaru “innocently” suggests that Saya work at Kokonotsu’s house. Hotaru somehow manages to become sopping wet multiple times and she sets Kokonotsu’s imagination afire when she abruptly declares, “Let’s suck on something a little. The train won’t come for a while and we’re bored, so just for a little bit!”

Many chapters are just focused on the characters having fun. There’s a game involving candies and Hotaru tries to cheat by buying the biggest version of the candy she can find. A discussion about classical and modern video games turns into a lesson on old-style jackpot machines. Even throwing paper gliders with rubber bands enter the mix with an impromptu contest.

The story arc about the summer festival is covered by multiple chapters and it introduces some new characters. There’s a mold-cutting contest, all sorts of humorous remarks related to beer (morinaga ramune soda candy is blatantly advertised as a cure for hangovers), and even the history of American candies is introduced.

Unfortunately, poor Kokonotsu is stuck making monja, a type of Japanese pan-fried batter. Saya becomes depressed because she was hoping to walk the festival with Kokonotsu while wearing the traditional Japanese yukata. Yo let’s them go and they end up doing all sorts of festival activities that remind Saya of their shared history.

Things get a little serious when Hotaru begins to wonder aloud how long it’ll be before she has to leave. After all, Hotaru normally travels all over the world and she only came to town to scout out Kokonotsu’s father and the dagashi shop.

It turns out the Shidare company wants to make an actual dagashi shop of their own and they’re trying to recruit Yo to run it as the boss, hence the pressure to have Kokonotsu take over his father’s shop. At the end of the festival, Hotaru openly talks about forcing Kokonotsu to inherit the shop, but in the end she says, “If the time comes for you to make a ‘choice,’ come to my place. I will wait until you decide.”

Fortunately, anime fans won’t have to wait too long for the Dagashi Kashi Season 2 release date. Based on the available information, it sounds like audiences will soon learn the exact time frame for the second season. Stay tuned!

[Update: December 5, 2017] Added exact date of the premiere.

[Featured Image by Studio Feel]