‘New Game!!!’ Season 3 Release Date: Anime Compared To The ‘New Game!’ Manga, Blu-Ray/DVD Sale Date In Japan

The wait for the New Game!!! Season 3 release date should come with its own mini-game. Fortunately, there was already a video game adaptation released by 5pb in January of 2017, but the real question is whether anime fans will have to wait a while before the New Game!!! anime comes out. The good news is that the New Game!! Blu-Ray and DVD box sets have been announced already, and there are also plans for a special event in early 2018. The bad news is that the anime is running out of source material.

New Game!! Anime Season 2 Characters Compared To The Manga

Based on the four-panel manga series from Shotaro Tokuno, the story of cute girls developing video games has captured the hearts of anime fans. The New Game! manga series first started in 2013, and as of June of 2017, it’s up to six volumes. New Game! Volume 5 is a prequel since it’s about Aoba, Nene, and Hotaru’s high school lives, and those stories have been completely skipped by the anime adaptation. The release date for New Game! Volume 7 has yet to be announced, but the monthly manga is already up to over 60 chapters.

After accomplishing Aoba’s dream of becoming a video game developer, the second season continued with the adventures of her fellow co-workers at Eagle Jump. The first episode drew inspiration from several manga chapters. For example, Shizuku Hazuki spat out her coffee in Chapter 26 after Aoba asked why the company only seems to employ females. In Chapter 27, Umiko Ahagon agreed to become the chief programmer as long as she could flick Shizuku’s forehead if a specification change is made.

The ordering of events was shifted around a little bit. The New Game! OVA Episode 13 that was released in-between the first two seasons pulled content from chapter 29, which focuses on Aoba and her co-workers attending a hot spring. The falling sakura petals and a flower viewing occurred in chapter 43, even though Aoba’s second year at Eagle Jump started with the first episode. But there was one major change to the first two episodes that might change how audiences feel about the main characters.

When the game PECO is first announced in chapter 49 of the manga, Ko Yagami wanted Aoba to create the key visual, but she was overruled by Rin Toyama and Hazuki because they wanted to market the game with Ko headlining as the main visual designer. Ko was outraged because she thought this decision was unfair to Aoba. In the manga, Aoba challenged Ko for the key visual as a friendly learning experience, whereas the anime had a design contest that caused jealousy between the two characters. Since the character development was handled completely differently, it’s definitely worth reading the manga version of the story.

The New Game!! anime has even created material that made its way into the manga. For example, Hazuki’s cat, Mozuku, was introduced in the anime, but was not serialized in the manga until the release of chapter 52, when the second season was already airing.

Unfortunately, the anime adaptation has quickly caught up with the manga source material. New Game!! Episode 9 pulled the “at least put a shirt on” scene from around chapter 57 while the “red light, green light time trial” of Episode 10 came from chapter 58. Nene Sakura and her ball maze game is the theme of chapter 59. So, needless to say, the ending of the second season lines up with the end of New Game! Volume 6.

New Game!! Anime Season 2 Blu-Ray Release Date

To celebrate the release of the TV anime New Game!! Blu-ray and DVD box sets, an exhibition will be held in multiple locations in Japan on Saturday, September 23, 2017. The box sets will include original artwork from Shotaro Toshito and New Game! character design drawings. There’s also song CDs, cards, leaflets, and a lottery ticket for a special event set for January 21, 2018.

The New Game!! Special Event is going to be held at the Olympus Hall Hachioji in Hachioji, Tokyo. Special guest appearances will include Yuki Takada (Aoba Suzukaze), Yoko Hikasa (Ko Yagami), Ai Kayano (Rin Toyama), Megumi Yamaguchi (Hifumi Takimoto), Megumi Toda (Hajime Shinoda), and many others.

Each volume comes with two episodes and bonus footage, with the Blu-Ray edition’s price set at 7,000 yen and the DVD edition is 6,000 (both prices are before tax). The New Game!! Blu-Ray release date schedule is as follows.

• New Game!! Rank 1 (Volume 1) — September 27, 2017
• New Game!! Rank 2 (Volume 2) — October 25, 2017
• New Game!! Rank 3 (Volume 3) — November 29, 2017
• New Game!! Rank 4 (Volume 4) — December 22, 2017
• New Game!! Rank 5 (Volume 5) — January 24, 2018
• New Game!! Rank 6 (Volume 6) — February 23, 2018

There are also extra bonuses depending on when and where you buy the box sets. For more information, go to the official New Game! website.

New Game!!! Season 3 Release Date

As of this publishing, anime production company Doga Kobo has not announced anything official about the New Game!!! Season 3 release date, although this article will be updated as soon as the anime sequel’s premiere is confirmed. However, there can be reasonable speculation about when, or if, the New Game!!! Season 3 air date may occur.

Predicting the air date based on history, the third season is likely to come out in the summer of 2018 anime season, which begins in July. It’s possible the ending of New Game!! Episode 12 may give audiences a hint at the exact time frame, but, otherwise, an official announcement will probably wait until the spring of 2018. The second season was originally announced in February of 2017 at a New Game! Fan Thanks Event, so it’s possible New Game!!! Season 3 could be announced in January, 2018, at the New Game!! Special Event.

However, that’s an optimistic prediction since the New Game!! anime has caught up with the manga source material. Manga creator Shotaro Tokuno has been publishing two chapters a month, but it seems likely that fans will have to wait until the summer of 2019 for the New Game!!! Season 3 release date. In the meantime, keep on loading, loading, loading!

[Featured Image by Doga Kobo/New Game!! Anime TV Still]