‘Dagashi Kashi’ Season 3: With The ‘Dagashi Kashi’ Manga Ending In 2018, Can The Anime Continue?
Dagashi Kashi Season 3 is already on the minds of anime fans who enjoy the antics of sweets-crazy Hotaru Shidare and reluctant shopowner Kokonotsu “Coconuts” Shikada. The only issue is that the Dagashi Kashi manga is ending in the spring of 2018, so where does that leave the anime adaptation?
Manga writer Kotoyama has been serializing the story in Weekly Shonen Sunday since the summer of 2014. Dagashi Kashi Volume 10 was published in February of 2018, and the final manga book, Volume 11, will be released on May 18, 2018. The manga volumes have sold over 3 million copies in Japan alone, and the sales jumped significantly when the anime was released.
When Volume 10 was released, it was noticed in the author’s note in the afterword that Kotoyama had already completed the layout for the manga’s finale. Fans knew that meant the manga series would probably finish soon, and Crunchyroll News reports that the “manga’s final chapter is expected to be published in the magazine’s 20th issue to be released on April 11.”
Unfortunately, an official Dagashi Kashi English translation was never licensed by companies like Yen Press or Seven Seas Entertainment. There are English fan translation projects, but so far they’re up to Chapter 121 in Volume 7 while the raw scans are already up to Chapter 184. At the project’s current pace, it will probably take a month to catch up the anime and over half a year to finish translating the manga series.
Dagashi Kashi Manga Compared To The Anime
Where does this leave Dagashi Kashi Season 3? The first season by Studio Feel adapted a bunch of random manga chapters in no particular order. The first three episodes covered the first 12 chapters slightly out of order, then Studio Feel pulled source material from all over the first two manga volumes. Two episodes were largely anime original content, including Episode 12. The first season skipped many chapters, but the ending concluded near the beginning chapters of Volume 3.
You would think that would leave plenty of source material for Dagashi Kashi Season 3, but when Tezuka Productions took over the anime they only accelerated the pacing for the second season. Worse, the episodes were only 12 minutes long instead of the usual 24 minutes, so that meant the anime was rocketing through the manga’s story. The silver lining to this change was that episodes focused more on character development and less on the history/trivia for candies.
The major development in the relationship between Hotaru and Kokonotsu took place in Episode 4, which was derived from chapters 106 and 107. The first half of Episode 10 of the second season jumped all the way to manga Chapter 120. Similar to the first season, the chapters were adapted out of order, so the High Eight Chocolate story in Episode 8 came from Chapter 121. The story in Episode 11 showed Kokonotsu doubting his dream of becoming a manga author despite having help from Hajime and friends.
Dagashi Kashi Season 2 Episode 12 found an ending with the return of Hotaru, which took place in manga chapters 125 and 126. Thankfully, with over 60 manga chapters not yet adapted, that means Episode 12 leaves plenty of room for Dagashi Kashi Season 3. Stay tuned.
