The power of karuta can do anything! Except, apparently, bring about a third season of the Chihayafuru anime series.
Last week, the official Chihayafuru live-action film website uploaded a new trailer for the project. Though the teaser doesn’t contain any dialogue, the two-minute trailer offers an extended preview of theme song FLASH by Perfume.
This is the fourth promo for the Chihayafuru live-action movies. Previously, a pair of teasers hit online services in October and December 2015, respectively.
The project is slated to be a pair of films, Chihayafuru: Kami no Ku (Chihayafuru: Upper Phrase) and Chihayafuru: Shimo no Ku (Chihayafuru: Lower Phrase), which will hit theaters on March 19 and April 19, respectively.
The confirmed cast includes:
- Chihaya Ayase: Suzu Hirose
- Taichi Mashima: Shuhei Nomura
- Arata Wataya: Mackenyu
- Kanade Ooe: Mone Kamishiraishi
- Yusei Nishida: Yuma Yamoto
- Tsutomu Komano: Yuki Morinaga
- Akihito Sudo: Hiroya Shimizu
- Hiro Kinashi: Ryotaro Sakaguchi
- Shinobu Wakamiya: Mayu Matsuoka
- Taeko Miyauchi: Miyuki Matsuda
- Hideo Harada: Jun Kunimura
The Chihayafuru manga inspired a pair of anime series from Madhouse, which ran for a combined 50 episodes. Morio Asaka (My Love Story!!) directed the title, while Kunihiko Hamada (My Love Story!!, Nana) provided character designs. Digimon Fusion composer Kousuke Yamashita was in charge of the show’s music.
In North America, the Chihayafuru anime is currently streaming in its entirety on Crunchyroll. They describe the series as follows:
Chihaya Ayase has spent most of her life supporting her sister’s model career. When she meets a boy named Arata Wataya, he thinks Chihaya has potential to become a great karuta player. As Chihaya dreams of becoming Japan’s best karuta player, she is soon separated from her karuta playing friends. Now in high school, Chihaya still plays karuta in the hope that she will one day meet her friends again.
You can check out the previous teasers below:
First Trailer
Second Trailer
Third Trailer
Source: YouTube (TOHO Movie Channel)
