On Wednesday, September 13, 2023, The Rising of the Shield Hero season 3 anime series excitingly announced its imminent premiere on Japanese television in early October 2023. While the series had its world premiere screening at Anime Expo in early July 2023, this upcoming October release date will mark the television broadcast premiere of the season.
The Rising of the Shield Hero season 3 comes in the wake of an incredibly poorly received second season for the series, with both anime and light novel fans alike disappointed. Especially unfortunate in the eyes of fans was the final product they received following a 6-month delay for the second season from October 2021 to April 2022.
The series serves as an adaptation of the original light novel series written by Aneko Yusagi and illustrated by Seira Minami, with the upcoming season set to continue adapting source material. Hopefully, The Rising of the Shield Hero season 3 can outperform its direct predecessor overall in the eyes of fans, or the anime’s future may be in serious jeopardy.
The Rising of the Shield Hero season 3 set to premiere on Friday, October 6, in Japan
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The Rising of the Shield Hero season 3 is currently set to premiere on the AT-X network on Friday, October 6, 2023, at 9 pm Japanese Standard Time before airing on other networks. This follows the aforementioned world premiere in July 2023 and world tour premiere screenings held throughout the summer months. Tokyo will also see a world premiere tour screening with the cast in attendance on Sunday, October 1, 2023.
Hitoshi Haga, who storyboarded five episodes and directed four from the first season, is the new series director for the third season. Haga is the third director after the first season’s Takao Abo and the second’s Masato Jinbo. Kinema Citrus is returning for animation production. Keigo Koyanagi continues to write and supervise the series’ scripts, while Kevin Penkin also returns for the series’ music production.
Franziska van Wulfen and Sana Komatsu join Masahiro Suwa in designing the characters for the series. Kota Sera, the chief animation director for the previous two seasons, is also credited for collaborating on the character designs. The third season’s opening theme will be “SIN” by MADKID, and the ending theme will be “Suki ni Natte wa Ikenai Riyu” by Chia Fujikawa, which translates to “The Reason I Cannot Love You.” Both return from previous anime seasons.
New cast members for the series include Ami Koshimizu as Nadia, Kohei Amasaki as Fohl, Konomi Kohara as Atla, and Maria Naganawa as S’yne. The main cast from the second season will also be returning for the upcoming third.
Be sure to keep up with all anime, manga, film, and live-action news as 2023 progresses.