TONIKAWA Season 2 release date confirmed for April 2023 [PV trailer]

TONIKAWA Anime
The TONIKAWA Season 2 anime will introduce several new characters and reveal more about Tsukasa’s past. Pic credit: Studio Seven Arcs

The TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You Season 2 release date is confirmed to be on April 7, 2023, the Spring 2023 anime season.

The release time frame for TONIKAWA Season 2 was revealed by the official Anime Japan 2023 schedule website, which stated, “This is a special stage for the long-awaited 2nd season of the anime Tonikaku Kawaii, which will begin airing in April 2023!” The anime series is being featured on the Green Stage at Anime Japan 2023 at 11:00 AM JST on March 25, 2023 (9:00 PM EST on March 24, 2023).

TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You Season 2 (Tonikaku Kawaii Season 2) will continue the story of Nasa Yuzaki and his wife Tsukasa Tsukuyomi.

Crunchyroll will be streaming the episodes as they are broadcast in Japan in North America, Central America, South America, Europe, Africa, Oceania, the Middle East, and CIS.

Tonikawa: Over The Moon For You Season 2
Nasa and Tsukasa from Tonikawa: Over The Moon For You Season 2 teaser visual. Pic credit: Studio Seven Arcs

TONIKAWA Season 2 will feature a returning Japanese voice cast and a returning main production staff at animation studio Seven Arcs.

  • Akari Kito as Tsukasa Yuzaki
  • Junya Enoki as Nasa Yuzaki
  • Yu Serizawa as Kaname Arisugawa
  • Sumire Uesaka as Aya Arisugawa
  • Konomi Kohara as Chitose Kaginoji

The day before the first season’s finale aired in December 2020, anime news leaker Spytrue claimed that a Tonikaku Kawaii Season 2 TV anime announcement was forthcoming. It just took a lot longer than expected for the news leak to be confirmed in November 2021 and the production was even delayed.

On November 21, 2022, the new special episode “TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You ~Uniform~ was released. On that day, a new TONIKAWA Season 2 teaser PV was released. The end of the video included a new teaser visual.

Additionally, Warner Bros. Japan also released a special music video titled “Tsukasa’s Kitchen,” which was performed by Tsukasa’s voice actor Akari Kito.

On June 22, 2022, the official Twitter account stated that a special episode called “Uniform (Seifuku)” will be streaming on Crunchyroll ahead of TONIKAWA Season 2. On April 3, 2022, the initial announcement included a trailer for the new special episode.

Unfortunately, on August 5, 2022, it was announced that the TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You ~Uniform~ release date was being delayed. The TONIKAWA special episode was originally scheduled for August 2022, but its premiere was pushed back to Fall 2022.

TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You Season 2
The announcement of TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You Season 2 was made on the cover of Weekly Shonen Sunday Issue 50, 2021. Pic credit: Weekly Shonen Sunday

The first TONIKAWA Season 2 trailer was released on November 6, 2021.

A TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You OVA episode also previously released in 2021. The Virtual Crunchyroll Expo 2021 event was streaming a preview of the OVA, which is titled Tonikaku Kawaii ~SNS~.

(See the Tonikaku Kawaii OVA section below for the trailer and more details.)

The TONIKAWA Season 2 staff and studio are both confirmed to be returning.

This article provides everything that is known about TONIKAWA Season 2 (Tonikaku Kawaii Season 2/TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You Season 2/Fly Me To The Moon Season 2) and all related news. As such, this article will be updated over time with news, rumors, and analysis. Meanwhile, let’s delve down into what is known for certain.

TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You Season 2 anime spoilers (plot summary/synopsis)

The last time we watched Nasa and Tsukasa, they attended a festival together. But the second season will need to back up the plot by many chapters in order for the future to make sense.

They were living in the bathhouse after their Tokyo apartment was destroyed in a fire caused by a fluke lightning strike. Well, nobody told Chitose what happened so she’s pretty shocked in Episode 11 when she shows up where the apartment should be only to see construction.

It’s hinted pretty strongly that Chitose believes Tsukasa would survive the fire while Nasa would not. So, Chitose is relieved to learn both were in Nara when the fire happened.

It just so happens that Tsukasa was walking by on an errand. Chitose demands to know where she was living, but Tsukasa is able to give the gullible girl the slip… or so she thought. Chitose manages to follow Tsukasa home and meets Kaname and Aya Arisugawa.

Kaname scolds Nasa for never taking Tsukasa on a real date before. Nasa doesn’t see any logical reason to take his wife out since they have fun just hanging out. He also believes they are chances for bad relationship flags.

But Kaname convinces Nasa that dates are events that married couples use to learn more about each other. Nasa doesn’t want to be straight-forward, so he invites his wife on a date to buy a smartphone. Along the way, he proposes that they go to an aquarium.

Nasa is no smooth operator so Tsukasa quickly picks up on what’s really going on. She’s happy, regardless, although next time she wants the motive for the date to come from Nasa himself.

With the big date out of the way, Nasa finally presents Tsukasa with her very first smartphone. She has fun adding friends on the Line app and talking to Siri, but she’s also worried about those Zoltaxian aliens…

Tsukasa has long since noticed her husband is a genius. But she’s still surprised when he’s able to answer difficult math questions quickly while multi-tasking at the computer. The girls aren’t exactly thrilled to be beaten so soundly so they concoct a plan to distract Nasa with seduction by having Tsukasa wear Charlotte’s maid outfit.

Nasa happens to run into his old middle school homeroom teacher, Yanagi Naoko. While the teacher is worried about her former student’s future, it turns out that Nasa has a lesson for his sensei.

Chitose and Aya start a fight in the bathhouse but they end up bonding over video games.

When Nasa’s cousin Onimaru Ginga-kun visits the bathhouse, Tsukasa mistakenly mistakes him for a Yakuza delinquent who might intend on harming her husband. But it turns out the cousin simply needed help with an abandoned kitten they end up naming Toast.

TONIKAWA Over The Moon For You Manga Chapter 50
Despite Ginga’s scary delinquent demeanor, he’s actually class president and head of his family. Pic credit: Kenjiro Hata

The cuteness of his wife combined with a cute cat is just too much for Nasa. And, wouldn’t you know it, but they end up becoming cat owners.

Having a cat makes Nasa realize his wife enjoys being spoiled. Fortunately, Ginga is able to help with that by giving them free tickets to an amusement park.

And it just so happens that they run into Sensei. She was invited by another male teacher named Taniguchi but Sensei denies it’s a date, believing that the man wouldn’t want a “boring girl like me”.

Tsukasa realizes that they’re about to get caught up in a manga trope by ruining the teacher’s moment so she quickly evades by dragging Nasa away. And that’s when the “magic” begins to happen.

TONIKAWA Over The Moon For You Manga Chapter 54
Speaking of tropes, in TONIKAWA Season 2, Ginga and Aya convince Tsukasa to take Nasa on a so-called “uniform date”. That means Tsukasa dresses up in a Japanese schoolgirl uniform. Pic credit: Kenjiro Hata

Unfortunately, anime fans will have to wait until the TONIKAWA Season 2 release date to watch what happens next. Stay tuned!

Crunchyroll’s TONIKAWA Season 2 English dub release date predictions

The TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You anime was one of the 2020 Crunchyroll Originals, which includes TV shows like In/Spectre, Noblesse, Tower of God, and The God of High School. As such, the first season was streaming exclusively on Crunchyroll for the fall 2020 anime season.

The TONIKAWA English dub cast includes Zach Aguilar as Nasa Yuzaki and Lauren Landa as Tsukasa Tsukuyomi.

Initially, Crunchyroll was only streaming the anime with English subtitles. Eventually, the TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You English dub release date was scheduled for November 20, 2020, which meant the dubbed version premiered over a month after the episodes first began streaming with English subtitles.

Hopefully, the turnaround time for the TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You Season English dub release date will be faster. Ever since Sony purchased both Funimation and Crunchyroll the dubbing process has moved to Crunchyroll’s studios in Texas. Typically, dubbed episodes have been coming out within 3 weeks of the initial premiere of an anime TV show.

Tonikaku Kawaii Season 2 defied the poor Blu-Ray sales

As of the last update, Studio Seven Arcs, Crunchyroll, or any company related to the production of the anime has not officially confirmed the exact TONIKAWA Season 2 release date. However, the production of a Fly Me To The Moon Season 2 sequel was announced in November 2021. A year later, it was confirmed that the TONIKAWA Season 2 release date will be in 2023, but the specific time frame wasn’t announced until the Anime Japan 2023 schedule gave it away.

Once the news is officially confirmed this article will be updated with the relevant information.

The elephant in the room is that none of the initial Crunchyroll originals in 2020 have finished the first season and then immediately announced a continuation. Instead, each finale has ended with a “go read the Webtoon/manga” ending.

Thankfully, the same did not happen with the TONIKAWA anime, which immediately announced an OVA episode. Plus, the Tonikaku Kawaii Season 2 rumors from anime news leakers began early on, which was a good sign.

The secondary issue is whether there is enough source material. Fortunately, in that regard, there is no problem (see the manga comparison section below for more details).

As for the financial numbers, on one hand, the TONIKAWA Blu-Ray/DVD sales in Japan were bad, numbering only 390 copies in the first week. However, since the reviews have been solid and the anime was trending on Crunchyroll’s popular anime list it seems that the streaming numbers were good enough to have TONIKAWA renewed for a second season.

Considering that the early production rumors started in 2020, Anime Geek had previously predicted that it was possible that the TONIKAWA Season 2 release date would be in the first half of 2023, perhaps in Spring 2023.

TONIKAWA Anime
A key visual for Crunchyroll’s TONIKAWA OVA released in late April 2021. Pic credit: Crunchyroll

TONIKAWA OVA release date was in August 2021

When the first season’s finale aired, a TONIKAWA OVA episode was announced along with a trailer. The TONIKAWA OVA release date was on August 18, 2021.

Crunchyroll was seaming the new episode internationally on that day. In addition, it was released as a Blu-Ray disc in Japan.

The new OVA episode is officially titled Tonikawa: Over The Moon For You – SNS. A second trailer was released on March 24, 2021.

Crunchyroll previewed the first 15 minutes of the TONIKAWA OVA during the free 2021 Virtual Crunchyroll Event.

TONIKAWA manga compared to the anime

The anime is based on the Tonikaku Kawaii manga series by Kenjiro Hata. Launched in February 2018, the weekly manga is already well over 100 chapters long and has been collected into 21 volumes as of September 15, 2022.

The TONIKAWA Volume 16 cover art was especially controversial since it was completely unexpected for a rom-com series. Since the cover art contains major spoilers you will need to click this link in order to see it.

Warning: The following paragraph contains major spoilers.

In March 2021, Weekly Shonen Sunday Issue 17, 2021 announced that TONIKAWA Part 2, which began releasing in the following issue. The story is set 1,400 years in the past and focuses on heroine Tsukasa’s backstory.

A special preview trailer for the new manga series showed how Tsukasa Yuzaki’s real identity is finally revealed.

The main manga storyline is not ending. Tonikaku Kawaii Chapter 148 resumed the story in Issue 22.

Viz Media is publishing the official English translation of the TONIKAWA manga, which is known as Fly Me To The Moon manga in North America. Viz Media’s release schedule will have the English version catch up fairly quickly during 2023. As of January 10, 2023, the English Fly Me To The Moon manga series was up to Volume 15.

TONIKAWA Volume 5
The TONIKAWA Season 2 anime will pick up the story again with manga Volume 5. Pic credit: Kenjiro Hata

The manga has stood out from competitors in the crowded romcom market largely since the premise begins with the two characters married yet feeling like virtual strangers. Thus, there’s less forced drama and anime audiences won’t be waiting around for multiple seasons just to see if the main characters ever declare their love for each other.

Instead, there is the larger mystery of who exactly Tsukasa Tsukuyomi is in relation to Princess Kaguya in The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. Without getting into spoilers, the opening episode/chapter hints that something is off.

Later episodes show a “16-year-old” Tsukasa rescuing a young Chitose… and yet years later Tsukasa is still 16 when she registered her marriage?

Tsukasa’s knowledge of historical trivia is off the charts despite having zero interest in sightseeing historical landmarks and she can read ancient languages and wield a katana. She continually makes comments and references like an older person.

During the trip to visit Nasa’s parents in Nara, she even makes whimsical comments like, “Despite a thousand years passing by, the shape of the mountains never change, surprisingly…”

Even Tsukasa’s last name Tsukuyomi is part of the mystery since it literally is the name of the Japanese god of the moon. What’s more, many of the manga chapters have intro panels featuring Tsukasa traveling in exotic locations… which often seem to be set in the distant past!

But that central mystery probably won’t be resolved quickly. In fact, even if the anime is renewed for multiple seasons we probably won’t receive a solid answer even in TONIKAWA Season 3.

That shouldn’t be surprising since Hata is also the creator of the long-running Hayate the Combat Butler manga series. It featured supernatural entities and even aliens. Notably, a major revelation about the main character was held back for over 500 chapters.

TONIKAWA Anime
The TONIKAWA anime is unusual compared to most RomCom anime. Not only is it an eternal hand-holding buffet, but the main characters were also kissing within the first several episodes. TONIKAWA Season 2 will get even more heated, especially when Kaname gives them both a chart describing the meaning of different types of kisses. Pic credit: Studio Seven Arcs

TONIKAWA manga fans have been greatly pleased by the anime adaptation, which has been very faithful to the source material. For most of the first season, it’s practically a panel-by-panel adaptation with only minor tweaks here and there (sometimes the anime enhanced the jokes with visual gags).

The last several episodes rearranged some events and there is some skipped content but it’s usually only minor scenes. For example, in Episode 5 Nasa is working at his job and he comes to the self-realization that he only started the job so he could find his wife. But when he asks his boss if he could quit the latter man cries out, “No! I’d go bankrupt without you!”

Here is a guide to how the episodes were adapted.

  • TONIKAWA Episode 1: Chapters 1 – 4
  • TONIKAWA Episode 2 Chapters 5 – 8
  • TONIKAWA Episode 3: Chapters 8 – 11
  • TONIKAWA Episode 4: Chapters 12 – 14
  • TONIKAWA Episode 5: Chapters 15 – 18
  • TONIKAWA Episode 6: Chapters 19 – 22
  • TONIKAWA Episode 7: Chapters 23 – 26
  • TONIKAWA Episode 8: Chapters 27 – 30
  • TONIKAWA Episode 9: Chapters 31 – 33, 35, 36
  • TONIKAWA Episode 10: Chapters 37 – 40, 40.5 bonus
  • TONIKAWA Episode 11: Chapters 41, 42, 44
  • TONIKAWA Episode 12: Chapters 88, 89, 80

As you can see, Episode 12 jumped ahead for the ending. Besides skipping Chapter 34 and 43, the only major part of the manga that’s skipped is most of the omake (bonus) chapters.

Despite being hilarious, it’s not surprising they didn’t make the cut considering the first one, Chapter 2.5, broke the fourth wall and openly discussed how readers don’t want a married couple as protagonists and that they’d rather be reading Hayate 2.

Tonikaku Kawaii Manga
Episode 5 was the first time any sort of content was changed. In this case, the anime studio skipped a MCU reference joke where Tsukasa breathlessly listed all the names of all the Marvel movies, making it sound like a magic spell to Nasa’s non-otaku ear. They also censored a non-essential scene where Kaname tried to convince Nasa to rent an adult movie called Nausicaa: With Her Valleys of The Wind (seriously). Pic credit: Kenjiro Hata

Due to the weirdness of the ending, the finale, TONIKAWA: Over The Moon For You Episode 12, found a stopping point in manga Volume 9. In order to maintain the continuity, some plot points were removed, and when Tsukasa and Nasa attended the festival (Chapter 80) some of the dialogue was shifted over from the cold story (Chapters 88 and 89).

Manga readers who wish to read ahead of the anime should jump to Volume 5, which contains chapters 39 through 48. The best starting point for TONIKAWA Season 2 would be Chapter 43 since it has Nasa and Tsukasa going to the aquarium as their first official date as a married couple.

The good news is that such a stopping point leaves plenty of room for the TONIKAWA Season 2 anime. Arguably, there are already enough chapters available for making TONIKAWA Season 3.

The only bad news is that English-only manga readers who wish to read ahead of the anime will need to wait until May 2021 when the English Volume 5 releases.

Tonkaku Kawaii Season 3 studio, staff, and theme song music

The anime’s first season was produced by animation studio Seven Arcs, which is best known for fantasy anime series like Dog Days, Trinity Seven, and Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. Earlier in 2020 they also released the Arte anime, a historical drama that’s loosely based on the life of 17th-century female painter Artemisia Gentileschi.

The TONIKAWA Season 2 anime will be helmed by returning director Hiroshi Ikehata. The director is best known for Akiba’s Trip, FLCL Progressive, Space Battleship Tiramisu, and the 2020 BEM Movie: Become Human. He’s also been an episode director for Accel World, Black Bullet, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Kill la Kill, Princess Principal, and Gurren Lagann.

With the exception of the art director, most of the main staff has previously worked together on the Akiba’s Trip anime. Writer Kazuho Yodo (ReLIFE) is handling the series scripts. Artist Masakatsu Sasaki (We Never Learn: BOKUBEN) is the character designer.

Yukihiro Shibutani (Case Closed, Netflix’s Godzilla trilogy) is the art director. Satoshi Motoyama (The Irregular At Magic High School Season 2, We Never Learn: BOKUBEN) is the sound director. Composer Endo (Akiba’s Trip) is writing the music.

TONIKAWA Season 2
The key visual for the Tonikawa: Over the Moon for You Season 2 anime that was released in November 2021. Pic credit: Studio Seven Arcs

The TONIKAWA Season 2 OP “Setsuna no Chikai (feat. Tsukasa Yuzaki)” will be performed by Neko Hacker.

The ED “Yoru no Katasumi” will be sung by Tsukasa Yuzaki (Akari Kito).

For the first season, the TONIKAWA OP (opening) theme song music was “Song of Love featuring Tsukasa Tsukuyomi” as sung by Japanese voice actress Akari Kito. The ending (ED) was “The Moon and the Starry Sky” performed by KanoeRana, composed by Endo, and written and arranged by DJ Yunomi.

The finale for the first season, TONIKAWA Episode 12, released on December 18, 2020.

  • Updated January 30, 2023: Tonikaku Kawaii Season 2 release date confirmed for April 2023. Added Anime Japan 2023 info.
  • Updated November 21, 2022: TONIKAWA Season 2 release date confirmed for 2023. Added teaser PV trailer and visual.
  • Updated August 5, 2022: Crunchyroll streaming special episode in Fall 2022.
  • Updated November 5, 2021: TONIKAWA Season 2 confirmed!
  • Updated May 20, 2021: Added TONIKAWA OVA info from Crunchyroll.
  • Updated March 24, 2021: TONIKAWA Part 2 confirmed for the manga series. Added Tonikaku Kawaii OVA release date and new trailer.
  • Updated December 18, 2020: TONIKAWA 2021 OVA episode confirmed!
  • Updated December 17, 2020: Added Tonikaku Kawaii Season 2 anime rumor from Spytrue.
  • Updated November 12, 2020: TONIKAWA dub release date and cast added.

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