The seventh season of Natsume’s Book of Friends is set to start on October 7, 2024. A new short promotional video has been released, showcasing the upcoming season.
The trailer features the main ending theme, Komari Warai, by Toshiki Kondo, which is also available on YouTube.
The opening theme, Alca, will be performed by Hinata Kashiwagi. Crunchyroll will stream this new season, continuing its coverage of the series, as it has done for the previous six seasons.
The series sees the return of familiar faces behind the scenes. Takahiro Omori, who directed the first four seasons, will come back as chief director.
Hideki Ito, who directed the anime movies from 2018, will direct the seventh season. Sadayuki Murai, who worked on the third season, will return as the series screenwriter and scriptwriter.
Akira Takata, the character designer from the first season, will also return. The music for the new season will be composed by Makoto Yoshimori, known for his work on Baccano! and Durarara!.
Natsume’s Book of Friends Returns for Season 7 (Shuka)
The animation production will be handled by Shuka, taking over from Brain’s Base. Natsume’s Book of Friends has been a long-running supernatural mystery series, with the last season airing in 2017.
Since then, the series has had two anime movies, released in 2018 and 2021, and a few OVA episodes. The anime is based on a manga by Yuki Midorikawa, which began as a one-shot in 2003 and moved to monthly serialization in 2007.
As of September 2024, the manga has 31 volumes published. The story centers on Takashi Natsume, who inherited a book from his grandmother, Reiko.
This book contains the names of various demons and spirits that Reiko had bound to her will. Now, the spirits seek to reclaim their names and freedom, creating ongoing challenges for Takashi as he handles his supernatural world.
The anime KonoSuba: God’s Blessing on This Wonderful World will receive a new OVA, continuing the tradition set by the OVAs from the previous seasons.
This upcoming special follows the third season, which aired in Spring 2024. In the past, the first season’s OVA featured Kazuma dealing with death using a Wish-Granting Choker and causing trouble for his friends, while the second season’s OVA sent the party on a new dungeon adventure sparked by Kazuma’s arrogance.
Details about the upcoming OVA are still under wraps. The third season of KonoSuba was animated by Studio Drive and directed by Yujiro Abe, with Takaomi Kanyasaki as the chief supervisor.
The series composition was handled by Makoto Uezu, and Koichi Kikuta returned for character design.
This season was announced alongside the spin-off series KonoSuba: An Explosion On This Wonderful World, which aired in 2023.
KonoSuba Season 3 (Drive)
The series has inspired several spin-offs and adaptations, including the original anime. The first season, animated by Studio DEEN, aired in Winter 2016 with 10 episodes, followed by a second season in Winter 2017, which also had 10 episodes. Both seasons included OVA episodes.
In addition to the TV anime, KonoSuba has a movie titled Legend of Crimson, which was animated by J.C. Staff and released in 2019.
The series is also part of the Isekai Quartet world and features a spin-off anime focusing on the character Megumin, which aired in 2023.
