@Gato Yeah, I am so weak against chibis DX

@leongsh Thanks again for the informative and detailed answer on my question. ^^

@iciak I haven’t gotten around to peeking at the manga, because of the reasons stated above. I’m going to do a lot of catching up, so I do not think I’ll have enough time to browse through the manga. ^^;;; taihen

@p-kun If they do cap it at 26 episodes, I hope that the 2nd season won’t be too far off after airing the 1st one.

if they can stretch minor matches.

Or make Shiga TALK.

(Now who would drop the show if they did that? *raises hand*)

I agree with leongsh about the estimated number of episodes. The season is most likely to end at the same point where vol.8 did (and I think it would actually be a very good closing scene, too). Even if one simply counted the books, the conclusion is clearly 26 episodes.

If we assume that the anime will continue beyond the Tosei arc, there’s always a possibility the second season will not start directly after the first one. Instead, one season of a different show would air before Oofuri S2 takes off. This would give the animators +one volume worth of material.

Show ▼

I really liked how the second part of the episode focused on the training, too. Not that it hadn’t appeared in the manga, but the anime gave a clearer picture on the extent of effort the team put into preparing to face Tosei.Show ▼

Look at the 23 June 2007 entry (second most recent entry, i.e. after the nice blog on how the first press edition of Volume 1 looks like – and yes, that’s actually how it looks) – the interview with the director, Mizushima and the response to the first query with my rudimentary translation in brackets:

?????????????????????????
(Roughly, where has the production reached?)

??????19??????????????????????????????????7????????????????????????????
(The work is done up until episode 19. This is roughly in the middle of Nishiura’s first round match. July is going to be a serious month as the match progresses.)

Up until 23 June 2007 (a fortnight back), the production has reached Episode 19. 26 episodes is looking very likely.

Does anybody know how many episodes A-1 plans to make for Oofuri?

I don’t recall A-1 saying anything. My guess is 26 episodes. This is based on the R2J DVD release. Nowadays, the R2J DVD release for 26 episodes which is most prevalent is the 9-volume release, i.e. 2-episodes for the 1st volume and 3-episodes for the next 8 volumes (2|3|3|3|3|3|3|3|3), which the Oofuri R2J DVD release is shaping up to be.

The Nishiura v Tosei arc is going to be at least 10 episodes. Why? Because the match in the manga takes up nearly as many chapters (3 manga volumes and a bit more) as it took to get from the start to the Tosei match. Just watched Episode 13 a couple of days back. The match starts in Episode 14.

If it is going to be a 26-episode season, the series season will end shortly after the match against Tosei. Hopefully that there is sufficient interest for them to consider continuing with another season. Where the manga is right now (Chapter 46), there is more than sufficient material for another 13 episodes over a standard 26-episode season. Taking time into account as the manga develops while the anime is being shown, there should be enough material for a total of 52 episodes (2 full seasons) by the time the anime catches up with the manga, that is if they decide to let the anime continue weekly after the Tosei match.