Hi Score Girl is a romantic comedy anime series released in 2018. The anime broadcast on Netflix takes us back to the 90s. Nostalgia and old games fans followed the first two seasons closely. The series is based on the manga series written and illustrated by Rensuke Oshikiri. This critically acclaimed anime series was produced by J.C. Staff, who we know from series like Food Wars! and One Punch Man, and animated by SMDE. Originally broadcast on Tokyo MX, MBS, BS11 channels, the series was broadcast in English under Netflix license. The second season of the series, which was broadcast on Netflix worldwide on April 9, 2020, is now curious with its third season. So, has Netflix renewed the series for a third season?
What is the plotline of Hi Score Girl?
Gaming addicted 6th-grade student Yaguchi Haruo, who lived in the ’90s, was the only thing successful. For Haruo, who has poor grades at school and lives a far from unpopular life, it doesn’t matter to spend most of his time in the arcade. One day, while he eliminated all his opponents one by one in the game he played best, he lost to the mysterious opponent who came at the last moment. This mysterious rival is Oono Akira, the most beautiful, popular, and wealthy girl of the class. The duo’s adventure that started here will eventually be drawn into the game world, including Haruo’s classmate Hidaka Koharu.
Many games played in the 90’s such as Final fights, Splatterhouse, Street Fighter 2, Dragon Quest. At the same time, the anime, which included the images and music of game consoles such as TurboGrafx-16, Virtual boy, arcade halls, which were released at that time, attracts the attention of nostalgia lovers and gamers.
Will there be a second season of the anime?
As of January 28, 2021, at the time of writing, J.C. Staff or Netflix has not yet renewed the series for a third season. Sometimes it can take years for anime to refresh for a new season. It is a situation we are quite used to from the anime industry. The last season of the series aired on Netflix in April 2020 and can be considered relatively fresh. We think a renewal or cancellation for a new season will be announced soon. Till then, however, we can speculate under some key factors. Manga status, disc sales, popularity will be the subtitles of our evaluation.
Manga status of the anime
As we mentioned earlier, Hi Score Girl is a manga series originally written and illustrated by Rensuke Oshikiri. The manga, published by Square Enix, was published in Monthly Big Gangan between 2010 and 2018. The manga series, consisting of 63 chapters and 10 volumes in total, was completed on September 25, 2018, and is no longer continuing.
We mentioned that the anime series follows the original manga series. The first season of the anime covers the first 4 volumes of the manga. At the end of the second season, a total of 10 volumes were completely adapted to the anime. When we look at in terms of the source material, a second season of the series is unlikely. If there is no source material, a sequel is almost impossible.
The popularity of the anime
Although the series did not get what it wanted in disc (BluRay & DVD) sales in the first two seasons, some different factors should be considered. Streaming on Netflix makes it a profitable business for its creators, except for disc sales. Of course, if it has enough popularity. When we look at the popularity of anime, we see a score of 69.4%. This score can be considered sufficient to see a second season. In addition, the anime, which has a high score of 8.0 with IMDb user votes, was voted by 1483 users. When we look at it in terms of popularity, the possibility of a third season of the anime seems high.
When is the release date of the third season?
Since there is no renewal yet, there is no official information about the release date. A new season of the series seems possible considering the popularity and spinoff manga series. However, this will not happen anytime soon because the spinoff series is fairly new and does not provide enough source material for a new season. A possible third season will air in 2022 at the earliest.