Onimai Season 2 is one of the most anticipated sequel of the slice-of-life, comedy anime which recently ended and fans are already up with the demands for a second season.
So here’s everything we know so far regarding whether or not Onimai: I’m Now Your Sister Season 2 will happen in 2023, as well as the likely release date.
The Japanese anime Onimai: I’m Now Your Sister also known as “Onii-chan wa Oshimai” in Japanese is an adaptation of the gender-bend, comedy manga series written and illustrated by Nekotofu.
The story follows Mahiro Oyama, a hopeless otaku who lives with his younger scientist sister. One day he wakes up as a young girl, as a result of one of her experiments and now has to learn to live like a girl.
Studio BIND animated the anime’s first season, officially running for 12 episodes from January 5, 2023, to March 23, 2023, on various local networks in Japan.
Crunchyroll streamed the anime outside of Japan with both sub and dub, and it received a mixed reception from viewers and critics alike. Some praised it for its exceptional quality of animation production, humour and story upbeats while a certain section of the community wasn’t fond of its transgender representation.
But overall it was considered a hit among the fans of slice-of-life and comedy anime.
CONTENTS
- Onimai Season 2 Release date and Countdown
- Onimai: I’m Now Your Sister Season 2 Countdown:
- Onimai: I’m Now Your Sister Season 2 Renewal Status: Confirmed or Cancelled
- Is there enough source material available for Onimai Season 2?
- Manga Sales and Profitability
- Blu-ray/ DVDs and other Merchandise sales
- Popularity in Japan and the West
- Overseas popularity
- What will happen in Onimai: I’m Now Your Sister Season 2?
- Onimai Season 2 Trailer
- Final Words !!
Onimai Season 2 Release date and Countdown
As of March 2023, Onimai Season 2 doesn’t have a release date as it is not confirmed yet. However, if a new season is confirmed, it is likely to air sometime in mid-2025, or possibly in late-2025.
This is cause the second season premiered from January 2023 to March 2023 and it typically takes around 1-2 years to produce a new season.
As of now, no official announcements have been made yet, hence the readers need to keep in mind that these are just speculations.
But, keep an eye out for this space as we will update it as soon as something official is announced. We can expect the announcement in the next few months.
Onimai: I’m Now Your Sister Season 2 Countdown:
Based on the following information, here is the countdown to the premiere of Onii-chan wa Oshimai’s second season.
CountdownOnimai: I’m Now Your Sister Season 2 Renewal Status: Confirmed or Cancelled
As of writing, Studio Bind, the publisher Kodansha, or any other member of the production committee has not officially renewed the anime for a second season.
A lot of anime manage to get a new season right after the season finale but unfortunately, Onimai wasn’t one of them.
| SEASON | RELEASE DATE |
| Onimai: I’m Now Your Sister Season 1 | January 5, 2023 |
| Onimai: I’m Now Your Sister Season 2 | Yet to be announced |
Production Studios consider various financial and commercial metrics before announcing a renewal and it is possible to speculate whether an anime will get a new season or not by carefully evaluating these three factors:
- Availability of source material
- Sales
- Popularity
I have used the same method for Eminence in Shadow, Takagi-san and World Trigger and so far it has proven to work.
So now we will examine these factors to see if Onimai: I’m Now Your Sister anime will get a sequel or not.
Is there enough source material available for Onimai Season 2?
Onimai anime is based on the manga written and drawn by Nekotofu.
It started serialization online on the Pixiv website in November 2017 and was later transferred to Ichijinsha’s Monthly Comic Rex magazine in April 2019.
The first volume of the manga was released on June 27, 2018, and the latest issue came out on January 7, 2023.
A total of 8 volumes have been released so far, and the manga is still ongoing.
The Onimai anime doesn’t adapt the chapters of the manga in the same order as they are released. Each episode consists of various chapters, and the anime jumps all over the place, sometimes even adding its own original content.
The furthest they adapted was till chapter 38 of volume 4 while the season finale adapted chapters 17 and 18.
So those who are interested in continuing the manga after the anime can start with chapter 39 but I will suggest you start from the beginning cause the anime skipped lots of content with some major changes here and there.
So the anime has covered 4 of 8 volumes leaving us behind with 4 more volumes which is more than enough to create another 12-episode season.
Conclusion: Currently, there are 4 volumes of source material available to adapt, which is good news since the series has more than enough material for Studio BIND to start working on a new season right away.
Moreover, the series is still ongoing with a consistent release of new volumes, so that’s a big plus for getting a sequel.
Manga Sales and Profitability
Before we proceed, it’s important to understand that most of the anime we watch today are created primarily to promote and boost the sales of its source material (in this case manga).
Sales from the manga and related merchandise are the main source of income for the producers, while revenue from advertising fees, online streaming licensing, and Blu-ray sales are considered secondary
Typically, a 12-episode anime television series costs around $3,000,000 to produce.
Therefore, an anime has to make back this much money through merchandise sales and licensing fees to ensure a new season from the producers.
As of December 2022, Onimai: I’m Now Your Sister had reached a circulation count of 1 million copies across 7 volumes.
However, this count is from before the anime aired and has not been updated for 3 months now and doesn’t account for the boost it had received from the anime adaptation.
Anime adaptations have been known to have a significant impact on the sales and popularity of their source material. This was demonstrated by the success of “How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom,” which saw a near-doubling of its sales within six months of its anime premiere and Eminence in Shadow and Isekai Ojisan saw a similar increment.
Let’s take a look at another statistic. In March 2022, the series had 450,000 copies in circulation, and it took the series 5 years to reach this number.
On April 22, 2022, the highly acclaimed Studio BIND announced that they would be adapting Onimai as their second major TV anime production. Nine months later, in December, the circulation count had reached 1 million copies, an increase of 550,000 copies in just 9 months, which was all thanks to the hype generated by the anime announcement.
Now with the anime has ended and been deemed super-successful, it’s easy to imagine how much the cumulative sales count will increase.
Conclusion: typically, a rom-com manga with 500,000 to 1,000,000 copies in circulation is considered successful, so Onimai manga is performing remarkably well with these sales numbers.
Moreover, as we mentioned, the above count hasn’t been updated for over a year now during which one new volume was released and does not include the boost in sales that the series received from the anime adaptation.
And now that the anime has finally ended, we can expect a large increase in manga sales, as many anime fans will be eager to find out what happens in the story after the anime finale. They will likely want to buy the manga volumes to continue the story and get more details about the characters and plot.
So we can expect the circulation count to surpass 2 million in the next couple of months.
Blu-ray/ DVDs and other Merchandise sales
While Blu-rays and DVDs are no longer key players in determining anime success as they used to be back in the 2010s, they are still a great tool to understand a show’s popularity among the general Japanese audience. In general, if an anime’s disc sales are over 3,000, a second season would be promising.
As for Onimai: I’m Now Your Sister, the first Blu-ray/DVD box will go on sale on April 19, 2023. We’ll have to wait for the sales numbers to be revealed, but I’m confident that Onimai will sell at least 4,000 copies per volume.
This is the perfect type of anime that hardcore anime fans love to collect – the slice-of-life, moe, and cute girls doing cute things type of anime.
We will update this section once the official sales numbers are released.
Popularity in Japan and the West
Onimai manga was already quite a popular slice-of-life in Japan prior to the anime’s release, and its popularity has surged even further since then.
The manga originally began its life as an online manga with no publisher supporting it but with due time and growing popularity it was acquired by Kodansha who started publishing the series in their Monthly Comic Rex magazine.
The anime’s debut in Japan was highly anticipated, and it quickly became one of the most-watched shows of the Spring 2022 season. It ranked top on several streaming websites, including the D-Anime Store and AbemaTV and was one of the most-talked shows on the internet.
On NicoVideo, Japan’s largest hosting site which is their version of YouTube, the premiere episode received over 642k views and 102k comments.
Overseas popularity
The debut run of the Onimai: I’m Now Your Sister anime received a positive reception from fans in the west, with many viewers and critics praising it for being even better than the source material in some aspects.
The series has garnered positive reviews from viewers around the world, earning a solid score of 7.7 on MyAnimeList and ranking at #2005 in popularity, with more than 90k members in its MAL group.
It has also received a decent score of 6.8/10 on IMDb and a 76% approval rating on AniList. This shows that the show’s popularity is very high even though it is a young series.
In conclusion, the series gained a significant following in both Japan and the West and generated a ton of revenue from merchandise sales, indicating that it has a strong and loyal fanbase.
With enough source material and the potential to make even more sales, it is inevitable that Onimai Season 2 will be announced soon. It is no longer a question of if it will get a new season, but when it will get a new season.
What will happen in Onimai: I’m Now Your Sister Season 2?
The second season of Onimai will begin with chapter 39 of the manga.
When the new school year began, Mahrio got to meet several new girls in her class. One girl in particular, Nayuta, stood out to Mahiro more so than the others. This is because she referred to herself with male pronouns and male designations. She also seemed to indicate that she knows that Mahiro was born male, but transformed to an atomically correct girl by means of a wonder drug.
These circumstances and understandings brought Mahiro and Nayuta close together immediately. Nayuta was also quickly accepted into the social circle that Mahiro belonged to, which included Momiji, Miyo-chan, and others.
The girls are in class together, eat lunch together, and socialize during and after school together. So it is no surprise that on the day of the girls’ physical examinations, the group go through the routines together. However, Mahiro is in for a surprise, when she is leaving the Infirmary at the same time as Nayuta is entering it.
Onimai Season 2 Trailer
There is no trailer for Onimai Season 2 available yet to watch, but we will update this page if one gets released on their official youtube channel.
On the other hand, here’s a trailer for the first season, which you should watch to recall how memorable the previous one was.
Final Words !!
In summary, there is a good chance that Onimai Season 2 will happen. If that is the case, we should hear some news about it this year. But don’t expect the release date for the second season to be before 2023 since it takes time for a new season to be animated.
I will update the article next month if something has changed. In the meantime so you can check the same analysis I have done for other series:
