Encouragement of Climb: Next Summit Anime Premieres in October With Half-Hour Episodes

The official website for Yama no Susume Next Summit (Encouragement of Climb: Next Summit), the new television anime based on Shiro's Encouragement of Climb (Yama no Susume) manga, unveiled a new key visual and the anime's October premiere date on Friday. The anime will have 12 episodes, each running for 30 minutes. This will mark the first time the anime has had full-length episodes, as previous seasons only had five- or 15-minute episodes.

The first four episodes of the new anime will be compilations of the previous anime series' episodes with new short stories added. However, episode five onwards will have completely new stories.

The previously announced returning cast members include:

• Yuka Iguchi as Aoi Yukimura
• Kana Asumi as Hinata Karaue
• Yōko Hikasa as Kaede Saitō
• Yui Ogura as Kokona Aoba
• Nao Tōyama as Honoka Kurosaki

Emiri Iwai plays the new character Koharu, the red-haired mountain-climbing club president at the school Aoi and the others attend.

Yūsuke Yamamoto is returning to direct the anime at 8-Bit, and Yuusuke Matsuo is returning as the character designer.

Earth Star Entertainment's Comic Earth Star magazine had teased in December 2019 that the anime franchise would have a "new project."

Shiro launched the manga in Comic Earth Star in 2011. The manga's 20th compiled book volume shipped in Japan on April 12. JManga published some of the manga in English before the site shut down.

The manga has inspired several previous television anime. The first season debuted in 2013, followed by the second season in 2014. The third television anime season premiered in July 2018. Crunchyroll streamed all three seasons as they aired in Japan. The manga also inspired the Yama no Susume: Omoide Present (Memories Present) original video anime (OVA) in 2017.

The manga also inspired a stage play that ran at Hannō City Hall in Hannō, Saitama in May 2019.

Sources: Encouragement of Climb: Next Summit anime's website, Comic Natalie