Yowamushi Pedal Anime Gets 5th Season in October 2022
The official Twitter account for the anime of Wataru Watanabe's Yowamushi Pedal manga announced on Wednesday that a fifth anime season titled Yowamushi Pedal Limit Break has been green-lit for an October 2022 premiere. The anime will air on NHK.
The first season of the television anime premiered in 2013. The second season, titled Yowamushi Pedal Grande Road, premiered in Japan in 2014 and ended in March 2015. Yowamushi Pedal New Generation, the series' third season, premiered in January 2017. Yowamushi Pedal Glory Line, the fourth season, premiered in January 2018. Crunchyroll streamed all four seasons as they aired.
Yowamushi Pedal Re:RIDE, the first compilation film for the anime, premiered in September 2014. A second compilation film titled Yowamushi Pedal Re: ROAD premiered in June 2015. That film adapted the second season. The first original film in the franchise, titled Gekijōban Yowamushi Pedal (Yowamushi Pedal: The Movie), opened in Japan in August 2015. Another compilation film adapting the third season, Yowamushi Pedal Re:Generation, opened in Japan in October 2017.
Funimation is streaming the first two seasons of the anime and the Yowamushi Pedal Re:RIDE, Yowamushi Pedal Re: ROAD, and Yowamushi Pedal: The Movie anime films.
The Yowamushi Pedal: Spare Bike manga also inspired an anime film in 2016.
The first live-action film adaptation of the main manga opened in Japan in August 2020. The franchise has also inspired two live-action television series that aired in 2016 and 2017.
Wataru Watanabe launched the original Yowamushi Pedal manga in Akita Shoten's Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine in 2008. The story of the original manga centers around Sakamichi Onoda, an otaku at Sōhoku High School. He loves anime and games so much, that he would ride his commuter bicycle to and from Tokyo's Akihabara shopping district in a 90-kilometer (about 60-mile) round trip over steep slopes after school. Onoda's life changes when he encounters his school's cycling team, and he ends up joining the competitive sport of bicycle racing. Yen Press is releasing the manga in English.
The 15th and latest stage play based on the manga was scheduled to run in Tokyo and Osaka in July 2020, but the play was canceled due to COVID-19. The play instead ran in March 2021 in both cities. The latest play adapted the Yowamushi Pedal: Spare Bike spinoff manga.
Sources: Yowamushi Pedal anime's Twitter account, Comic Natalie