When Will Diamond No Ace Act III Be Released?

Gahd I’m dying over here! Just that last panel of all that rainy gray, and the letter... I’ve been staring at this so hard I’m starting to read it now. Artist is having ME PANIC (again). I checked the author's Twitter but everything is in Korean and horrible machine translated. Apparently another 2 weeks based on normal gap between chapters is what some of the fans are saying. We just have to be patient I guess and support the creator.

I use NovelReader to read a lot of translated light novels. It aggregates translations from many sources, and often has the most up-to-date and ongoing series. It’s not an “official” app for any particular site, but the app itself is a reader, and you add your favorite sites as sources within it. I use it because it’s cleaner than going to individual websites, and also because it allows me to track my progress across the different aggregators. You can search for Diamond Dust within the app, among the sources you’ve added. Setting up NovelReader to read a new series can be a bit of a process, but once you have it set up, it’s actually a lot easier than going to the individual sites. Just beware that some of the sources will occasionally stop working, and they can disappear altogether at random times. There is, however, an active community that works to find new working sources for popular series.

Who could have forgotten the Blu-ray box set OVA? It is typical of producers to try to milk as much as possible out of a successful anime series. Most of the time such OVAs are made as the last ’kick in the teeth’ for fans of a series. If a second season is planned, then such material would probably be saved for the new season or used as a promotion for the home video set. In this case however it was released together with the Blu-ray box set, apparently as a farewell present to the fans. A nice extra but in the end it felt like a farewell gift.

Most novels ‘based on a true story’ adapt the key events of the true story into a fictional framework with fictional characters and plot. This novel is more rooted in fact. The large blocks of historical reality are well rendered: her work as a sniper, her wound, the events of the tour in which she was serving. But the real writing is the connecting tissue between these episodes: the relationships with other people (fictional, of course); the specifics of danger as it affects her; and, most substantially, her interior life. So the structure is historical and solidly based on fact; the imagined interior life of the fictional ‘she’ is a plausible and engaging guess about the people who might have lived in this historically accurate house.

This is also one of the only “reveals” that actually recontextualizes the entire story of ‘Steven Universe’. First we think it’s just really bad, that it’s a horrible thing that she did. But then we find out that she couldn’t change the Diamond system as a Diamond, and so she destroyed herself to become someone who could fight for a different kind of world. It’s very poetic in the sense that she had to get rid of her old identity in order to fight for this new kind of world. It is really powerful in exploring the fallout of the lie for the Gems, for the Diamonds, and even for Steven. It really shows how messy revolution is, and how even the best intentioned lie can hurt people. It’s really never let Rose off the hook for her actions, which is why it feels so real.

Yes, I'm pretty sure this is only available as a web novel right now. The translation group I follow only ever refer to the ‘web novel’ and I’ve never heard them mention any switch to a light novel version. The translation groups are usually the first to know when a work is updated to a new version because it affects how they do their job. The complete silence on this point from the group in question is therefore strong evidence that this is all web novel. The chapter numbers and the pattern of releases also match up perfectly with a daily/weekly web novel and not with a work released in volume(s). So, search for web novel version.

I’ve been scouring every interview and social media post for clues about the release of Book 3. The author, Marlon James, has been pretty tight-lipped, but based on the gaps between the first two books, I’d speculate late 2024 or early 2025. The second book, 'Moon Witch, Spider King,' dropped in 2022, and given the epic scale of this series, it’s understandable why the wait might be longer. Fans like me are hyped because the trilogy blends African mythology with gritty fantasy, and each book feels like a cinematic experience. James isn’t the type to rush perfection—his world-building is meticulous. If you’re new to the series, now’s the perfect time to dive into 'Black Leopard, Red Wolf' and its sequel. Trust me, the payoff will be worth it. In the meantime, I’m rereading and dissecting every detail to tide me over.

That the anime is adapted by Dojyomaru, author of the novel on which the show is based, likely means he has some sort of involvement with the project. His apparent satisfaction with the work in progress is your best indicator that all is well, and he hasn’t started publicly registering his disappointment at any developmental misstep that might scupper sequel plans. That he seems to get along well with the adapter bodes well for the rest of Season 3. His positive responses likely will be timed to the release of a new volume of his latest light novel or so. When a light novel author is asked about the anime, they will sometimes comment on how they think it is going based on what he knows of the production schedule. Try to follow the author’s blog or social media (if you can read Japanese). If he ever posts something like, “I’ve been so busy lately with anime meetings”, then that must be a subtle clue for us fans.

This is great. A little digital campfire for us to share our anxieties and love for the book. As for the release date, I don't have any concrete news to add, but solidarity from someone who's also been waiting. I hope it's a great day for solarpunk and hopepunk fans everywhere. In the meantime, are there any other books we could recommend to each other that have a similar feeling? The Mountain in the Sea has some of that, but it's a much darker book.

Unfinished stories can be the best. They have so much potential. ‘Berserk’ and ‘Hunter x Hunter’ are good examples of this. Even though both series have been going on for what feels like an eternity, fans are completely devoted to them. In part, this is because the story is still unfolding. Once a story is completed, doors that were once open to our imaginations are closed. I’m not saying that the series should never end, but when a work is still in the process of being written, it has a very special energy. The many, often brilliant theories that are spawned in the discussions, the feeling of the discussion being open-ended – this all disappears as soon as the work is complete. The discussions will then slowly shift from “what will happen next?” to “what did it all mean?” which is also very valuable, but in a completely different way.