When Will Raven Of The Inner Palace Season 2 Release?

I still haven’t heard anything about the second season of this fan-made show, and that includes a release date or even any official announcement of it. From what I can tell, negotiations, sales figures, and the scheduling of key staff members are all still up in the air. From my perspective as a fan-reader of the original material, the good news is that there is still plenty of original content to adapt.

Even if Kagerou Daimonhou were to get greenlit for a second season right now, that would still take about a year to a year and a half to animate, so 2025-2026 is more of a realistic hope than a promise. Until then, I shall continue to hold on to hope and revisit some of the best episodes of the season.

Below is a timeline for ROP Season 1 which wrapped up a year ago and then was picked up for a second season (as of early June 2024, no official announcement from the production commitee has been made as of yet, regarding a possible release date, teaser, etc.).

This matters because, for better or for worse, anime sequels are ultimately made based on factors such as sales, streaming figures, and how much story there is in the source material to begin with. So even if a decision were made tomorrow to greenlight more ‘Raven of the Inner Palace’, given a typical production cycle for something of this nature, it’d be at least a year or so before it actually hit the airwaves. (I hope they give it more time to properly continue the story rather than rushing through the mysteries of the courts and their atmosphere though.)

So, I’ve been obsessed with trying to find more information on the sequel to ‘Raven of the Inner Palace’, as the season wrapped up and there’s been no formal announcement of a return to the series by mid-2024. While there’s been clear enthusiasm from fans for a return to this work after the first season, I’ve gathered that the various parties involved are waiting to collect all of the metrics, i.e. how the series performs on Blu-ray, how it performs on streaming platforms, how it performs overseas (with regards to licensing). Many projects sit idle for months and even years before a sudden announcement of a return to production. Unfortunately, many are also stuck on the ‘backburner’ while creators see to completing the source material for the adaptation.

A more realistic window to view a potential sequel would be 1-3 years after a studio has formally greenlit the project. If that is to be the case here, then a formal greenlight in late 2024 would likely look to hit a release date in 2025 or 2026. In the interim, I would encourage all fans to rewatch the first season and read the original work under the title 'Raven of the Inner Palace'. I’m rereading bits of it at the moment to remain hopeful.