The Fall 23 anime season will be a big one as it features the return of shows like Spy x Family and Tokyo Revengers, along with some exciting new titles. Among these is The Apothecary Diaries which recently revealed that its first three episodes will be released back-to-back.
This interesting premiere schedule was revealed through the show’s official X (formerly Twitter) account, and it confirmed that fans will be treated to an extra-long premiere, though they’ll have to wait a bit longer for it.
Essentially, this means The Apothecary Diaries is the latest anime to follow the trend of hour-long premieres.
Hour-Long Premieres Are Becoming More Common in Anime
Most TV anime begin with a first episode that sets up what will happen in a season within just the standard 20-something minute runtime.
But recently, a trend has emerged among newer anime for an hour-long premiere, or sometimes even longer. Of course, it’s still not happening with most shows, but it has become a noticeable trend.
For starters, there’s Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, an upcoming fantasy anime by Madhouse that will get a special two-hour-long premiere episode in late September.
Frieren is a bit of a special case in that the two hours is well above practically any other show.
Another rather similar case is Oshi no Ko, which had a first episode with a runtime of well over an hour.
This trend makes sense given that a feature-length first episode can make the anime more memorable.
In the case of Oshi no Ko, the story is set up in such a way that having an over-hour-long premiere is needed to properly set up the events.
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The Apothecary Diaries’ First Three Episodes Will Premiere on the Same Day
The next anime to get this hour-long premiere treatment is The Apothecary Diaries, the upcoming anime by OLM (the studio behind Odd Taxi) which has a lot of hype behind it given how well-received the source material is.
Recently, it was confirmed that the series’ first three episodes will air in Japan consecutively in one slot.
This should mean the anime’s premiere will be over an hour long; maybe even more with commercial breaks.
It was also confirmed that The Apothecary Diaries will be a two-cour series, meaning it is expected to have around 24 episodes.
Because of its extra-long premiere, The Apothecary Diaries will be released on October 22, a bit later than most other Fall 23 shows.
Currently, there’s no word on whether the show will get a continuous two-cour or a split-cour release schedule.
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