The wait is almost over.

In Japan, collected volumes of manga often come with an additional narrow paper wraparound that fits over the book’s cover and contains extra promotional information about the franchise and related products. You could take the negative view of things and chalk this up as just another example of Japan’s overexuberant packaging culture, but sometimes they really do contain extremely exciting news.

For example, the 21st volume of manga creator Hajime Isayama’s Attack on Titan goes on sale this Friday in Japan, Somehow, Twitter user @Mave_cham got a sneak peek at the book’s wraparound and shared a photo of it, which officially announces the starting month for the second season of the Attack on Titan anime!

Previous tidbits of information provided by the producers pointed to a premiere sometime in spring of 2017, but the bottom half of the wraparound nails down the start of the highly anticipated anime follow-up as next April (the top half of the image also reveals that an Attack on Titan stage play is coming in the summer of 2017). Unfortunately, there’s no mention of whether Attack on Titan’s second season will be 13 episodes, the most common length of modern TV anime installments, as well as most live-action Japanese dramas, or if Isayama’s tale will once again warrant a continuous half-year on television, like Attack on Titan’s first season did in 2013. After having been so patient, though, fans are no doubt hoping for a double-length batch of new content, since Season 2 won’t be finishing the story, and who knows how long the wait will be for the inevitable Season 3.

Source: Hachima Kiko, Anime News Network
Top image: Twitter/@Mave_cham