ABS-CBN’s digital terrestrial channel YeY has announced on Thursday that the latest episodes of Naruto: Shippuden in Filipino dubbing will make its Philippine television premiere this month.
The newly dubbed episodes are scheduled to premiere on August 12, which airs every Monday to Fridays at 07:00pm.
The new episodes, which are promoted as “Naruto Shippuden – Season 9”, is based on the network’s seasonal count of about 50+ episodes per season. “Season 9” may cover episodes from Season 19-20, which was aired on Japanese television in 2015.
This will also mark the first time that new episodes of the popular anime show will not premiere on its flagship free-to-air channel.
Naruto: Shippuden is the anime adaptation of the second part of Masashi Kishimoto’s popular Naruto manga series, which covered Volumes 28 onwards. The anime also served as the sequel to the original anime adaptation.
The anime series ended with 500 episodes last March 2017, which has since followed-up by Boruto: Naruto Next Generations series.
The anime series was first aired in Filipino dubbing on free-to-air channel ABS-CBN on January 2008, which was considered as the first broadcaster outside Japan to air the series, but the program is airing irregularly on a 50+ episode seasonal basis.
Aside from the free-to-air channel, the popular show was also aired on its sister channels, the defunct Filipino language anime channel HEROtv and the digital terrestrial kids channel YeY.
The “Season 8” of the show, which covered about Seasons 18-19, was first aired on the channel from March to June 2016.
The first seven seasons, which consist of Episodes 1-143, was also aired on Southeast Asian anime channel ANIMAX Asia in Japanese audio with subtitles from July 2013 to January 2014.
YeY is one of the digital terrestrial sub-channels of Philippine multimedia conglomerate ABS-CBN, and the second animation channel of the network after the now-defunct anime channel HEROtv.
Previous anime titles also aired on the digital TV channel include Kirarin Revolution, Rental Magica, Tears to Tiara, and Ace of Diamond.
YeY can be seen on digital terrestrial TV exclusively through ABS-CBN TVplus set-top boxes, as well as SKYcable Channel 01 (Metro Manila, CAMANAVA / Rizal, Cavite, and Laguna) and SKYdirect Channel 03.
