Metropolitan Tournament will end in anime before manga

The official Twitter account for the Welcome to the Ballroom manga posted a note from creator Tomo Takeuchi about the anime adaptation on Monday. The note reveals that the plot of the anime's story will pass the manga before the end of the Metropolitan Tournament.

Takeuchi's full note reads:

Thank you very much to everyone on the cast and staff for creating a wonderful anime. For the end game of Metropolitan Tournament, the original work and the anime were going to advance the story at the same pace, but the original work is falling behind so the anime will go ahead of it. The original work isn't finished, but I will convey my plans for it to advance. Furthermore, as I continue to work on the original, I will set my sights on developments that happen at the Metropolitan Tournament and after. I think I will release parts that differ from the anime, though they will start from the same plan, but I will be happy if people enjoy either the anime or the manga.

Last month, a Welcome to the Ballroom manga chapter ran with fewer pages than planned due to Takeuchi's health.

Takeuchi began the series in Monthly Shonen Magazine in 2011, and Kodansha published the ninth compiled volume on June 23. Kodansha Comics published the manga's seventh volume in North America on September 12. The series has been nominated for Manga Taisho awards, and was ranked on Comic Natalie's and the Kono Manga ga Sugoi! guidebook's lists of best manga in 2013.