ASMIK Ace revealed the third promotional video and new cast members for the television anime adaptation of Takata‘s I Made Friends with the Second Prettiest Girl in My Class (Class de 2-ban Me ni Kawaii Onna no Ko to Tomodachi ni Natta) light novel series on Tuesday. The promo video features reGretGirl‘s 2025 song “Hi no Ataru Kotoba” (Words in the Sunlight).

The newly announced cast members are:

The anime debuted on Tokyo MX on April 7 at 11:30 p.m. JST, before airing later that evening on Kansai TV. The anime started airing on BS Asahi on April 10. Crunchyroll streams the anime as it airs.

The anime stars:

Hideki Tachibana (Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? franchise, Armed Girl’s Machiavellism) is directing the anime at CONNECT. Keiichirō Ōchi (The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten, The Quintessential Quintuplets) is both overseeing and writing the series scripts, and Shoko Takimoto (Armed Girl’s Machiavellism, Death March to The Parallel World Rhapsody) is designing the characters.

reGretGirl performs the opening theme song “Submarine Youth,” and Koresawa performs the ending theme song “Zutto Ichiban ni Shite ne.”

The anime was originally announced in 2023.

Yen Press is publishing the manga adaptation in English, and it describes the story:

Maki Maehara is always on his own at school. He has no friends or hobbies others share, and he doesn’t expect the upcoming academic year to be any different, even surrounded by new faces. And six months later, it seems like he was right—until he runs into his popular classmate Umi Asanagi at a video store! Always at the center of attention and called the “second prettiest in class” by the boys, Asanagi’s from a totally different world. But it turns out the two have more overlapping interests than just the B-grade movies they came to check out…and Asanagi asks Maehara to be her friend!

Takata launched the story on Kadokawa‘s Kakuyomu website in November 2020, and it won a special prize in the romantic comedy division of the 6th Kakuyomu Web Novel Contest. Kadokawa‘s Sneaker Bunko imprint began publishing the novel series in print in December 2021. Rin Ono launched a manga adaptation on Kadokawa‘s Comic Alive+ website in 2022.

Source: Press release

Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.

The official website for the live-action series of Nagisa Furuya‘s The Summer of You boys love manga announces the series’ main cast and staff on Tuesday. The series will star Tomoya Oku (Kamen Rider Revice, Kimi to Yukite Saku ~ Shinsen-gumi Seishun Roku~, left in image below) as Wataru Toda and Kazuto Mokudai (Kamen Rider Geats, Secret Love with Prince, right in image below) as Chiharu Saeki.

Kozue Sasaki (live-action Sugar Dog Life) and Takashi Haga (live-action At 25:00 in Akasaka) are directing the series, with scripts by Yō Saitō. Erina Koyama (live-action Kowloon Generic Romance, Sugar Dog Life) is composing the music for the series.

The series will exclusively stream in advance on the U-NEXT streaming service in Japan from June 24, and the series will debut on TV Tokyo‘s “Drama NEXT” programming block on July 1.

Kodansha USA Publishing released the manga in English and describes the story:

Chiharu Saeki and and Wataru Toda are two high school students who share a common hobby: They love to watch movies. After they meet, they become fast friends, until one day, when Chiharu confesses his love for Wataru. Wataru says that Chiharu’s confession doesn’t bother him, and the boys continue throughout their summer, going to pilgrimages to see film spots from their favorite movies. But the more time he spends with Chiharu, Wataru realizes he may not only be as unaffected by Chiharu’s confession as he claimed to be, but those feels may also be mutual.

Furuya serialized the manga in Ichijinsha‘s gateau magazine from 2017 to 2019. Ichijinsha released the first compiled book volume titled Kimi wa Natsu no Naka (My Summer of You) in 2017, and the limited edition second volume titled Kimi to Natsu no Naka (My Summer With You) in 2019. Ichijinsha released two more limited edition volumes of Kimi to Natsu no Naka in 2022 and July 2025. Manga Planet also added the manga to its catalog in 2023.

Sources: The Summer of You live-action series’ website and X/Twitter account, Comic Natalie