Graphic design company TORCH announced on Wednesday that its Mazenchu character brand will receive a anime that will begin airing as the first original anime within Kansai TV‘s morning news and lifestyle program Yoidon!  on October 7.

Mazenchu is set in a school where all kinds of food can live out their youth and form friendships, rivalries, and bittersweet romances.

The cast includes:

• Obara Rea as Sume, a sushi rice girl
• Sakura Hayashi as Abo, an avocado girl
• Uki Nashiki as Akami, a tuna boy
• Kokoro Kikuchi as Shinko, a pickled vegetable boy

Ebi created the Mazenchu characters. Yūsuke Takase (CG on Berserk: The Golden Age Arc I – The Egg of the King, Halo Legends, Detroit Metal City) is directing the anime at Studio Nanahoshi. The studio dugout is producing the sound, and Aiin is producing the music. BONJIN is the offline editor. Liberty Animation Studio produced the opening animation. Sayo Kawase is the executive producer, and TORCH is planning and producing the project. 

Sources: Mazenchu anime’s website, Comic Natalie

This year’s 42nd and 43rd combined issue of Shogakukan‘s Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine announced its new “Rumiko Takahashi Fantasy Manga Awards” on Wednesday, and the organizers are currently accepting manga entries until January 11, 2027.

The contest is open to professional and amateur manga creators. Entries must be 42 pages or less and contain at least one fantasy element. Takahashi will head the panel of judges which will also include Weekly Shonen Sunday editor-in-chief Kazunori Ōshima and other Shonen Sunday editors. The organizers will announce the results in Weekly Shonen Sunday and on the awards’ website on March 24.

The grand prize winner will receive 1 million yen (about US$6,000), and their manga will be published in Weekly Shonen Sunday or a spinoff publication and on Shogakukan‘s Sunday Webry manga website. The second prize winner will get 500,000 yen (about US$3,000), and their manga will also be published in Weekly Shonen Sunday or a spinoff publication and on Sunday Webry. The honorable mention recipient will receivie 300,000 yen (about US$2,000), and their work will appear on Sunday Webry. The effort prize recipient will receive 100,000 yen (about US$600), and the encouragement prize recipient will receive 30,000 yen (about US$200).

Takahashi debuted as a manga creator in 1978, and in her career of over three decades, Takahashi has created manga such as Urusei Yatsura, Maison Ikkoku, Mermaid Saga, Rumic Theater, Ranma 1/2, One-Pound Gospel, and Inuyasha. Many of her works have become internationally popular and inspired anime and live-action adaptations.

The compiled volumes of all of Takahashi’s manga have surpassed 230 million copies in circulation worldwide, as of August 2024.

The anime adaptation of Takahashi’s MAO manga premiered on April 4, and is running for two continuous cours (quarter of a year).

The third season of the new anime based on Takahashi’s Ranma 1/2 manga will debut on October 3.

A new television anime of Takahashi’s Urusei Yatsura manga premiered in October 2022. The anime’s first half ran for half a year, or two cours without breaks. The show’s second half aired for two consecutive cours and started in January 2024. The show’s fourth and final cours premiered in April that same year.

Source: Weekly Shonen Sunday issue 42/43 and website