The staff for the television anime of TORCH‘s Mazenchu character brand announced on Wednesday that actress First Summer Uika is providing the anime’s opening narration. The staff also began streaming the anime’s opening video with Uika’s narration:  

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.

The anime will begin airing on October 7 as the first original anime within Kansai TV‘s morning news and lifestyle program Yoidon!

Sources: Mazenchu anime’s X/Twitter account, Comic Natalie

San-X‘s Sumikko Gurashi franchise announced on Wednesday that it will release a fifth anime film in 2027. The announcement did not reveal the film’s title, but presented a visual drawn by creator Yuri Yokomizo and hinted that the film’s story will center on the character Neko as the protagonist.

Sumikko Gurashi debuted in 2012 as slightly negative characters who like to stay in the corner of a room. The characters include “Shirokuma,” a polar bear who is sensitive to cold; “Penguin?” (with a question mark in its name), a penguin who is unsure if it is actually a penguin; “Tonkatsu,” a piece of pork cutlet that was left uneaten; “Neko,” a shy cat; and “Tokage,” who hides his nature as one of the last dinosaurs.

The first anime film, titled Sumikkogurashi – Good to be in the corner, opened in Japan in November 2019. The film eventually sold a total of 1.22 million tickets, and it earned 1.4 billion yen (about US$12.8 million) at the box office in Japan as of February 2020. The film won the award for Best Animation of the Year at the 29th Annual Japan Movie Critics Awards in June 2020. 

Eiga Sumikko Gurashi: Aoi Tsukiyo no Mahō no Ko (The Magical Child of the Blue Moonlit Night), the second film, opened in Japan in November 2021, and sold about 200,000 tickets to earn about 250 million yen (about US$2.22 million at the time) in its first three days.

Eiga Sumikko Gurashi: Tsugihagi Kōjō no Fushigi na Ko (The Mysterious Child of the Makeshift Factory), the franchise‘s third anime film, opened in Japan in November 2023, and sold 192,300 tickets for 242,553,320 yen (about US$1.63 million in current conversion) in its first three days.

Eiga Sumikko Gurashi: Sora no Ōkoku to Futari no Ko (The Sky Kingdom and the Two Children), the fourth anime film of the franchise, opened in Japan in October 2025. The film ranked at #4 in its opening weekend. The film sold 150,000 tickets for 183,974,840 yen (about US$1.19 million) in its first three days. Counting November 3 (which was the Culture Day holiday in Japan), the film sold a total of 208,000 tickets for 253 million yen (about US$1.64 million) in its first four days.

The franchise had its first-ever television anime that premiered its first episode in October 2023. A puppet musical ran in Tokyo in August to September 2024. Sumikko Gurashi: Koko ga Ochitsukun Desu (This Is Where I Relax), a new series of anime shorts for the franchise, premiered on the NTV network in the ZIP! morning variety program’s new “ZIP! 1-Minute Anime” segment in April 2025.

Sources: Sumikko Gurashi film’s website, Comic Natalie