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Kana Hanazawa Sings Tonari no Seki-kun's Opening Theme

The official website for the anime of Takuma Morishige's Tonari no Seki-kun announced on Wednesday that voice actress Kana Hanazawa performed the opening theme song "Meiwaku Spectacle" ("Troubling Spectacle"). Drummer Akira Jimbo performed the ending theme song titled "Set Them Free," and popular anime singer Ichiro Mizuki (Mazinger Z, Space Pirate Captain Harlock, Kamen Rider) performed an insert song for the comedy anime titled "Danran! Robot Kazoku" (Happy Together! Robot Family."

Hanazawa is also voicing as Yokoi, the anime's female lead who sits next to a boy only known as “Seki-kun” (Hiro Shimono). During class, Seki-kun continues to not pay attention and instead creates amazingly throrough little distractions, such as a detailed golf course with the course's hole being a dent in his desk, or an entire dramatic war being played out by paper shogi (Japanese chess) pieces.

Mizuki is known as the "Emperor of the Anime Song World" for contributing dozens of theme songs. He performed the theme song and landed his first starring voice-acting role in the anime film Ashita no Kibō earlier this year. He also joined the all-star line-up to sing the classic opening theme song for the television broadcast of the Space Battleship Yamato 2199 anime series.

The "robot family" in Mizuki's song are popular characters from the original manga, and the family is depicted in promotional videos for the anime. The "Danran! Robot Kazoku" song was written by the original manga creator Takuma Morishige.

Yuji Mutoh (Crayon Shin-chan films, Green Green) is directing the series at Shin-Ei Animation (The Knight in the Area, Doraemon films). Masae Ōtake (Kuromajyo-san ga Tōru!!) is designing the characters.

Monthly Comic Flapper also confirmed that the Tonari no Seki-kun episodes will be 10 minutes long. The series will premiere on TV Tokyo on January 5 and the fifth volume of the manga will bundle an anime DVD on January 4.

Sources: animeanime.jp, Comic Natalie