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I Made Friends with the Second Prettiest Girl in My Class Anime's Main Trailer Unveils More Staff, Opening Song, April 2026 Debut
posted on by Joanna Cayanan
ASMIK Ace unveiled the key visual, additional staff, main promotional video, and the April 2026 debut 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 Wednesday. The video reveals and previews the opening theme song "Submarine Youth" by the band reGretGirl.
The newly announced staff includes:
- Assistant Director: Takumi Shibata
- Costume Design: Kana Hayashi
- Chief Animation Directors: Shoko Takimoto, Kana Hayashi
- Art Director: Michiko Morokuma
- Background Studio: Studio TENJIN
- Color Design: Erika Tsukino
- 3D Director: Takeshi Saitō
- 3DCG Studio: WIRED
- Director of Photography: Takashi Yanagida
- Photography Studio: EXPLOSION
- Sound Director: Masanori Tsuchiya
- Sound Production: Bit Grooove Promotion
- Music: Ruka Kawada, Yayoi Sekimukai, Shūhei Mutsuki
- Editing: Maki Sendo
- Editing Studio: REAL-T
The anime stars:
- Haruki Ishiya as Maki Maehara
- Manaka Iwami as Umi Asanagi
- Sayumi Suzushiro as Yū Amami
- Ikumi Hasegawa as Nina Nitta
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.
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.
