The Fall Anime 2025 Preview Guide - A Mangaka's Weirdly Wonderful Workplace

Nana Futami is a rookie shōjo manga artist who is supported by her female editor, Kaede Satō, and her assistant, Mizuki Hazama. Even though Nana sometimes suffers from intense delusions due to (what she tells herself is) an occupational illness, she keeps working day-to-day with the help of those around her.

A Mangaka's Weirdly Wonderful Workplace is based on a manga series by Kuzushiro. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Mondays.

We all like to pretend that the media doesn't mess with our thoughts. That, somehow, we can perfectly separate fact from fiction. And while we may be able to do so on a conscious level, it's the subconscious that really gets us.

This is the malady that's constantly affecting our protagonist, Futami. She is so immersed in the shoujo manga world due to her work that she can't help but see her own life through that filter. This “occupational hazard,” as she puts it, places the object of her own affection, her editor, Sato, in the role of a romance heroine in her imagination. So when it comes to doing something as simple as mailing her editor late at night, she is bombarded by images of her interrupting Sato in the middle of some important love triangle scene—and worries that Sato would come to hate her for interfering, even indirectly. Thus, much of the episode is Futami constructing scenes in her head while her assistant, Mizuki, plays the straight man and attempts to bring her back to reality.

On the other side of the story is Sato. While Futami sees her as this ultra-professional editor who is giving her a chance to succeed despite her clearly being inferior to the other manga artist Sato works with, Sato is, in reality, a bit of a ditz. While she does her job and does it well for the most part—adjusting her life to fit her writer's schedules—she has a terrible memory. This causes her to forget things ranging from documents to giving compliments. It's a big weakness—one she knows she has but doesn't seem too troubled about.

And of course, there is one other big issue between the two: the romantic tension. While neither of them quite recognizes it, they care more about each other than they should based on a professional relationship alone. Will this blossom into something more as the series goes on? We'll have to watch and find out.

Despite having a protagonist who wrestles with overthinking and intense bouts of anxiety, I found this show to be surprisingly comforting. I love manga, and I have a soft spot for shows that delve into the behind-the-scenes aspects of creating manga. While this show doesn't look like it's gonna get into the nitty-gritty details of everything, it is a bit fun to watch a show about a young adult just overcoming the pressure of working in that environment. The fact that she shares anxieties with her editor, who is on the opposite end of the emotional spectrum, creates a fascinating dynamic that I wouldn't mind watching more of.

The humor is a little bit one-note, but I do think there are enough sparks of creativity here and there to help the show feel a bit more alive than it otherwise would've been. The obvious one was how our titular mangaka likes to imagine or make up scenarios in her head to avoid directly confronting people. I like the way the show translates those stories using manga panels, as if she is pulling on every cliché she can think of to fabricate a scenario out of thin air. I think it also helps that her assistant acts as the straight man to call her out on all of her delusions.

I'm seeing hints of a romance between our main character and their editor, but I can also see the show just teasing that rather than going all in with it. Besides, it would be a very peculiar conflict of interest. However, I appreciate the strong sense of camaraderie among all the characters. They may get on each other's nerves or not know how to talk to each other, but there is respect and appreciation for the work being done. If that coziness can last an entire season, then that would be ideal.

Despite having no familiarity with the original manga, it became abundantly clear to me a few minutes into the episode that A Mangaka's Weirdly Wonderful Workplace is yuri. Nana Futami is obsessed with her beautiful, cool manga editor Sato in a way that defies any heterosexual explanation. When contacting someone late at night, most people would worry about waking them up; Nana fixates on the idea that Sato might be on a date. With a man. The horror!

But yuri so often tries to keep up a veneer of plausible deniability, so I didn't expect anything other than awkward anxiety that could be handwaved as admiration or a friend crush. But then, when Sato stops by unexpectedly, Nana snaps at her assistant Ha-chan, “What kind of idiot lets a girl she's not even dating into her house?” All I can really say to that is Harold, though I'm sure some people will come out of the woodwork to explain to me why 付き合う doesn't necessarily have romantic connotations and blah blah blah.

Yuri or not, this fall's second workplace romcom is a lot more charming than My Awkward Senpai, which fun fact, has the same series writer. There's already solid chemistry in the cast, both in Nana and Ha-chan's partnership and Nana's massive crush on Sato. When you have an awkward, anxious mess of a protagonist, she needs a level-headed straightwoman around to play off her and pull her out of her spiral. Nana's worry about her email apologizing about being late coming off as curt from being too short shifting to worry about a longer one making it look like she's trying to make excuses was too real. Have I worked myself into similar lathers over equally basic communications? We don't need to talk about that. There are moments where Nana comes across a bit too much as a helpless baby instead of an adult woman, but then again, I've met manga artists, and it's honestly not that much of an exaggeration.

This is only Voil's second production, the first being Acro Trip, and they may prove to be a studio worth keeping an eye on. The animation isn't mind-blowing sakuga, but it doesn't need to be. The characters are sufficiently expressive and on-model, while the art is bright, clean, and never made my head hurt with glow filters, unnecessary gradients, or poor compositing. As the ensemble cast fills out, this may be one worth keeping an eye on, and you don't even have to worry about straining.