I Made Friends With the Second Prettiest Girl Anime Adds Three Cast Members
The new cast additions arrive while the show is still airing its first cour, signaling that the production is introducing secondary characters tied to the male lead's family and social circle rather than front-loading the entire ensemble at premiere.
Reporting from 3 sources: Anime News Network, Anime Corner, The Fandom Post.
The ongoing television anime I Made Friends with the Second Prettiest Girl in My Class revealed a third promotional video and three new cast members on Tuesday. ASMIK Ace announced the additions. Rikuya Yasuda joins as Nozomu Seki, a classmate of protagonist Maki Maehara. Shinji Kawada plays Itsuki Maehara, Maki's father. Yurina Amami voices Kyoka Minato, a subordinate of Itsuki. The new trailer features the reGretGirl song "Hi no Ataru Kotoba" from 2025. The series premiered on Tokyo MX on April 7 and streams on Crunchyroll. Hideki Tachibana directs at studio CONNECT, with Keiichirō Ōchi writing the scripts and Shoko Takimoto designing the characters. The story follows isolated student Maki Maehara after he befriends popular classmate Umi Asanagi at a video store. Takata launched the original light novel on Kadokawa's Kakuyomu platform in November 2020, and Kadokawa's Sneaker Bunko imprint began publishing it in print in December 2021. Rin Ono's manga adaptation runs on the Comic Alive+ website.
The third promotional video runs about 90 seconds and is built around the reGretGirl song "Hi no Ataru Kotoba" from 2025. The track plays over scenes that introduce the three new characters in quick succession, cutting between the classroom, the Maehara household, and a workplace setting.
Rikuya Yasuda voices Nozomu Seki, a classmate who approaches Maki for help confessing his own feelings to Yū Amami. The Fandom Post review of episode six notes that Seki's earnest request, and Maki's straightforward rejection of it, becomes the basis for a new friendship between the two boys. Shinji Kawada plays Itsuki Maehara, Maki's father, and Yurina Amami voices Kyoka Minato, a subordinate of Itsuki. The Anime Corner piece adds that Ruka Kawada, Shuuhei Mutsuki, and Yayoi Sekimukai are composing the series music, a credit the other outlets omit.
The Anime Corner report also places the series at sixth in its Spring 2026 Week 5 rankings, with five episodes aired at the time of writing. The Fandom Post review describes the central relationship as unusually mature for a high school romcom. "There's a maturity in them that we don't often get in adult romcoms, let alone high school ones," the review states, pointing to Umi's playful personality and Maki's easygoing responses as a departure from the flustered-male-lead formula.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 3 cited sources below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.
Sources
- Anime News Network I Made Friends With the Second Prettiest Girl in My Class Anime Reveals 3rd Promo Video, More Cast Members
- Anime Corner I Made Friends with the Second Prettiest Girl in My Class Anime Reveals New Trailer
- The Fandom Post I Made Friends with the Second Prettiest Girl in My Class Episode #06 Anime Review