Kizuguchi to Hōtai TV Anime Premieres in January 2027
The adaptation gives Miyuki Ishida her first full TV series directorial role after episode direction credits on major titles, adding a debut director to J.C. Staff's rom-com portfolio.
Key Facts
- The Kizuguchi to Hōtai TV anime premieres in January 2027 on ABC and TV Asahi's Animazing!!! block.
- Miyuki Ishida is directing the series, her first TV anime directorial role.
- J.C. Staff is producing the animation.
- The manga's fifth volume ships on July 16, 2026.
- The manga began serialization on Kodansha's Comic Days app in August 2024.
Reporting from 3 sources: Anime News Network, Denfaminicogamer, Anime Anime.
J.C. Staff announced on July 13 that it is producing a television anime adaptation of Umihoshi Nanai's Kizuguchi to Hōtai manga. The series will premiere in January 2027 on ABC and TV Asahi's Animazing!!! broadcasting block. Miyuki Ishida, who previously directed the I.Cinnamoroll animation and served as episode director on One Punch Man seasons 2 and 3, is directing the anime. This is her first time directing a TV series. Susumu Yamakawa, known for The Way of the Househusband and Murai in Love, is writing the scripts, and Natsuki Ōyama, who worked on Can a Boy-Girl Friendship Survive?, is designing the characters. The romantic comedy follows Riyo Washizu, the daughter of a yakuza boss, and her caretaker Gō Kiritani, a young subordinate. Riyo has a fetish for seeing strong people when they are weak, a trait the story terms a "yowara" (weak loving) fetish. The manga began serialization on Kodansha's Comic Days app in August 2024. The fifth volume is scheduled to ship on July 16. Two teaser visuals were released, one of which the staff calls the "weak loving" version.
The adaptation was announced alongside two teaser visuals. The standard version shows Gō Kiritani and Riyo Washizu together, while the "weak loving" version focuses on Riyo's excited expression as Gō appears injured. Creator Umihoshi Nanai said in a statement that the series was originally conceived as a one-shot with no expectations of expansion, and that the staff have brought approaches she could not have imagined. Producers Kanae Tada and Nao Nishimura of ABC Animation recalled discovering the manga and vowing to adapt it, describing the final product as a concentrated work with layered flavor. The anime will air in the Animazing!!! late-night slot, which runs Saturday at 26:00 (effectively Sunday at 2:00 a.m.). J.C. Staff, the studio behind A Certain Scientific Railgun and the Detective Opera Milky Holmes series, is handling production. The manga continues to run biweekly on Kodansha's Comic Days and Gekkō Maga Kichi platforms. To celebrate the anime announcement, all chapters except the latest are available for free reading on Comic Days until July 16.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 3 cited sources below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.