Smoking Behind the Supermarket With You Debuts First Six Episodes Early on Crunchyroll
The early release of six episodes as mini-episodes is an unusual distribution strategy that lets Crunchyroll and ABEMA build audience interest two months before the standard broadcast run begins.
Reporting from 2 sources: Anime News Network, Anime Corner.
Crunchyroll released the first six episodes of the Smoking Behind the Supermarket With You anime early on June 4, ahead of its July premiere. The release takes the form of 12 mini-episodes, each 10 minutes long, that present the content of episodes one through six in chronological order. The early debut on Crunchyroll corresponds with a limited advance streaming of the same episodes on the ABEMA service in Japan, which also began on June 4. The full series will premiere on TBS and 27 other Japanese channels in July, airing every Thursday at 11:56 p.m. JST. Crunchyroll is streaming the anime in North America, Central America, South America, Europe, Africa, Oceania, the Middle East, CIS, and India. The anime is directed by Tadato Suzuki and Aoi Mori at Asahi Production, with series composition by Mio Inoue and character designs by Yasuka Otaki. The rock band ZUTOMAYO performs the opening theme, and musician imase performs the ending theme. The anime adapts Jinushi's manga, which began as a webcomic on Twitter in March 2022 and later serialized in Square Enix's Big Gangan magazine.
The mini-episodes feature special opening and ending videos. The opening theme is "Kuzuri Nen" by ZUTOMAYO, and the ending theme is "NIGHT DANCER" by imase. The music is composed by Shin Kono and Sayaka Aoki. Kōhei Yoshida is the sound director.
The voice cast includes Takuya Sato as Sasaki, Seena Hoshiki as Yamada and Tayama, Shinya Takahashi as Suzuki, Toa Yukinari as Goto, Megumi Toyoguchi as Ono, Rikuya Yasuda as Obata, and Yoko Hikasa as Maezawa.
Manga UP! Global added the manga in English in April 2023. Square Enix Manga & Books began releasing the manga in English in February 2024 and will ship the seventh volume on July 7. Comikey also began releasing the manga in English digitally in May 2023. The manga is available on BookWalker. It won eighth place in the 16th Manga Taisho awards in 2023.
Jinushi launched the manga on Twitter in March 2022, and Square Enix's Big Gangan magazine began serializing it in August 2022. Square Enix shipped the eighth compiled book volume on January 23.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 2 cited sources below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.