The staff of the TV anime adaptation for Takata’s I Made Friends with the Second Prettiest Girl in My Class light novel series confirmed the anime’s April 2026 premiere. A new trailer for the anime reveals the opening theme song “Submarine Youth” by reGretGirl, and a new key visual was also released.
The cast of the I Made Friends with the Second Prettiest Girl in My Class anime includes:
- Haruki Ishiya as Maki Maehara
- Manaka Iwami as Umi Asanagi
- Sayumi Suzushiro as Yū Amami
- Ikumi Hasegawa as Nina Nitta
Hideki Tachibana directs the anime at CONNECT, with Keiichirō Ōchi overseeing and writing the series scripts. Shoko Takimoto is the anime’s character designer.
Additional staff members include:
- 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
Takata launched the series in November 2020 in Kadokawa’s Kakuyomu website. Kadokawa’s Sneaker Bunko imprint began publishing the novel series in print in December 2021, and Rin Ono launched the manga adaptation in Comic Alive+ in 2022.
Yen Press is publishing the manga adaptation in English. Lastly, here’s an overview of the story from Yen Press.
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!
