'Hirayasumi' Anime Reveals Cast, Visual for NHK 2027 Debut — SkimNews
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- Hirayasumi anime unveiled new footage, a key visual, and its principal voice cast ahead of a January 2027 premiere on Japan's NHK General TV, with Viz Media and ShoPro releasing the material and international streaming plans yet to be revealed.
- Production +h., the studio behind "The Orbital Children" and "Dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction," is animating the series under director Suezawa Kei, who also handles series composition and scripts.
- Uchida Yuma voices 29-year-old protagonist Hiroto, a laid-back Asagaya part-timer; the actor's prior roles include Fushiguro Megumi in "Jujutsu Kaisen" and Ash Lynx in "Banana Fish."
- Takahashi Mayu plays 18-year-old cousin Natsumi, a reserved Yamagata newcomer studying at art school who privately hopes to become a manga artist — Takahashi said she identified with the character more strongly than any she'd encountered.
- Aikawa Rikako voices 83-year-old "Granny" Wada Hanae, a former school-lunch cook who begins sharing dinners with Hiroto twice weekly; the veteran actress has performed Squirtle in "Pokémon" and Oxnard in "Hamtaro."
- Shinzo Keigo's source manga has run in Shogakukan's "Weekly Big Comic Spirits" since 2021, spanning 10 volumes and more than 1.7 million copies in print worldwide, and has won best serial comic at Lucca Comics & Games 2024 and the 71st Shogakukan Manga Award.
- Hirayasumi was directly inspired by Shinzo's autobiographical one-shot about recovering from lymphoma during the COVID-19 pandemic, a detail that contextualizes the series' themes of kindness layered over quiet personal pain.
Why it matters: For fans of Shinzo Keigo's award-winning manga, the 1.7-million-copy-in-print series finally gets a broadcast home with NHK's January 2027 slot and a studio (Production +h.) whose prior track record on "The Orbital Children" signals a quality-first approach; the still-undisclosed international streaming partner will determine how broadly the series reaches its existing global readership beyond Japan.
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