Winter 2023 anime season’s line-up counts on some new and much-loved returning anime series, and there is a little of everything to satiate the anime fans’ hunger for more stories, and Tomo-chan Is A Girl is one of the promising titles in the genre of romantic comedy.
Tomo-chan Is A Girl! was originally a four-panel manga series written and illustrated by Fumita Yanagida, which started as a web manga, and was serialized on the Twi4 Twitter account, as well as on the Saizensen website between 2015 and 2019, and the individual chapters were published by Kodansha in eight tankobon volumes. Seven Seas Entertainment licensed the series and released it in English between 2018 and 2020.
Background
With the worldwide popularity of anime increasing more and more lately, and a great number of modern anime series based on also popular manga series, such as SPY X FAMILY, it can be easily stated that manga is an immense part of the pillar of cutting-edge pop culture. As a consequence, Da Vinci and Niconico’s Next Manga Award was established in 2014, with the purpose of introducing new series with the potential to break out in the future, based on fan votes. It is an annual award for manga series presented by Kadokawa Corporation’s Da Vinci magazine and its Niconico streaming website, divided into two categories only: one for manga published in print publications, and one for manga series published online, i.e., web manga. At first, only Japanese fans could vote, but an English website was launched for voting in 2021.
In its first edition, My Hero Academia won Next Manga Award in the “print” category, when it had just started to be serialized in the previous year. More than famous now, this win just proved that this award indeed opens doors for the adaptations of really popular manga series into anime, increasing manga sales and gifting fans with animated versions of their beloved manga stories.
In 2016, Tomo-chan Is A Girl was the winner of the Next Manga Award in the “web manga category”, beating 14 nominees, which is not only a great achievement but also a good sign that this rom-com anime series has a high potential for enchanting old fans of the manga series and garnering new ones with the anime adaption. The recent phenomenon in terms of anime adaptions of winners of this award is SPY X FAMILY, which won it in the “web manga” category in 2019, and has already announced its second season and an original feature film, both set to be released in 2023.
If these two massive triumphs, the now long-running anime My Hero Academia and the recently successful SPY X FAMILY, with both having won the Next Manga Award, are not enough to make fans have high expectations regarding the anime adaptation of Tomo-chan Is A Girl!, there is another case: Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War is a hugely popular romantic comedy, actually, one of the most popular rom-com anime series ever! The bar is then set very high for this promising rom-com Tomo-chan Is A Girl!, which is soon to be streamed in the Winter 2023 anime season.
What We Know So Far
Studio Lay-duce is, known for Fate/Grand Order: First Order and Heroines Run The Show is responsible for the adaptation of the beloved manga series.Tomo Aizawa’s voice actress, Rie Takahashi, has given voice before to one of 2022’s most cherished characters, Romantic Killer’s Anzu Hoshina. Other famous names are part of the cast, such as Junichiro Kubota, Haikyuu!’s Tobio Kageyama, Misuzu Gundo, That Time I Reincarnated As a Slime’s Milim, and Tatsumi Tanabe, Sword Art Online’s Kirito. Takahashi, Hidaka, and Sally Amaki perform the ending song for the anime series, “yurukuru * love.”, and the opening song, “Kurae! Telepathy” is performed by Maharajan.
Hitori Nanba (Fate/Grand Order: First Order) is directing the series, which counts on some other well-known names in the anime industry, such as Megumi Shimizu (Soul Eater, My Next Life As A Villainess: All Routes Lead To Doom!) is in charge of the series composition, and Masanori Tsuchiya (Wotakoi: Love Is Hard For Otaku — and the manga on which this series was based also won the Next Manga Award in the “manga category” in the same year as My Hero Academia won in the “print manga” category) is the sound director. Masaru Yokoyama (Your Lie In April, Fruits Basket) is handling the music of the anime, while Shiori Hiraiwa is debuting as the one responsible for the character designs in Tomo-chan Is A Girl!
What Makes Tomo-chan Is A Girl! Stand Out
Tomo and Jun have been best friends since they were little kids. Now that they are in high school, however, Tomo wants to be more than his friend, but, bad for her, Jun only sees her as “one of the guys”. While Tomo is seen as a tomboy, she is determined to prove to her long-time friend that she is a woman too.
Based on its premise, there is room for major developments on several fronts, such as helping break stereotypes that are unfortunately perpetuated in many anime series, which tend to be very sexist in handling their female characters. The tsundere Tomo is seen as a tomboy, because she deviates from gender norms, growing up with tastes and interests that are usually associated with males and masculinity, and she is depicted as a charming and beautiful female lead. In a lighthearted and hilarious fashion, Tomo will play with the boundaries between masculine and feminine lifestyles.
For all this, Tomo-chan Is A Girl! has the potential to join Romantic Killer in this new “crop” of female-centered anime series that subvert and even deconstruct tropes that should have been abandoned altogether a long time ago, with which it shares a very refreshing concept, as well as the approach to teenage friendship and the gender play involved in its dynamics, bringing once more the gender discussion into the spotlight, while potentially providing an enchanting and also refreshing story of not only love but also the friendship between the opposite sexes, while bringing to the front better representation and questionings that are more than welcome in this new era of anime.
Tomo-chan Is A Girl! will be a simulcast on Crunchyroll, and will debut on January 4, 2023, JST.