The Aniplex One Focus livestream event on Saturday revealed the main cast, January 2027 debut, and teaser visual for the television anime of Yukino Sonoyama‘s Bless manga.
Image via Bless anime’s X/Twitter account
©園山ゆきの・講談社／ブレス製作委員会
The anime will star Tomohiro Ōno as Aia Udagawa and Chiyuki Miura as Jun Sumisaki. The event also revealed short character videos for both characters.
The anime will debut in January 2027 and will air on Fuji TV‘s Noitamina programming block.
Image via Amazon
© Yukino Sonoyama, Kodansha, Kodansha USA Publishing
Shōtarō Kitamura (Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines!) is directing the anime at A-1 Pictures, and Takayuki Kikuchi (episode director for Solo Leveling, Kaguya-sama: Love is War) is the assistant director. Fukurou Kamiza (Non Non Biyori Nonstop) is writing and overseeing the series scripts. Honoka Yokoyama (Oshi no Ko TV 2, Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence) is both the character designer and chief animation director, and Tetsuya Kawakami (A Certain Magical Index, Sword Art Online) and Reina Iwasaki (VTuber Legend: How I Went Viral after Forgetting to Turn Off My Stream) are also chief animation directors. Ryō Yoshimata (Somali and the Forest Spirit, After the Rain) is composing the music.
Other staff members include:
Kodansha USA Publishing is releasing the manga in English and it describes the story:
They said Aia was destined to be a model, and Jun was bullied for her freckles. Together, they will take back the power to define themselves in an inspirational fashion manga that asks cutting questions about what it really means to be beautiful—and what it takes to overcome an arbitrary system that seems to respect talent over hard work.
Sonomaya debuted the manga in Kodansha‘s Shonen Magazine Edge magazine in 2022, and the series now runs in Monthly Shonen Sirius. Kodansha will publish the ninth volume on October 8. The manga has more than 1.25 million copies in circulation.
Kodansha USA Publishing released the manga’s seventh volume on February 10. Kodansha is also releasing the manga digitally on its K MANGA service.
The manga is also inspiring a live-action series that Amazon Prime Video will stream worldwide exclusively in spring 2027.
Source: Aniplex One Focus livestream