Tanuki

Tanuki to Kitsune is a soft, cozy comedy about a pair of animal pals. A tanuki is a Japanese raccoon dog, a small furry animal that often shows up in Japanese folk tales. A kitsune is a fox. In this show, the tanuki is sweet but a bit slow to catch on, and the kitsune loves to play tricks on him and make fun of him. Even so, they care about each other a lot and share a home up in the hills. The series is based on a manga by the artist Atamoto. It began in 2016 as short comics posted on Twitter, which is now called X. The publisher Frontier Works then picked it up and started printing books in November 2016. The series grew very popular. It now has ten main volumes and three picture book volumes, with more than 1.3 million copies in print. The two heroes have also appeared on lots of goods and on stamps, the little pictures people send in chat apps. This is not the first time the pair has been animated. In 2018, a set of very short web episodes was released on YouTube, made by the studio Lesprit. The new TV anime is a fresh start with a new team. It was announced on March 27, 2026, as part of the manga's tenth birthday. At the AnimeJapan 2026 event, the publisher held a fun, family-friendly booth for the series, with photo spots and a coloring corner, and people in tanuki and kitsune costumes came to meet fans. The TV anime is made by Akatsuki Media Studio. It is directed by Tommy Hino, and Rika Kihara writes the scripts. It started on October 4, 2026, on TV Tokyo, as part of Animori!, a block of anime shown in the early morning. The band SILENT SIREN sings the theme song, called "Nikoichi!" The voice cast is full of well-known names. Misaki Kuno plays Tanuki, and Nao Toyama plays Kitsune. Toshiyuki Morikawa is the voice of Ookami, a wolf. Takuma Nagatsuka voices Kuma, a bear, and Maria Naganawa is the narrator. A pair of rabbits and some small birds round out the group of neighbors. There is no big plot here. Each story is a small slice of the pair's days: playing, teasing, getting into little trouble, and making up again. The charm comes from the simple, round art style and the warm feeling between the two. It is a good choice for young children, and also for adults who want a short, calm, happy show to relax with.