The Crunchyroll Showcase panel at Anime Expo 2026 revealed the main cast, staff, opening theme, a teaser visual (pictured), and a teaser promotional video for the television anime adaptation of Sumiko Arai's Kininatteru Hito ga Otoko ja Nakatta (The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All) manga on Friday. The anime is scheduled to premiere in January 2027.

Voice actresses Mariya Ise (Aku no Hana) and Akari Kitou (Ao no Hako) are starring as Mitsuki Koga and Aya Oosawa, respectively.

Staff
Director: Masashi Ishihama (Horimiya)
Series Composition: Rino Yamazaki (Kaoru Hana wa Rin to Saku)
Character Design: Kanna Hirayama ([Oshi no Ko])
Studio: CloverWorks

American rock band Nirvana performs the opening theme "Breed".

Arai originally began posting the music-themed girls love manga, also known by its short title Kinioto, on their X (formerly Twitter) account in April 2022. Kadokawa began printing the manga in April 2023 and published the fourth volume last February. Kinioto has a cumulative 1.4 million copies of its volumes in print.

Yen Press licensed the manga in English in April 2024 and released the first volume in October that year. The third volume went on sale in December 2025, with the fourth volume scheduled to be released on October 27. The manga is also published in multiple foreign languages, including Spanish, Italian, Polish, and Brazilian Portuguese.

Kininatteru Hito ga Otoko ja Nakatta placed first in the Web Manga category in the 2023 Tsugi no Kuru Manga Awards and second in the female readers division in the 2024 Kono Manga ga Sugoi! rankings.

Teaser PV


Source: Press Release