A cramped one-tatami booth, a manga café in Tokyo, and a country girl whose dream dorm turns out to be… not quite what the brochure implied. Ichijouma Mankitsu Kurashi! is getting a TV anime in April 2026, with a new teaser visual and official site showing off its “manga café dorm life” comedy vibes.
Manga café dorm life comes to TV in Ichijouma Mankitsu Kurashi!
Based on Kumako Hisama’s four-panel manga in Houbunsha’s Manga Time Kirara, Ichijouma Mankitsu Kurashi! (literally “One-Tatami Manga Café Life”) follows Meiko Morita, a high school girl from rural Akita who thinks she’s scored the perfect Tokyo boarding school deal. Instead, she discovers her promised dorm is actually Hedgehog, a manga café that doubles as a tiny student dormitory. Her so-called room? A one-tatami private booth packed with more comics than furniture.
Country girl Meiko and her tiny room in the Hedgehog manga café
Meiko is a second-year student and the eldest of five siblings, the kind of responsible big sister who sends money back home and takes on more work than she probably should. To cover tuition at the elite Amamiya Girls’ Academy, she lives and works at Hedgehog, tackling café chores as “volunteer service” while trying to keep up with classes. She’s good at cooking, terrible with machines, and her Akita dialect slips out whenever she gets flustered—perfect fuel for day-to-day gags in a cramped booth that barely fits her and a futon.
Chaotic dormmates, part-time work and a slightly cheeky tone
Of course, Meiko’s new life would be too quiet without chaotic roommates. There’s Rie Amamiya, the rich and easygoing daughter of the school’s chairwoman, who runs Hedgehog as both landlord and manga hoarder, with a particular weakness for yuri titles. She even briefly mistakes Meiko for a rookie manga artist with the same name. Then there’s Marika Suzuki, a perpetually bundled-up slacker who secretly streams under the name Marika Belltree, and Neo Nakano, a small but strong gamer obsessed with becoming a pro and handling the café’s PCs. Together, they turn Hedgehog into a mix of part-time job, dorm sitcom and slightly spicy, tongue-in-cheek comedy rather than anything heavy.
Teaser visual and Kirara-style art hint at a cozy comedy feel
The newly revealed teaser visual leans hard into that “dream vs. reality” premise: Meiko, looking both cute and a little overwhelmed, stands surrounded by her larger-than-life dormmates inside the café, framed by shelves of manga and soft colors. The tagline, “The Tokyo dorm she longed for turned out to be a manga café,” sells the tone in one line—this is less about high drama and more about watching a sincere country girl adapt to noisy, slightly oddball city life one cramped night at a time. Fans of Kirara-style pastel palettes and expressive character art should feel right at home.
Staff lineup and April 2026 broadcast window for the anime
The TV anime is produced by studio PRA with direction by Toshinori Watanabe, character designs by Fumiya Uehara, and music by MONACA, whose work has backed plenty of laid-back yet emotionally warm shows. The official site confirms an April 2026 broadcast start, putting the series firmly in the spring 2026 anime season. While TV channels and global streaming platforms have yet to be detailed, the Kirara pedigree and compact dorm setting make it an easy recommendation for viewers who like low-stakes, character-driven comedy in small spaces.
Ways to follow Ichijouma Mankitsu Kurashi! before the premiere
Ahead of the anime, four volumes of the original manga are available in Japan, offering a good look at Hedgehog’s booth-sized drama before it hits TV. For updates, fans can bookmark the official anime site and follow the show’s official X account, which are set to share cast announcements, trailers and more as April 2026 approaches. If your spring lineup needs a cozy, slightly chaotic slice-of-life anchored in a manga café, this one-tatami upgrade might be worth squeezing in.
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