You Can’t Be In a Rom-Com with Your Childhood Friends! trailer intros Eiyuu and the heroine’s voice actors
Steven Reynolds 
New You Can’t Be In a Rom-Com with Your Childhood Friends! trailer introduces Eiyuu and his childhood friends
Upcoming romantic comedy anime You Can’t Be In a Rom-Com with Your Childhood Friends! has dropped a new trailer along with its premiere date — January 5th, 2026.
The trailer follows on from the anime’s first PV, which dropped last month, and introduces the four heroines — aka protagonist Eiyuu’s childhood friends, Shio, Akari, Runa and Haru — and Eiyuu, as the high school student realizes he may have feelings that are a bit more than just friendship towards the girls he grew up with.
The trailer introduces the five main character’s voice actors. They are:
- Rin Kusumi (Monme in Wandance) who voices Shio Minamo
- Yu Serizawa (Shera in How Not to Summon a Demon Lord) as Akari Hiodoshi
- Sae Hiratsuka (Noriko in 365 Days to the Wedding) who plays Runa Tsukimi
- Yuki Yamamoto (Juri in Rascal Does Not Dream of Santa Claus) as Haru Hinata
- Takehiro Urao (Saitou in A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics)
The trailer also includes a snippet of the anime’s opening theme song – ‘I Love You♡‘ performed by HoneyWorks meets Shio Minamo・Akari Hiodoshi・Runa Tsukimi・Haru Hinata.
In other words, Japanese musical group HoneyWorks (Rent-a-Girlfriend and 365 Days to the Wedding theme songs) is teaming up with the anime’s four main voice actresses to perform its OP. And, from the snippet, I would say the result sounds incredibly sweet.
Shinya Misu draws You Can’t Be In a Rom-Com with Your Childhood Friends! Christmas visual
Mangaka Shinya Misu has also released a Christmas visual featuring Shio, Akari, Runa and Haru dressed in cute Santa costumes.
The prolific mangaka began serializing the rom-com manga on Kodansha’s Magazine Pocket website in early 2022. Since then 18 print volumes have been released in Japan, with Volume 18 published on November 7th, 2025.
Its anime adaptation was announced in April this year.
Production information for You Can’t Be In a Rom-Com…anime adaptation
Based on Shinya Misu’s manga series, the You Can’t Be In a Rom-Com with Your Childhood Friends! anime is being directed by Satoshi Kuwabara (director of rom-com Girlfriend, Girlfriend), with Mitsutaka Hirota (Days with My Stepsister) in charge of series composition and scripts.
Reina Iwasaki (VTuber Legend: How I Went Viral after Forgetting to Turn Off My Stream) is designing the cute characters.
Tezuka Productions (animators of My Wife Has No Emotion and Dororo) is animating, which, if I’m honest, is slightly worrying, as they don’t have the best reputation for being highly skilled animators.
Especially when you look at the animation in the trailer, which seems to be more PowerPoint presentation than animation so far.
That being said, I am not one to judge an anime before it’s released. As that is happening on January 5th, we don’t have long to wait before this one is either.
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