Anime about boys who love Sanrio characters premieres in January 2018

The official website for Sanrio's Sanrio Danshi (Sanrio Boys) anime revealed a new key visual and the anime character designs on Friday.

The anime's main cast members are (from left to right in the image below):

Jun Oosuka (Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu's Ogawa) as Shunsuke Yoshino, a high school boy who loves Hello Kitty Sōma Saitō (Dance with Devils' Rem Kaginuki, Rokka: Braves of Six Flowers' Adlet Myer) as Yū Mizuno, a high school boy who loves My Melody Takuya Eguchi (Haikyu!!'s Yūji Terushima, My Love Story!!'s Takeo Gōda) as Kōta Hasegawa, a high school boy who loves Pom Pom Purin Hiroyuki Kagura (Bungo Stray Dogs' Kenji Miyazawa) as Ryō Nishimiya, a high school boy who loves Little Twin Stars Yūma Uchida (King of Prism's Yū Suzuno, Gundam Build Fighters Try's Yūma Kōsaka) as Seiichiro Minamoto, a high school boy who loves Cinnamoroll

The anime will premiere in January 2018. Pony Canyon promoted the anime in the United States at Otakon 2017.

The project's premise follows Kōta Hasegawa, a high school boy who loves the yellow Pom Pom Purin dog. By mere coincidence, he ends up attending the same school as Yū Mizuno, a boy who likes the bunny My Melody. Yū tells Kōta that there's nothing to be ashamed of for liking Sanrio's cute characters. Together, Kōta, Yū, Shunsuke Yoshino, Ryō Nishimiya, and Seiichiro Minamoto learn to accept their love of the characters instead of feeling embarrassed.

The project launched in January 2016, and Sanrio launched a merchandise line for the project in April 2016. Mai Andō is handling two different manga adaptations of the project, with a manga in the MangaOne app that launched in April 2016, and one in Sho-Comi that launched in June 2016. The first follows the everyday lives of the boys, while the second depicts the romance between a heroine and the boys.

The Sanrio Danshi Birthday Memorial CD series of five character CDs are slated to ship this year around each character's birthday from March to September. The fifth and final CD, Ryō Nishimiya's Love-Rinth, is slated for September 20.

Sanrio also released a smartphone game adaptation last September, and the voice actors released a song single titled "Fun! Fantastic girl!" last November. The song is the theme song to the game.

Source: Moca News