NullMeta is getting a TV anime in 2027. Aniplex opened an official website for the adaptation on Sunday, revealing the main staff, a teaser visual and a celebratory illustration drawn by the original author, Kokamumo.
The studio is Soigne, which handled Kamiina Botan, Yoeru Sugata wa Yuri no Hana and Mono. For anyone tracking directors, the bigger news is who is sitting in the chair: Kai Ikarashi, a name that until now lived in episode credits rather than series credits.
The staff
Kai Ikarashi directs. He is best known for episode direction on Tengoku Daimakyou, and he is also directing Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2, which premieres October 20.
Tatsuya Takahashi handles series composition. His recent work includes Class no Daikirai na Joshi to Kekkon suru Koto ni Natta. Shin Ogasawara, an animation director on Ousama Ranking, designs the characters. Aniplex produces.
That is a staff list built around people who have worked on visually distinctive shows, and it suggests the adaptation will not be a flat, panel-by-panel transcription of a 4-koma.
What NullMeta is
The manga is a 4-koma comedy by Kokamumo, running in Houbunsha's Manga Time Kirara MAX since December 2019. The sixth collected volume came out January 27. Before the magazine, it existed as web comics posted to the author's Tumblr and Pixiv accounts in April 2018, then as a self-published serialization on Niconico Seiga from September 2018. The web version and the magazine version differ in places, both in setting and in chronology, which gives an adaptation two versions to draw from.
The premise, as Aniplex's site lays it out: Kurumi is an android who isn't very bright. Her guardian Chiaki is a bit of a lunatic. The two of them go through high school alongside Sakina and Shiyuki. Sakina is cool and composed until something sets her off laughing, which does not take much. Shiyuki is the only sane one, and the question mark is doing a lot of work there.
Their days are mostly nothing in particular. They upgrade Kurumi, fuss over her like a pet, and chat about whatever comes up. That is the entire show, and for a certain kind of viewer it is exactly the pitch.
Why Ikarashi is the story here
Ikarashi has spent years as one of those animators whose episodes stand out from the shows around them. Tengoku Daimakyou's direction leaned on odd framing, dead air and uncomfortable pacing, and the episodes he handled are the ones people clipped. Handing a soft 4-koma comedy to a director with that instinct is either a perfect match or a collision, and there is no middle option.
Kirara MAX has produced a steady line of adaptations and an audience that turns up for them, though never in huge numbers. Aniplex producing rather than a smaller committee says something about the budget. Soigne's Mono, an adaptation of a Laid-Back Camp creator's work, is a decent reference point for how the studio handles quiet material.
What we know about release
2027, no month. The official site is at nlmt-anime.com and the official X account is @nlmt_anime. No cast has been announced. Crunchyroll or another streaming partner has not been confirmed, though Aniplex titles tend to land on Crunchyroll internationally as a matter of course. Treat that as an assumption, not a fact, until it is announced.
For now the teaser visual and Kokamumo's celebratory illustration are the only art out there. The illustration is often the more interesting of the two, since it shows how the creator draws their own characters when nobody is asking them to match a model sheet.
Source: MyAnimeList News, citing Comic Natalie and the official NullMeta anime website.
Source: MyAnimeList News, citing Comic Natalie and the official NullMeta anime website
Featured image: Teaser visual for the NullMeta TV anime, via MyAnimeList News.
