Don’t miss this one – between it’s digital and print releases, the manga series has over 1 million copies in circulation.
The official Twitter account for the upcoming TV anime adaptation of the Loving Yamada at Lv999! manga released the series’ first promotional video and announced two cast members, staff, and unveiled a Valentine’s Day visual just in time for the holiday.
The newly announced cast members for the anime titled Loving Yamada-kun at Lv999 include Natsuki Hanae as Eita Sasaki and Ai Kakuma as Runa Sasaki. Previously announced cast members include Inori Minase as Akane and Kouki Uchiyama as Yamada. The anime will be directed at Madhouse by Morio Asaka, with character design by Kunihiko Hamada and scripts by Yasuhiro Nakanishi. Music composition will be handled by DÉ DÉ MOUSE and Clammbon’s Mito.
Thankfully, the anime’s first promotional video isn’t as short as some, but it’s also not a mega trailer. The short preview shows crisp animation and introduces the main characters of the show. Viewers get a tease of the virtual love that forms between Akane and Yamada, well mostly Akane loving Yamada in the video, and lists the staff and cast details at the end.
The premise of the story is that freshly dumped Akane is fully prepared to give up the game she used to play with her boyfriend, until she meets Akane, in none other than the same RPG she was about to cut all ties with. Outside the game, Yamada turns out to be a legend and heartthrob. So what’s the issue here? Well it turns out, although Akane is interested in Yamada, Yamada is only interested in the game. Will their time together online change that?
The manga series, written and illustrated by Mashiro, launched in March 2019 on Comic Smart’s Ganma! manga website. Not long after, Media Factory began publishing the manga in print under their MF Comics imprint. So far the chapters have been compiled into six tankōbon volumes, and Mangamo has been publishing the series digitally in English simultaneously with the Japanese volume releases.
Since the release of the manga, its popularity has been on the rise, and there’s no sign of that stopping anytime soon. The series ranked ninth in the web manga category at the 2020 Next Manga Awards and ranked fourth in the 2021 awards. At AnimeJapan 2021, the series was ranked ninth in a poll asking which manga fans would most want to see turned into an anime, and the series went on to win the grand prize in the Tsutaya Comic Award in 2022.
