Peko-chan Lends the Cast Her Tongue
Japanese confectionery maker Fujiya has built its Ranma 1/2 tie-in around a single visual gag. Peko-chan, the mascot who has fronted the company's packaging for decades, is always drawn with her tongue sticking out. The collaboration illustrations put that same expression on Rumiko Takahashi's cast. Fujiya also flipped the joke back on itself by dressing Peko-chan and her male counterpart Poko-chan as Ranma Saotome and his cursed female form.
It is the first time the confectioner and the Ranma 1/2 anime have worked together, according to Fujiya's PR TIMES release. Fujiya timed the launch to the broadcast: the third season starts in October, and so do the sweets.
What's Actually on the Menu
Three items go on sale at Fujiya cake shops nationwide, with a staggered regional rollout. The company notes that stock varies by store and that items sold at the cake shops also turn up at some Fujiya restaurants.
The headline item is the Milky tin, a small candy can holding nine pieces of Milky, Fujiya's soft milk candy. There are eight designs at ¥990 (roughly $6.60) each, and Fujiya's own copy frames them as a set to collect. The tins reach the Kanto region on October 9, with other regions following after.
The Chinese tea mille crêpe arrives first, on October 1, at ¥626 (roughly $4.20). Fujiya stacks crêpe layers with oolong tea cream and peach cream in an argyle pattern, and serves it on a paper plate printed with Ranma Saotome and female Ranma pulling the Peko-chan face.
Also on October 1 are two macaron sets, three macarons per box at ¥972 (roughly $6.50) each. One box prints Ranma Saotome, Akane and P-chan; the other prints female Ranma, Shampoo and Ryoga. Fujiya effectively put Ryoga on both boxes, once as himself and once as the black piglet he becomes in cold water. The ganache fillings follow the candy theme: Milky, strawberry Milky and chocolate Milky.
The Series Behind the Sweets
The setup is a curse comedy. Ranma Saotome and his father Genma return from training in China and arrive at the Tendo household, except a giant panda and a girl show up instead. Cold water turns Ranma female and Genma into a panda. Hot water turns them back. Takahashi built a martial-arts romantic comedy on top of that, and the manga ran in Shogakukan's Weekly Shonen Sunday from 1987 into 1996.
MAPPA (Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man) restarted the anime in October 2024 with the 1989 series' core voice cast intact. Kappei Yamaguchi plays male Ranma and Megumi Hayashibara plays female Ranma, with Noriko Hidaka as Akane Tendo, Koichi Yamadera as Ryoga Hibiki, Rei Sakuma as Shampoo, Minami Takayama as Nabiki Tendo and Kikuko Inoue as Kasumi Tendo. Konosuke Uda returns to direct, with Kimiko Ueno on series composition and Kaoru Wada on music.
Looking Ahead
Season 3 premieres October 3, 2026 on Nippon TV and its affiliates, rolling out nationwide, and it counts as episode 25 of the ongoing series. Netflix carries it internationally as an exclusive, streaming right after the Japanese broadcast, so fans outside Japan get the episodes the same week Japan does, even if the sweets stay behind.
The third promotional video, released on MAPPA's channel, previews both new theme songs: "Sunao Miman" by Fumino for the opening and "Kawaikunai" by Yuika for the ending. The official X account is also running a live watch-along Space on premiere night with Yamaguchi and Hayashibara.
The manga is fully available in English from Viz Media in 2-in-1 omnibus editions, and digitally through the Viz app, so the arcs season 3 pulls from are already readable. The Fujiya collaboration itself is Japan-only, and no overseas retail or export plan has been announced.