The TV anime of Sumiko Arai's Ki ni Natteru Hito ga Otoko Janakatta will premiere on January 8, 2027, on the Nippon TV network's "FuraAni" block, airing Fridays at 11 p.m. JST, according to Anime Anime. The schedule was announced at New York Comic Con 2026, alongside a first promotional video and five additional cast members.
Kenjirō Tsuda voices Jō, the uncle of protagonist Mitsuki Koga. The other four play classmates at the high school Mitsuki and Aya Osawa attend: Tasuku Hatanaka as Narita, Yurina Amami as Chizuru, Fairouz Ai as Mao and Maiko Nomura as Kanna. In a comment released with the announcement, Hatanaka said he had recorded a drama CD for the series before and was happy to play Narita in the anime as well.
The promotional video, posted to the Aniplex Channel on YouTube, uses footage from the anime itself. It includes dialogue from Mariya Ise as Mitsuki and Akari Kitō as Aya, along with the score by Kōsuke Noma and Takayuki "Kojiro" Sasaki. Noma said this is his first time writing a score, and that recording took place in Tokyo and Los Angeles. Sasaki said the grunge rock songs that appear in the manga are ones he had listened to himself.
Masashi Ishihama is directing at CloverWorks, with series composition by Rino Yamazaki and character designs by Kanna Hirayama. Nirvana's "Breed" is the opening theme song. The announcement notes that the broadcast time is subject to change.
Arai's manga runs under KADOKAWA's Kitora imprint and has surpassed 2.25 million copies worldwide, according to the report. Aya, a high school student who loves Western rock, is drawn to a clerk dressed all in black at a CD shop, without knowing that the person attends her own school. Yen Press publishes the manga in English as The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All.