Murai in Love
Murai in Love is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Junta Shima. It was serialized in Line Digital Frontier's Line Manga service from June 2018 to June 2022, with its chapters collected into seven volumes. A television drama adaptation aired from April to May 2022. An anime television series adaptation produced by J.C.Staff aired from October to December 2024.
Plot
Murai is a top student in his grade at his high school who is in love with his homeroom teacher, Ayano Tanaka. However, Ms. Tanaka has no interest in him and is secretly an obsessed with Hitotose, her favorite character from the otome game Feudal Era Love Scroll. After Ms. Tanaka rejects him, stating that she has no interest in men with long, black hair, he appears at school the next day with short, blond hair, becoming the spitting image of Hitotose.Characters
;Murai;Ayano Tanaka
;Hitotose
;Kiriyama
;Hirai
;Yamakado
;Yuuka Nishifuji
;Hitomi Nishifuji
;Yayoi Fukunaga
Media
Manga
Written and illustrated by Junta Shima, Murai in Love was serialized under the Gene Line label of Line Digital Frontier's Line Manga service from June 18, 2018, to June 13, 2022. Media Factory has compiled the chapters into individual volumes. Seven volumes were published from December 2018 to June 2022. A drama CD adaptation was included in an issue of Monthly Comic Gene published on November 15, 2019.A spin-off manga, titled Murai no Koi Gaiden: Great Twin Busters, began serialization on Line Manga on October 23, 2023. The first volume was released on September 13, 2024.
Volumes
''Murai in Love''
''Murai no Koi Gaiden: Great Twin Busters''
Drama
A television drama adaptation was announced in March 2022, starring Hikaru Takahashi. It was directed by Taichi Imura,, and Daisuke Yamamoto, based on a screenplay by Kōhei Kiyasu. Keiko Matsumoto and Hiromi Matsushita of TBS Sparkle served as the producers. The series aired from April 6 to May 25, 2022, on TBS's brand new programming block. The opening theme song is "Peace" by, while the ending theme song is "Niji o Yobu" by. The series began streaming on Viki on April 21, 2023.Anime
An anime adaptation was announced in June 2022. It was produced by J.C.Staff and directed by Yoshinobu Yamakawa, with scripts supervised and written by, and music composed by. While the series streamed worldwide on Disney+ and on Hulu in the United States from September 4 to November 20, 2024, it aired from October 6 to December 22, 2024, on Tokyo MX and other networks. The opening theme song is "Henshin!" performed by Rinu, while the ending theme song is "Suko" performed by.An English dub premiered on March 10, 2025.
Reception
In 2019, the series ranked second in the Next Manga Awards in the web manga category.The series' first episode received mixed reviews from Anime News Network's staff during the Fall 2024 season previews. Richard Eisenbeis was critical of the "motion comic" quality animation but praised Yoko Hikasa's performance as Ms. Tanaka, concluding that: "All in all, this isn't ever going to be considered a masterpiece. It looks far too rough for it to ever get any mainstream appeal. However, as a comedy, it did its job. I laughed a lot and will continue watching as long as I continue to do so." Caitlin Moore criticized the "limited animation" for removing the series' comedy potential and felt that Ms. Tanaka's mishaps were "not relatable enough to feel like it's funny because it's true." Rebecca Silverman was also critical of the "choppy and cheap-feeling" presentation and "downright ugly" animation, and was turned off by the "obnoxious characters and storyline". James Beckett found the episode "earnestly pathetic" with its "memorably terrible visuals" and Hikasa's "genuinely charming and energetic performance". Fellow ANN editor Jeremy Tauber reviewed the complete anime series and gave it an overall B grade. While critiquing that the first three episodes felt awkward in places, the humor and direction did not consistently deliver and the "unorthodox nature" will put off regular rom-com viewers, he praised the crude animation and direction for giving the story an "oddball charm", some "slower tender moments" breathing believability into the main couple's chemistry, and the "well-composed" soundtrack, concluding that: "For better or worse, you won't find an anime this season that looks and feels this unique. I'd like to think it's for the better."