Morning Magazine's Yōkai Zukan Monster Guide Gets TV Anime

Kodansha's Morning magazine announced on Thursday that Masafumi Gotō's illustrated monster guide Kutsushita ga Daru Daru ni Nacchau Wake ~Imadoki Yōkai Zukan~ is inspiring a television anime on public broadcaster NHK's E-Tele channel, starting April 2. The weekly nine-minute anime shorts will be titled KutsuDaru.

The monster guide began its Morning serialization under the title TOKYO Yōkai Zukan (TOKYO Yōkai Encyclopedia) in 2007. The anime will be based on the full-colored Kutsushita ga Daru Daru ni Nacchau Wake ~Imadoki Yōkai Zukan~ book version that Kodansha published in 2011. The book centers on 44 yōkai — Japanese monsters — who make humans' socks loose.

To celebrate the anime news, Gotō drew the new illustration seen at right. A new KutsuDaru. series will also run in Morning at the same time that the anime premieres in April.