Asahi Production and the Hakone-chan Production Committee announced on Wednesday that a television anime adaptation of Daisuke Yui's Onsen Yōsei Hakone-chan (Young Hot Spring Spirit Hakone-chan) manga has been green-lit. The "warm slapstick hot spring comedy" centers around a hot spring spirit in the popular Japanese resort town of Hakone.

The story follows Hakone, a hot spring spirit who descended to a spa resort on Earth. However, with her long slumber, she looks like a little girl on the outside. (The "Yōsei" in the title is a wordplay on the Japanese words for fairy and a young child.) The high school boy Tōya stumbles across her at a hot spring and ends up joining Hakone in retrieving her original powers.

Takeyuki Yanase (Himegoto) is directing the anime at Asahi Production and Production Reed. Korie Tomonaga (writer on Soreike! Anpanman, Funassyi no Funafunafuna Hiyori) and Momoko Murakami (writer on Pretty Rhythm Aurora Dream, Futsū no Joshikōsei ga Locodol Yattemita) are in charge of the series scripts. Yanase and Masaaki Sakurai (Nisekoi, Survival Game Club!) share the chief animation director role, and Yanase is also designing the characters.

The anime series will premiere in October and run for 13 episodes on Animax, Teletama (TV Saitama), and other stations.

Yui launched the manga in Aplix's Comic Metor website in 2012, and Holp published the second compiled book volume in April 2014. Comic Meteor reposted the first three chapters to celebrate the announcement of the television anime. Hakone is the real-life locale inspiration for many anime such as Evangelion and Initial D.

Source: Dream News