North American anime licensing company Sentai Filmworks announced on Friday that it has licensed the television anime adaptation of Shūzō Oshimi's Aku no Hana (The Flowers of Evil) manga. The company plans to release the series digitally with a home video release to follow later this year. Crunchyroll is currently streaming the series outside of Japan as it airs.

The "corrupt pure-love story" revolves around Takao Kasuga (Shinichiroh Ueda), a bookish boy who loves the poems of Charles Baudelaire (the original author of the poetry collection Les Fleurs du mal or Flowers of Evil ). One day after school, he discovers and steals the gym clothes of Nanako Saeki (Yōko Hikasa), the girl he has a crush on. However, he learns that Sawa Nakamura (Mariya Ise), a girl he loathes, happens to catch him in the act. Nakamura blackmails Kasuga into a "contract," or else she will reveal his secret.

The series will co-star Ayako Uemura as Ai Kinoshita, Katsutoshi Matsuzaki as Yamada, Sayuri Hara as Mayu, and Shinya Hamazoe as Kojima. Uchu-jin band member Asako Shinosaki will be performing the opening theme song.

Hiroshi Nagahama (Mushi-Shi, Detroit Metal City) is directing the series at the studio ZEXCS, who will be using a nontraditional process to produce the series. Hidekazu Shimamura (Nodame Cantabile, Detroit Metal City) is adapting Oshimi's characters for animation, and Aki Itami (Mushi-Shi, Prince Mackaroo) is serving as scriptwriter and the series script supervisor.

The series premiered in Japan on April 5 on BS Animax. Vertical publishes the original manga in North America.