Announced after horse-racing group's collaboration site garnered 1 million user-made characters

The official Twitter account for the television anime of Bkub Okawa's Pop Team Epic manga announced on Wednesday that production on an original net anime has been green-lit. The account will announce details for the anime at a later date.

The announcement came after visitors to the Japan Racing Association (JRA) and Pop Team Epic's collaboration site created one million "spectator" characters. The site allows users to customize their own spectator characters, using the anime's Popuko and Pipimi characters as a base.

The television anime premiered on January 6. HIDIVE, Funimation, Crunchyroll, AsianCrush, and Amazon Prime Video all streamed the anime as it aired in Japan.

The surreal four-panel manga centers around two 14-year-old girls, the short Popuko and the tall Pipimi.

Space Neko Company's Jun Aoki (Oshiruko - The Summertime Mischief, Stephan no Ongaeshi, "#1 Adachin mo Keitai ga Hoshii da chin!") and Aoi Umeki (Kamikaze Douga staffer on City Hunter's "Ryō no Propose" short) served as series directors on the television anime. Kotaro Sudo planned and produced the anime, and Aoki was in charge of series scripts. Umeki was in charge of concept design works. Tōru Kanegae directed the sound at Glovision, and Yasumasa Koyama handled sound effects. Busted Rose's Gin composed the music.

Kamikaze Douga animated the series, and King Records was credited for production.

Ōkawa launched the manga on the Manga Life Win website in 2014, and ended it in 2015. Takeshobo released the manga's first compiled book volume in print in 2015. Ōkawa launched the "second season" in February 2016, and ended it on April 30. Takeshobo released the second volume in June 2017. The manga started a "third season" last October.

Vertical will start publishing the manga in English this fall.

Source: Pop Team Epic anime's official Twitter account