It has been announced that Takahashi Shinya will be appearing as a voice actor in the TV anime "The Two Who Smoke Smoke Behind the Supermarket," based on the manga by Jinushi currently being serialized in the manga magazine "Big Gangan" (Square Enix). Takahashi will play Suzuki, a colleague of middle-aged man Sasaki at his workplace. Visuals of Sasaki, Tayama, Yamada, and Suzuki have also been released.
At AnimeJapan 2026, which will be held at Tokyo Big Sight, a stage event for the series will be held on March 28th, where information on the main promotional video, main key visual, and theme song will be announced. As a novelty item, original Cocoa cigarettes for "The Two Who Smoke Smoke Behind the Supermarket" featuring illustrations of Sasaki and Tayama will be distributed.
The series began serialization on Jinushi's Twitter account (now X) in March 2022, with the first chapter receiving a total of approximately 280,000 likes. It was also ranked first in the web manga category at the 2022 Next Manga Awards, and has sold over 3 million copies. The story revolves around a middle-aged man named Sasaki and a woman named Tayama, who wears a slightly eccentric outfit and whom Sasaki meets at his favorite supermarket. The two then engage in a casual conversation in the smoking area behind the supermarket.
The anime will star Takuya Sato as Sasaki and Narumi Hoshi as Yamada/Tayama. It will be produced by Asahi Productions. It will be broadcast nationwide on 28 TBS affiliates every Thursday at 11:56 pm starting in July.
