The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague will premiere in January 2023, the Winter 2023 anime season. The exact date is yet to be revealed, so stay tuned!
The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague (氷属性男子とクールな同僚女子, Koori Zokusei Danshi to Cool na Douryou Joshi) anime adaptation was first announced in June 2022, when the main staff and cast were announced.
The first Koori Zokusei Danshi to Cool na Douryou Joshi trailer PV popped up on August 3 alongside a key visual.
On August 17, additional cast members were announced.
On September 30, it was announced that voice actor and singer Takao Sakuma will perform the OP theme song, the title of which we’ll have to wait to learn.
The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague anime: What we know so far
Mankyuu is directing the series at Zero-G. Liber is the co-producer.
Other main staff members include:
- Tomoko Konparu (Love All Play) — series composer
- Miyako Karino — character designer
- Ruka Kawada — music composer
The cast members announced so far include:
- Yui Ishikawa (Attack on Titan’s Mikasa) — Fuyutsuki
- Chiaki Kobayashi (Askeladd in Vinland Saga’s Askeladd) — Himuro
- Kouki Uchiyama — Saejima
- Chiaki Kobayashi — Himuro
- Yumi Uchiyama — Komori
- Shuugo Nakamura — Katori
- Ayane Sakura — Otonashi
- Hiyori Nitta — Yukimin
Koori Zokusei Danshi to Cool na Douryou Joshi is a josei title, which is to say it appeals to older female audiences. It is a fantasy romcom that follows the titular ‘ice guy,’ namely Himuro-kun — a living descendent of the Snow Woman (Yuki-onna), who cannot seem to keep his cool when around his co-worker Fuyutsuki-san.
True to his heritage, whenever she’s around, he freezes up, literally! Unfortunately, Fuyutsuki-san is rather oblivious to his pitiful state, so their potential romance is stuck in limbo.
The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague manga
The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague TV anime is based on the eponymous manga series by Miyuki Tonogaya.
The manga has been serialized via Square Enix’s Gangan Pixiv website since July 2019. The individual chapters have been collected into six tankōbon volumes as of June 2022.
Comikey licensed the series for English publication in November 2021. The chapters are being published digitally; the manga is up to chapter 31.5 as of November 5.
Yuki-onna: The Snow Woman of Japanese folklore
Yuki-onna (雪女, lit. “The Snow Woman”) is one of many Japanese yōkai (Shintō demons or spirits). As is customary for folktales, there are numerous variations of the myth, which vary from region to region.
The one that is best-known outside of Japan is detailed in “Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things” by Lafcadio Hearn (1904), which also inspired an anthology horror film.
Titled Kwaidan (lit., “Ghost Stories”), the movie was directed by Masaki Kobayashi and premiered in 1964. The second part of the movie tells a fictionalized story of Yuki-onna.
Kwaidan won the Special Jury Prize at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival, so it’s worth looking up.
It remains to be seen which variant of the folktale The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague TV anime will reference… or, I should say, hopefully, it will reference Japanese folklore.