human beings are natural pattern explorerso see smoker cat and Smoking with you behind the supermarket Releasing in the same season causes our neurons to fire. Major economic shifts and a global pandemic could cause golf anime to break out of a seventeen-year release drought, so could there be a bigger force behind the sudden release trend of smoking anime?
To put it bluntly, smoking has always been a trend in Japan sharp drop. The government has banned indoor smoking in many public places as part of the Healthy Japan 21 initiative, which hopes to reduce adult smoking rates to just 12% by 2032. By 2022, this number has reached 16.09%, with an annual decline rate of 3.75%.1 Seventy percent of Japanese adults now believe smoking has negative health effects. The Japanese tobacco industry has taken notice.
Japan Tobacco, which holds 66% of the country’s cigarette market, cited “increased awareness of health issues associated with smoking” and “regulatory developments” as key factors to consider in formulating its strategy. 2025 Investor Conferencealso discussed their desire to “further diversify our business beyond the traditional tobacco industry.” This strategy is nothing new to tobacco companies, either. RJ Reynolds acquires Hawaiian Punch 1963 and used the same advertising tactics that made Joe Camel so popular with kids, not only increasing profits; The entire ultra-processed food industry forward.2
If a game is like Uma Niang Could help revive Japan’s horse betting industry, who’s to say Japan Tobacco won’t invest in anime to get people smoking again? Since the legal smoking age in Japan is twenty, two YA manga series aimed at teenagers aged eighteen to thirty would be perfect for attracting future smokers as well as those who can already afford to buy. More than three times as many Japanese men smoke as women, making this group ideal for advertising.3
While it seems like every puzzle piece would complete the perfect picture of the tobacco industry creeping into the world of anime, there’s just one problem. As Michael Shermer said, “Humans are pattern-seeking, story-telling animals, and we’re very good at telling stories about patterns, whether they exist or not.” The fact is that having two smoking cartoons in the same season is probably pure coincidence.
Kodansha, Square Enix, Bibury Animation Studios, and Asahi Productions—the major companies that own the manga and adapt it for animation—do not have any significant ties to the tobacco companies that, at the time of writing, are funding the work for which it is publicly advertising. While Japan Tobacco expands into the food industry, it said at the aforementioned 2025 investor conference that their diversification efforts will focus on heated tobacco products, which have been a Surge in popularity in Japan. It might even be more lucrative to tap into the expanding CBD and hemp markets that have boomed in the country in recent years. Tobacco companies have no reason to invest Anime studio with falling profits They already make a lot of money on replacement products due to potential product advertising.
humans can Feeling unwell and anxious When pattern recognition fails and the material appears truly random. But thankfully, our brains can take comfort in the simplest of data points— smoker cat and Smoking with you behind the supermarket Since they are very popular and fresh properties, they fit in so well with each other.
smoker cat Ranked 12th in Next Manga Award Print Category Released in the same year. Even lucky enough to be selected Kono Manga ga Sugoi! List of the best comics for male readers 2024. Smoking with you behind the supermarket have Circulation exceeds 3 million copies. This is Highly recommended Received unanimous praise from bookstore employees and publishers, even nominated Won the Japan Expo Award for Best Comics. It would be surprising if these two manga weren’t adapted into anime with such momentum.
Anime characters have a long and varied history of smoking. While our brains may be inclined to view these more obvious examples as things worthy of special attention, sometimes coincidences are just that. If e-cigarettes and other heated tobacco products suddenly start showing up in highly specific adaptations in the future, perhaps the idea of tobacco companies investing in anime could be revisited.
Editor’s note: After this article was originally written, the first episode of Smokey Cat premiered with the explicit branding of cigarettes sold by Japan Tobacco. However, they are not listed as sponsors of the show and may simply be allowing their likenesses to be used as a form of free advertising.