The Chiikawa anime and manga phenomenon will become known to a wider audience on October 1, 2026, as full English dub episodes will stream on YouTube. You can watch it on the Chiikawa International channel. While the official merchandise already appeared worldwide, this is the debut of the part of the series that started it all.
As a note, the official YouTube channel uploaded three separate shorts announcing the English episodes. Each short features a different character from the main trio. Here is the version featuring Chiikawa:
And here is the one featuring Usagi.
The show is mostly episodic, featuring Chiikawa and their friends hanging out, having fun, eating, and working. Despite its cute characters and artwork, there are some dark tones and mature themes in the series, as it originated from author Nagano’s wish to live as a cute, simple creature and escape modern life.
Chiikawa is incredibly popular in East Asia, with merchandise and pop-up stores of the main characters almost everywhere, as well as some of those items beginning to appear in North America and Europe. The movie, which came out in July 2026, still airs in theaters and is highly successful. At 15.8 billion JPY and 10.9 million tickets sold, it is the highest-grossing film of 2026 in Japan. It’s unknown if the English dub will lead to the movie appearing in Western countries like the United States. When it aired in Taiwan and Hong Kong, it received Mandarin and Cantonese dubs.
The Chiikawa anime will stream in English on YouTube on October 1, 2026.
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