P.A.WORKS making a banished-from-the-guild isekai is not a sentence anyone expected to write. The studio behind Shirobako, Hanasaku Iroha and Sakura Quest has spent most of its life on grounded workplace drama, and it has just put its name to a show about an enchanter who gets thrown out of his party and takes all his buffs with him.
The Laid-Off Cheat-Granting Mage Enjoys a Second Lease on Life, known in Japan as Chii-Fuyo for short, started this week. Here is the broadcast schedule, the staff and cast, and one date detail that other listings are going to disagree about.
Release date, and why you will see two different ones
The official site lists the premiere as Tuesday 6 October 2026 at 24:00 on the TV Tokyo network. That is the Japanese late-night convention: 24:00 on Tuesday means midnight, which on a normal clock is Wednesday 7 October. AniList therefore records the start date as 7 October.
Both are describing the same broadcast. If you see 6 October and 7 October side by side, neither is wrong, they are just counting the night differently.
| TV Tokyo network | From Tuesday 6 October 2026, 24:00 JST, which is midnight into Wednesday |
| AT-X | From Thursday 8 October, 23:30 JST |
| AT-X repeats | Mondays 11:30 from 12 October, Wednesdays 17:30 from 14 October |
| Episode 2 | 14 October 2026, 00:00 JST |
Where to watch
Crunchyroll has the series internationally, and it is also listed on Bilibili TV. The official site additionally runs a YouTube playlist for the series.
Inside Japan the ladder is short but staggered. ABEMA and d Anime Store carry it first, from Tuesday 6 October at 24:30, half an hour after broadcast. Every other Japanese service follows from Friday 9 October at 24:30.
P.A.WORKS is the story here
Studios get typecast, and P.A.WORKS has been typecast harder than most. Its reputation rests on original work about people with jobs: animators in Shirobako, an inn in Hanasaku Iroha, local government in Sakura Quest. Light novel power fantasy is not where anyone files it.
Osamu Honma directs, with series composition by Yoko Yonaiyama. Yuito Kiyosawa handles character design and chief animation direction, Masami Gouda takes the gag and sub character designs and also serves as a chief animation director, and Yu Min-ji is a third chief animation director. Noboru Sugimitsu covers monster design and action animation direction, which tells you the fights are being treated as their own department.
The music is by Alisa Okehazama, whose score for Jujutsu Kaisen is probably the best known thing on her list. Ryousuke Naya directs the sound. The opening theme is Ember Torch by sumika.
| Studio | P.A.WORKS |
| Director | Osamu Honma |
| Series composition | Yoko Yonaiyama |
| Character design | Yuito Kiyosawa |
| Music | Alisa Okehazama |
| Opening theme | Ember Torch by sumika |
| Episodes | Not announced |
| Streaming | Crunchyroll outside Japan |
Cast
- Rain Garland, Daiki Yamashita
- Lily Flambert, Lynn
- Margaret Ells, Yoshino Aoyama
- Mirabelle, Miyu Tomita
- Nina, Konomi Kohara
- Elsia Zola, Megumi Han
What it is actually about
Rain is an enchanter. His job is granting enhancement points to other people’s gear, which is the sort of support role a party takes for granted until it is gone. He is thrown out of his guild, and rather than sulking he does the obvious thing: he reclaims every point he ever poured into his former colleagues’ equipment.
What he gathers instead is a party of people with real damage behind them. An adventurer who closed herself off after her party was killed, a warrior who lost her family, an assassin raised from childhood to kill. The pitch is that Rain does not try to fix any of them or treat their histories as problems to solve.
Genre tags on AniList list it as adventure, comedy, fantasy and slice of life, and the official site describes a deliberately chaotic gag comedy sitting on top of the drama. That combination is a more plausible fit for P.A.WORKS than the elevator pitch suggests.
The novel and the manga are not the same story
This one is worth knowing before you go looking for the source material. The anime adapts the manga by Gyoumuyou Mochi, which runs in Kodansha’s Getsumaga Kichi, based on Asa Rokushima’s novel with character concepts by kisui.
The official site carries a warning from the original author that the novel and the manga differ by, in his words, about 99 wari. Ten wari already means one hundred percent, so the figure is a joke, and the site prints it with a note that the wording is the author’s own. The serious point underneath is real: picking up the novel expecting the anime’s story will not work.
The manga has passed 1.5 million copies in circulation.
Quick answers
When did it start? Tuesday 6 October 2026 at 24:00 JST on the TV Tokyo network, which is midnight into Wednesday 7 October. AT-X followed on 8 October.
When is episode 2? 14 October 2026 at 00:00 JST.
How many episodes? Not announced.
Where can I watch it? Crunchyroll outside Japan. In Japan, ABEMA and d Anime Store first, with other services from 9 October.
Should I read the novel or the manga? The manga, if you want the version the anime is following. The author says the two differ almost completely.
For everything else airing right now, see our weekly anime schedule, and the October 2026 premieres list for the rest of the season.
