Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! (映像研には手を出すな！, Eizōken ni wa Te o Dasu na!) is a 2020 television anime series based on Sumito Ōwara’s manga series of the same name. The series was adapted by studio Science SARU, and the staff credits include director & series composition writer Masaaki Yuasa, screenplay writer Yūichirō Kido, character designer Naoyuki Asano, and music composed by Oorutaichi. The anime first aired in Japan on January 2020.
Background:
“Midori Asakusa is obsessed with animation, but while she spends hours doodling and coming up with amazing ideas, she knows that it’ll be difficult to produce animated films on her own. Fortunately, Sayaka Kanamori is more into planning and finances, and she’s been thinking of ways to turn Midori’s ideas into something practical and profitable. That’s what friends are for, right? Still, for all their hopes and wishes, their future as the next animation wunderkinds is looking rather sketchy… until they meet Tsubame Mizusaki, who daydreams about becoming an animator, even though her parents have forbidden her from joining their school’s anime club. Solution: form a new club focused on “motion pictures” and let the creativity flow! It won’t always be easy, but once everyone’s in “toon” together, who knows what might happen!”
Plot Synopsis via Anime Limited, December 2025.
Science SARU and Masaaki Yuasa back together again for another anime project and this one is a pretty neat series. Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! is all about creating anime and while we have seen this idea with SHIROBAKO, this one is a lot simpler and imaginative to what they’re recreating. Combine that with SARU and Yuasa’s visual style and you get a pretty fun and investing experience. This is one of the few anime that made me want to watch the next episode right away as soon as the credits appeared by each episode. It’s also Masaaki Yuasa’s first TV anime with Science SARU since Devilman Crybaby was made for Netflix and Ping Pong the Animation, his last TV project, was with Tatsunoko Productions.
The anime also had a pretty funky and catchy opening theme song with Easy Breezy which does a good job introducing the vibe of the show and the cast you will encounter. Speaking of the cast we have Midori who has the dream of producing anime; Tsubame, an amateur model who wants to draw; and Sayaka who is best described as someone who is very blunt and driven by realism and financial ideas, but joins Midori regardless. Three different people but each share the goal of getting their anime made.
While the anime is very good and I highly recommend it, there’s only one season but the manga was licensed in English by Dark Horse Comics and a live-action film was also produced by director Tsutomu Hanabusa who adapted both Grand Blue Dreaming and Kakegurui. The anime also did very well with awards and is considered one of the best shows of that year, which I suppose wasn’t a hard one to decide given the rest of the simulcast seasons that year would eventually be impacted by the global pandemic. At least the show remained memorable to me especially as I watched the first few episodes at my University’s anime society club.
Crunchyroll acquired the license for Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! during simulcast and despite the show’s popularity it didn’t receive any simuldubs at the time. In May 2021, Crunchyroll announced they provided a select number of anime to Sentai Filmworks for home video which included the series to which Sentai Studios produced an English dub of their own. Anime Limited later in MCM London Comic Con October 2024 announced they acquired the UK & Ireland home video rights from Crunchyroll.
Collector’s Edition Contents:
Anime Limited are big fans of Masaaki Yuasa and considering they took this long to license and release Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, they also got pretty lucky because Sentai Filmworks released their premium edition that included a bunch of physical goodies. Recent sets that Sentai have released which Anime Limited have UK rights for, they were able to bring the main assets over here and for this collector’s edition, it’s pretty much got a majority of that brought over here.
The collector’s edition release is presented with a thick cardboard “shoebox-style” box that according to the distributor is based on the original Japanese Blu-ray box set, a Scanavo case housing the discs, a 60-page production book, 132-page Episode 1 and opening theme storyboard book, 2 double-sided A3 posters, 4 art cards and a replica milk bottle. The production booklet includes character designs, episode designs, and an interview with director Masaaki Yuasa.
The rigid box artwork is free of any information or BBFC content and the info sheet covers the information and specification like previous Anime Limited releases. The collector’s edition Blu-ray has an unspecified number of units printed (but is expected to be the usual 1000 run) for an SRP of £119.99 (the US version was $179.98 for comparison). Also available on the same day is a standard edition.
I pre-ordered the series on its own during Anime Limited’s early bird offer last August for £89.99 (£81 with the 10% off Anime Unlimited discount) plus free postage since the other title brought the total cost above the free shipping threshold.
Physical Contents:
- Rigid “Shoebox-Style” Box with clean artwork
- Scanavo case packaging
- Info sheet for specification and BBFC description
- 60-page Production Book
- 132-page Episode 1 & Opening Theme Storyboard Book
- 2 Double-sided A3 Posters
- 4 Double-sided Art Cards
- Replica Milk Bottle
On-Disc Contents:
Distributor: Anime Limited
Released: 15th December 2025
The collector’s edition Blu-ray release for Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! contains all 12 episodes across two Blu-ray discs, with the encode and authoring done by Sentai Filmworks via their July 2023 release.
The set include both the original Japanese audio with English subtitles and the Sentai Studios English dub.
The yellow subtitles are locked during playback, and the Blu-ray discs are region compatible with players set to A & B.
Blu-ray Specs:
| Languages | Japanese, English |
| Audio | Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 |
| Video | 1080p High Definition Native format 16:9 aspect ratio |
| Region | A B |
| Subtitles | English |
| Locked Subtitles | Yes |
| Discs | 2 BD-50s |
Blu-ray On-Disc Extra Features:
Disc 2:
- Clean Opening Animation “Easy Breezy”
- Clean Closing Animation “Namae no Nai Ao (A Nameless Blue)”
- Process Movies (06:33 runtime)
- Best of Eizouken (13:16 runtime)
- Disc Credits
Unboxing Photos:
Final Notes:
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! is available to purchase on Blu-ray by Anime Limited in the UK & Ireland.
The collector’s edition Blu-ray is available exclusively through AllTheAnime Store.
The standard edition Blu-ray is available across different retailers including AllTheAnime Store, Amazon UK, and Anime-on-Line.
(Disclaimer: Amazon links are also included when available. They are affiliated so if you decide to order them, I’ll earn a small percentage if they ship which will help me with any hauls or small bills.)
The Normanic Vault 
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