# Hands Off: Sawaranaide Kotesashi-kun **Hands Off: Sawaranaide Kotesashi-kun** (さわらないで小手指くん, *Sawaranaide Kotesashi-kun*) is a manga series serialized on Kodansha's Magazine Pocket since May 7, 2021.[2](https://anibase.net/en/anime/ma53K/Hands-off-Sawaranaide-Kotesashi-kun) Created by Takuya Shinjō, it is a comedy, ecchi, romance, and sports series that follows Kōyō Kotesashi, a first-year high school student trained in massage by his parents, who works as the live-in manager of a girls' dormitory at a sports powerhouse school while pursuing a scholarship to medical school.[1](https://anilist.co/anime/187331/Sawaranaide-Kotesashikun) An anime adaptation produced by Studio Quad and directed by Hisashi Saitō aired twelve 12-minute episodes from October 6 to December 22, 2025, on [Tokyo MX](https://www.edgepedia.org/tokyo-mx) and BS11.[1](https://anilist.co/anime/187331/Sawaranaide-Kotesashikun) | Key fact | Detail | |---|---| | Original title | さわらないで小手指くん (*Sawaranaide Kotesashi-kun*)[1](https://anilist.co/anime/187331/Sawaranaide-Kotesashikun) | | Manga run | Serialized on Kodansha's Magazine Pocket since May 7, 2021; published under the KC Deluxe label[2](https://anibase.net/en/anime/ma53K/Hands-off-Sawaranaide-Kotesashi-kun) | | Anime | Studio Quad, directed by Hisashi Saitō; 12 episodes of 12 minutes each, aired October 6 to December 22, 2025 on Tokyo MX and BS11[1](https://anilist.co/anime/187331/Sawaranaide-Kotesashikun) | | Genres | Comedy, ecchi, romance, sports[1](https://anilist.co/anime/187331/Sawaranaide-Kotesashikun) | | Uncensored version | Produced under WWWave's Deregula label; the full uncut version streams on AnimeFesta, with an uncensored option on OceanVeil[3](https://us.oricon-group.com/news/6417/) | | Main cast | Rikuya Yasuda (Kōyō Kotesashi), Hina Suguta (Aroma Kusunoki), Yū Serizawa (Aoba Kitahara), Ruriko Aoki (Miyuki Hongō)[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt37431541/) | ## Premise Kōyō Kotesashi is a first-year high school student with exceptional massage skills, learned from his parents, who aspires to become a sports doctor. Coming from a family without money, he enrolls at Seiwa University Affiliated High School, a school known for athletic clubs that routinely compete for national championships, and takes a live-in job as manager of the girls' Momiji Dormitory to pay his tuition.[2](https://anibase.net/en/anime/ma53K/Hands-off-Sawaranaide-Kotesashi-kun) The series combines this sports-care premise with romantic comedy and ecchi content. Kōyō holds no medical qualification, so his practice relies on non-medical techniques such as massage, stretching, and acupressure, applied with detailed knowledge of anatomy; the recurring gag is that his massages produce intense, overwhelming sensations in the recipients while he remains strictly professional.[2](https://anibase.net/en/anime/ma53K/Hands-off-Sawaranaide-Kotesashi-kun) ## Characters The principal antagonist is Vice Principal Shiraoka, voiced by Ai Yamamoto, who is convinced that Kōyō is using massage as a pretext to exploit the girls and schemes, including using her own body as bait, to have him expelled.[2](https://anibase.net/en/anime/ma53K/Hands-off-Sawaranaide-Kotesashi-kun) ## Manga Takuya Shinjō began the series in Kodansha's Magazine Pocket on May 7, 2021, and it is his first serialized original work.[2](https://anibase.net/en/anime/ma53K/Hands-off-Sawaranaide-Kotesashi-kun) In an interview with the Magazine Pocket editorial site, Shinjō said the massage theme came from his editor's suggestion to build a romantic comedy around useful body-care knowledge that readers rarely encounter, and that the technique "shoulder-blade peeling" (肩甲骨はがし) became a signature move of the series.[5](https://pocket.shonenmagazine.com/article/entry/kotesashikun_20211008) He also cited his own recovery from an anterior cruciate ligament injury, whose rehabilitation massages were painful, as a reason he chose to depict massage as pleasurable in the story.[5](https://pocket.shonenmagazine.com/article/entry/kotesashikun_20211008) Volume counts differ across sources and dates: twelve volumes were in print as of July 2025,[2](https://anibase.net/en/anime/ma53K/Hands-off-Sawaranaide-Kotesashi-kun) fourteen as of December 2025, and seventeen as of September 2026. ## Anime The television adaptation was announced on March 4, 2025, produced under WWWave Corporation's Deregula anime label. The series ran as a short-format program of twelve 12-minute episodes from October 6 to December 22, 2025, on Tokyo MX and BS11.[1](https://anilist.co/anime/187331/Sawaranaide-Kotesashikun) The first two episodes received an early screening at United Cinemas Aqua City Odaiba in Tokyo on September 28, 2025, before the regular broadcast.[6](https://simkl.com/anime/2731108/sawaranaide-kotesashi-kun/reviews/) ## Reception Aggregated viewer scores sit in the middling range: IMDb lists 5.8/10 from several hundred votes,[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt37431541/) and AniList reports a mean score of 58%.[1](https://anilist.co/anime/187331/Sawaranaide-Kotesashikun) Reviewers generally treated it as an ecchi comedy rather than a sports anime. A review at DoubleSama scored it 6/10, arguing that the 12-minute episode format suits ecchi series but that this show's structure undercuts it: each girl's two-episode mini arc places the setup and the massage (and the ecchi content) in separate episodes, so roughly half the episodes contain little or no ecchi content.[7](https://doublesama.com/hands-off-sawaranaide-kotesashi-kun/) A Polish review at Popkulturowy Kociołek, also 6/10, praised the humor and the genuine anatomical and sports-care information woven between the gags, while faulting the unremarkable animation style and very short episodes.[8](https://popkulturowykociolek.pl/hands-off-sawaranaide-kotesashi-kun-recenzja-anime/) The season ends by setting up a beach arc led by the school's vice president, which had not been confirmed for adaptation as of the reviews cited here.[7](https://doublesama.com/hands-off-sawaranaide-kotesashi-kun/) ## References 1. [Sawaranaide Kotesashi-kun, AniList](https://anilist.co/anime/187331/Sawaranaide-Kotesashikun) 2. [Hands off: Sawaranaide Kotesashi-kun!, Anibase.Net](https://anibase.net/en/anime/ma53K/Hands-off-Sawaranaide-Kotesashi-kun) 3. [Hands Off Kotesashi-kun Episode 1 Story & Preview Cuts Released, Japan Anime News (Oricon)](https://us.oricon-group.com/news/6417/) 4. [Hands Off: Sawaranaide Kotesashi-kun (TV Series 2025– ), IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt37431541/) 5. [『さわらないで小手指くん』シンジョウタクヤ先生インタビュー, マガポケベース (2021)](https://pocket.shonenmagazine.com/article/entry/kotesashikun_20211008) 6. [Sawaranaide Kotesashi-kun reviews, SIMKL](https://simkl.com/anime/2731108/sawaranaide-kotesashi-kun/reviews/) 7. [Hands Off: Sawaranaide Kotesashi-kun Review, DoubleSama (January 6, 2026)](https://doublesama.com/hands-off-sawaranaide-kotesashi-kun/) 8. [Hands Off: Sawaranaide – nietypowa terapia [Recenzja], Popkulturowy Kociołek (April 10, 2026)](https://popkulturowykociolek.pl/hands-off-sawaranaide-kotesashi-kun-recenzja-anime/) --- *Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Literature and written works › Creative written works and worlds › Graphic, illustrated, and Asian-format fiction › Graphic novels › Individual graphic novels by title* *Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026* *Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.* License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license