General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Rilakkuma and Kaoru (リラックマとカオルさん)

Rilakkuma and Kaoru (リラックマとカオルさん) is a Japanese stop-motion animated series that premiered as a Netflix original on April 19, 2019, following an office worker named Kaoru who shares her apartment with three toy-like animals, chief among them the lazy bear Rilakkuma¹^•². It was the first animated series featuring Rilakkuma, a character that the stationery company San-X introduced in 2003³^•⁴.

Key fact	Detail
Format	Stop-motion animation, 13 episodes of roughly 12 minutes each²^•⁵
Premiere	April 19, 2019, as a Netflix original in 190 countries²^•³
Key staff	Director Masahito Kobayashi; writer Naoko Ogigami; studio dwarf; creative advisor Aki Kondo; production rights San-X¹
Main cast	Kaoru voiced by Mikako Tabe; cast also includes Takayuki Yamada⁶
Music	Main theme "SAMPO" performed by Quruli, with music producer Shigeru Kishida¹
Recognition	Director Kobayashi nominated for the 2020 Annie Award for Best Direction in the TV/Media category; IMDb rating 8.2/10 from about 2,100 users⁷^•⁸
Follow-up	Rilakkuma's Theme Park Adventure, a second Netflix series, began exclusive worldwide streaming on August 25, 2022⁹

Spoilers

Premise and characters

Kaoru is an ordinary office worker at a small trading company in Tokyo whose life changes when Rilakkuma, a soft bear with a zipper on its back, takes up residence in her apartment unannounced¹^•¹⁰. Rilakkuma spends its days eating, napping, and doing nothing in particular, yet proves impossible to dislike⁶. The household also includes Korilakkuma, a smaller, mischief-loving white bear, and Kiiroitori, a yellow bird who keeps busy cleaning up after the two bears³. The name Rilakkuma combines "relax" with kuma, the Japanese word for bear¹¹.

The animals do not speak words, and the series centers as much on Kaoru as on them. She copes with self-doubt, worry about money after a reduced winter bonus, feeling undervalued at work, and loneliness; caring for her unusual roommates helps her through these small trials¹²^•¹³. Episodes mix mundane situations with surreal touches, including mushrooms sprouting in the apartment during the rainy season and a ghost who appears to tell her story⁵^•¹².

Production

Netflix announced the project in October 2017 as the first stop-motion animated series for the character, with dwarf, the studio behind NHK's Domo and Komaneko, producing 13 episodes³. Production began in 2017 with seven months of filming, during which a single animator could produce up to 10 seconds of finished footage per day¹⁴. The team set up 10 separate stages and filmed on them simultaneously, aiming for 10 seconds of footage a day from each team; director Kobayashi described it as a larger production scale than he had ever experienced⁴^•². The 10-stage, 10-team setup was a first for both dwarf and Japanese stop-motion animation, and the production also introduced a motion-control camera¹⁵.

Design choices. Writer Naoko Ogigami, the filmmaker known for Kamome Shokudo and Close-Knit, wrote the screenplay, and Rilakkuma's creator Aki Kondo participated as creative advisor¹^•³. Kobayashi built the fictional city of Ogigaya, a mash-up of Tokyo's Ogikubo and Asagaya neighborhoods, as the setting, and wanted the design to show the tension between everyday life and an office town rather than only smiles and happiness⁴. Kaoru herself had previously existed only as the unnamed "woman living with Rilakkuma" in books and merchandise; this series gave her a visual design and a leading role in the narrative for the first time, with Kobayashi drawing on complaints his largely female staff shared about daily life¹⁶^•⁴.

Reception

Critics received the series steadily well, with particular praise for its animation and mood⁶. Reviewers highlighted the craftsmanship of the miniature sets, so detailed that viewers notice the ruffles on Kaoru's dress and the wood paneling of her dresser, and the honesty with which the show depicts adult struggles alongside the roommates' wholesome adventures¹³. Common Sense Media rates it for ages 10 and up, noting that it is geared toward teens and adults because it focuses on the experiences and sometimes complex emotions of a woman in her twenties and thirties, with little objectionable content¹². On IMDb the series holds a weighted rating of 8.2/10 from about 2,100 users, with individual episodes ranging from 7.5 to 8.8⁸.

The series also found an audience among Japanese learners, since its short episodes, simple everyday language, and Netflix subtitles in Japanese and English make it usable in bite-sized study sessions⁵.

Legacy

The show's success led to a second Rilakkuma series. Rilakkuma's Theme Park Adventure, again produced by dwarf for Netflix, began exclusive worldwide streaming on August 25, 2022, with Mikako Tabe and Takayuki Yamada returning and Reina Ueda joining as a new character⁹. Netflix and dwarf deliberately aimed that follow-up at a broader, family audience rather than continuing Kaoru's story, after the first series had resonated strongly with adult women in Asia¹⁷.

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Anime and manga › Anime series, episodes, and franchises › OVAs, ONAs, and streaming-original anime

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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