Snack mascots becoming anime characters sounds ridiculous for about two seconds. Then it starts to feel completely natural. Japanese advertising has always been good at giving small products a world of their own, and Lotte’s Pie no Mi is exactly the kind of long-running snack that can support a strange little forest fantasy.
Lotte Chocolate partnered with animation studio Shin-Ei on a new web anime series titled Pie no Mi: Oshi no Mori he Yokoso, or Pie no Mi: Welcome to Oshi Forest. Anime News Network reported that the series was scheduled to debut on the Lotte Chocolate YouTube channel on June 4, 2026 at 12:00 a.m. Japan Time.
A Snack With Its Own Forest
Pie no Mi is Lotte’s bite-sized chocolate pie snack, a small puff pastry-style treat filled with chocolate. The anime turns that familiar snack identity into a character world, adapting the same-name four-panel manga into a forest setting built around the product’s mascot-like appeal.
The premise sounds playful rather than polished into seriousness, which is the right instinct. A snack anime does not need to pretend it is not advertising. It needs a small idea, a bright shape, and enough character energy to make people want to watch for a few minutes. Oshi no Mori appears to understand that scale.
The official setup includes the teaser-like question, “Can Roxy and Pile spread Pie no Mi throughout the forest?” That gives the project a simple quest shape without overcomplicating the joke. The whole thing seems designed for web viewing: short, direct, and easy to share.
Shin-Ei Gives The Project Anime Weight
The most notable production detail is Shin-Ei. The studio is strongly associated with long-running family and comedy animation, including Crayon Shin-chan. Bringing Shin-Ei into a branded snack anime gives the project a sturdier animation pedigree than people might expect from a product campaign.
Anime News Network lists Yumiko Kobayashi and Rie Hikisaka among the voice cast. Kobayashi is known for Shinnosuke Nohara in Crayon Shin-chan, while Hikisaka voiced Hana Nono, also known as Cure Yell, in Hugtto! PreCure. The same report lists additional cast members and credits Kazunori Minagawa and Miki Minagawa as directors, with scripts by Yuko Kakihara and Azusa Serikawa.
Those details give the project more weight than a static mascot campaign. This is a voiced web anime with named animation staff and recognizable performers, even if the central joke is still proudly snack-sized.
Why This Kind Of Campaign Works
Food brands often chase anime because anime gives products emotional texture. A box of sweets can become a memory, a character, a joke, or a little ritual. With Pie no Mi, the product already has a cute, compact form. Turning it into an animated world is less of a stretch than it might sound.
The campaign also shows how flexible web anime has become. A YouTube release does not need to carry the expectations of a TV season. It can exist as a branded short series, a manga adaptation, a snack promotion, and a small piece of character entertainment all at once.
For overseas fans, the appeal may be partly novelty: a Japanese chocolate snack getting its own anime from Shin-Ei is an easy headline to smile at. But it is also a useful look at how Japanese brands keep older products alive. Instead of only changing packaging or running a giveaway, Lotte is letting Pie no Mi speak, move, and live somewhere.
Where To Watch
The release location is Lotte Chocolate’s YouTube channel, where episode 1 appears under the title “The Dream of Pie no Mi Spreads!?” Viewers interested in the series should start with Lotte’s official YouTube presence and the Pie no Mi: Welcome to Oshi Forest listings linked below.
