hololive's First TV Anime, 'Odeholo': Everything Confirmed Ahead of the September 23 Reveal

hololive is getting its first-ever television anime. That's the headline out of a livestreamed special on September 7, 2026, and it's a genuinely significant milestone for a company that built its name on virtual YouTubers rather than traditional animation — but the announcement itself was deliberately thin on detail, functioning more as a save-the-date than a full reveal. Here's everything that's actually been confirmed so far, and everything that's still an open question heading into the next update.

What was announced on September 7

The project was revealed during "hololive Next 2026.9.7," a livestreamed special jointly announced by Kadokawa Corporation and Cover Corporation, hololive's parent company, according to Anime News Network and Otakukart. The framing across both outlets is consistent and specific: this marks hololive's first-ever television anime project, a distinction from the shorter animated music videos, concert visuals, and one-off animated segments the brand has produced in the past.

That's worth sitting with for a second. hololive has spent years building out animated content in smaller doses — music videos for talent-driven songs, animated shorts, and visual segments tied to specific events — but a full television anime is a different scale of commitment entirely, one that implies a broadcast slot, a production committee, and a sustained episodic format rather than a single video drop. Kadokawa's involvement alongside Cover also signals that this isn't a small in-house side project; Kadokawa is one of the most established publishing and media conglomerates in Japan, with a long track record of anime production and licensing across its stable of properties.

The studio: Studio KAI

Animation on the project is being handled by Studio KAI, according to both Anime News Network and Anime Corner. The studio isn't a stranger to hololive's animated output — ANN and Anime Corner both note that Studio KAI previously worked on earlier animated hololive projects and music videos, giving it existing familiarity with the talents' character designs and the broader visual language Cover has built around its virtual performers.

Anime Corner additionally credits Studio KAI with prior work on Sentenced to Be a Hero, a specific production credit that ANN's own coverage didn't include. Worth flagging that distinction directly: the hololive-adjacent work is corroborated by both outlets, but the Sentenced to Be a Hero credit currently traces back to Anime Corner specifically. Having a studio already fluent in hololive's character designs take on a full TV series is a reasonable continuity choice on Cover's part, even before any footage has been shown publicly.

Tied to hololive's 10th anniversary

The project is explicitly framed as part of hololive's 10th-anniversary celebration, according to Anime News Network, Anime Corner, and Otakukart — all three outlets agree on that framing, which makes it one of the more solidly corroborated facts in this whole announcement. A first-ever television anime landing specifically inside a milestone anniversary year is a meaningful signal about how Cover is positioning the project internally: not as a routine content drop, but as one of the headline initiatives marking a decade of the brand's existence.

Anime Corner also reports, citing Cover directly, that the project has been in development for roughly five years — a figure that, notably, wasn't part of ANN's coverage of the same announcement. If that five-year timeline holds up, it would place the anime's origins well before hololive's current scale and global visibility, back when the company looked considerably different than it does heading into its 10th year. That's a striking number for a project that's only now getting its first public mention, and it underscores just how long a runway a project like this can require before Cover and Kadokawa are ready to say anything about it publicly.

The name: "Odeholo," meaning unrevealed

The working, abbreviated name attached to the project is "Odeholo." All three outlets covering the announcement — Anime News Network, Anime Corner, and Otakukart — are consistent on this point, and equally consistent on the fact that the meaning behind the name has not been revealed. It's not clear yet whether "Odeholo" is a portmanteau, an acronym, a title fragment, or something else entirely, and there's no confirmed connection between the name and any specific talent, generation, or storyline within hololive.

That ambiguity is presumably intentional. Announcing a project's existence, its first-ever TV format, and an anniversary tie-in, while withholding the actual meaning of its own name, is a fairly deliberate way to generate exactly the kind of speculation this piece is trying to sort through — and it sets up the September 23 special as the moment that ambiguity finally gets resolved.

The September 23 reveal: what to expect

A follow-up special is set for September 23, 2026, at 8:00 p.m. JST, which works out to 7:00 a.m. EDT for anyone outside Japan trying to catch it live. According to Anime News Network, Otakukart, and Anime Corner, that special is expected to disclose the anime's key visual, its story synopsis, and — finally — the meaning behind the name "Odeholo." That's a meaningfully more substantial set of reveals than the September 7 special delivered, and it suggests Cover and Kadokawa are treating the announcement as a two-stage rollout: first confirm that the project exists at all, then follow up two and a half weeks later with the details that actually let fans understand what it is.

Confirmed talents set to appear at the September 23 event include Momosuzu Nene, Omaru Polka, Yukihana Lamy, and Shishiro Botan. It's worth being precise about sourcing here: ANN's coverage lists only those four as confirmed guests, while Anime Corner and Otakukart additionally report that Shirakami Fubuki and Ookami Mio will serve as MCs for the special. Since that MC detail comes specifically from Anime Corner and Otakukart rather than being corroborated by ANN, it's presented here as reported by those two outlets rather than as a three-way confirmed fact.

The presence of four hololive talents as guests, on top of two additional MCs, is itself a small but useful data point. It suggests the September 23 special is being built as a proper event with its own hosted structure, rather than a quiet text-and-image reveal — consistent with how Cover has typically handled major announcements involving multiple talents in the past.

Additional details, sourced to Anime Corner alone

A handful of further details come from Anime Corner's coverage specifically, and haven't been corroborated by ANN or Otakukart, so they're worth flagging with an extra degree of caution rather than treating as settled fact alongside everything above.

Anime Corner reports that a new hololive talent unit, given the name "ASOBI★Mawaritai!," is set to debut at the same September 23 event — reportedly the first new unit hololive has introduced in roughly two years, according to that outlet. Whether that unit has any direct connection to the Odeholo anime itself, or is simply being unveiled at the same event for scheduling convenience, isn't something Anime Corner's reporting clarifies either way.

Anime Corner also notes the existence of an official anime account on X (formerly Twitter), handled as @odeholo, and reports that a related hololive smartphone game already launched earlier in 2026. Neither of those two details appears in ANN's or Otakukart's coverage of the announcement, so treat them as reported, but singly sourced, rather than broadly confirmed across outlets.

What's still unconfirmed

This is the section worth reading carefully before drawing any conclusions about what Odeholo actually is. As of this writing, there is no official title beyond the working abbreviation "Odeholo" itself — no story or plot synopsis has been disclosed, and no full cast list exists. It's genuinely unclear at this stage whether the anime will center on a specific set of talents, an entire hololive generation, or function as a broader ensemble project spanning the company's roster; nothing in the current reporting settles that question either way.

Also unconfirmed: a premiere date, an episode count, the anime's format (whether it's a traditional television series, a shorter season, or something else entirely), its genre, and which platform or platforms will handle streaming, domestically or internationally. Every one of those specifics is explicitly pending the September 23 special, and any claim asserting a firm answer on any of them ahead of that date should be treated with real skepticism.

Why this matters for hololive as a brand

It's worth stepping back to consider what a first television anime actually represents for a company like Cover. hololive built its identity around live streaming, music, and short-form animated content tied to individual talents — a format built for rapid, talent-driven content cycles rather than the longer, more centrally planned production timeline a TV anime requires. Committing to a full television series, reportedly after roughly five years of development according to Anime Corner's sourcing on Cover's own comments, represents a substantial bet on animation as a format the brand can sustain at a larger scale, and doing it specifically inside the 10th-anniversary window signals how much weight Cover and Kadokawa are placing on the project as a statement piece rather than a minor side release.

It's also a notable step for Kadokawa's broader anime portfolio. Partnering directly with Cover on hololive's first TV anime places a VTuber-originated franchise inside the same production and publishing pipeline Kadokawa uses for its more traditional anime properties — a sign that the line between VTuber content and mainstream anime production is continuing to blur, at least from a corporate structuring standpoint.

Bottom line

hololive's first television anime is real, officially confirmed by both Kadokawa and Cover, tied to the brand's 10th anniversary, animated by Studio KAI, and currently going by the working name "Odeholo" — though what that name actually means remains unrevealed. The September 23, 2026 special at 8:00 p.m. JST is the date that matters next: that's when the key visual, story synopsis, and the meaning behind "Odeholo" are all expected to be disclosed, with Momosuzu Nene, Omaru Polka, Yukihana Lamy, and Shishiro Botan confirmed to appear, alongside Shirakami Fubuki and Ookami Mio reportedly serving as MCs. Everything else — title, cast, format, premiere date, and platform — stays an open question until then.