Multimedia project streams ILLGATOR’s music video, 4th season’s story trailer

The official X/Twitter account for the Paradox Live franchise revealed on Tuesday a new team ILLGATOR for its multimedia project. The franchise‘s official YouTube channel began streaming a music video for the group’s first song “Daru.” (Lazy).

The channel also began streaming the franchise‘s “4th Season” story arc trailer, which had its kickoff launch event on Tuesday. The video previews the story as well as teases ILLGATOR:

The members of ILLGATOR are (pictured above from left to right):

The team will have a live performance at the”Animate Girls Festival 2026″ at Sunshine City in Ikebukuro on November 7.

The Paradox Live The Animation series will have an upcoming film project.

Studio GRAPH77 (Tatsuki Fujimoto 17-26‘s “Shikaku”) is producing the film project. Nine teams with 29 characters will appear, including the characters who appeared in the previous television series as well as new characters. (The project’s teaser showed images of members of Visty, Amprule, 1Nm8, and GokuLuck who did not appear in the television series.)

The franchise‘s third stage production run will open with Paradox Live on Stage -Road to Legend- “RAGE” on October 2-11 at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel’s Stellar Ball venue in Tokyo, followed by Paradox Live on Stage -Road to Legend- “FATE” on February 19-28, 2027 in the same venue. Visty, Amprule, 1Nm8, and GokuLuck will also make their stage debut in this run.

Avex and GCREST‘s hip-hop-themed multimedia franchise launched in November 2019. The story is set in the near future, when rappers wear accessories that contain a metallic substance called Phantom Metal. Through the Phantom Metal’s chemical reaction with the rappers’ own DNA, the rapper can create illusions linked to their emotions during their performance. The result is a new type of spectacular concert.

The television anime premiered on the Tokyo MX channel in October 2023. Crunchyroll streamed the anime as it aired in Japan.

The franchise also includes CDs, merchandise, and concert events.

Sources: Paradox Live franchise‘s X/Twitter account, Comic Natalie

Anime debuts in Japan on Saturday

Aniplex USA started streaming the English-subtitled main trailer for the television anime of Muchimaro‘s Even the Student Council Has Its Holes! (Seitokai ni mo Ana wa Aru!) four-panel manga on Tuesday, and revealed that the anime will stream on OceanVeil on Saturday.

The anime will debut on Saturday and will air on Tokyo MX, BS11, Gunma TV, and Tochigi TV. d Anime Store and AnimeFesta will stream the anime both in its “on air” version and its “unrestricted” version in Japan starting on Saturday.

The series stars:

Naoyuki Tatsuwa (Ōmuro-ke, Gourmet Girl Graffiti, Nisekoi – False Love, Promise of Wizard) is directing the anime at Passione, Ryo Imamura (ONIMAI: I’m Now Your Sister!) is designing the characters and is the chief animation director, and Masahiro Yokotani (Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines!, Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, Beelzebub, The Devil Is a Part-Timer!) is overseeing and writing the series scripts.

Other staff members include:

Sangatsu no Phantasia performs the opening theme song “Kaze no Naka wa Hashirukkya Inai,” and Akari Nanawo performs the ending theme song “Pi.”

Seven Seas publishes the manga in English and describes the story:

In a student council filled with weirdos, one new member is about to have a hell of a school year! Mizunoe Ume just wanted to avoid repeating a grade when he joined the student council. After all, it seemed like an easy fix to his current academic problems. But then, he met his fellow council members. Each of them is eccentric in their own way—one’s an airhead, another’s scary, one’s secretly a pervert, but all in all, they’re just really weird! Yet somehow, they’re also oddly cute and endearing. Which means Mizunoe is stuck with them and all the chaos they bring to the table. Get ready for a slice-of-life manga that’s irresistibly charming, quirky, and a little bit naughty!

Muchimaro launched the manga in Kodansha‘s Weekly Shōnen Magazine in 2022. Kodansha shipped the 13th compiled book volume on August 17. Seven Seas shipped the first volume on September 8, and will ship the second volume on December 8. K MANGA also publishes the series in English digitally.

The manga received an animated ad in July 2024. The manga won in the print category of the ninth Next Manga Awards (Tsugi ni Kuru Manga Taishō) in 2023.

Source: Aniplex USA‘s YouTube channel

The Korean Culture Center Los Angeles, in partnership with the Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA), is hosting the 2026 K-Comics Origin Los Angeles – Korean Webtoon Experience Exhibition from September 11 through October 17. The exhibition explores the 100-year history of Korean comics, the evolution of webtoons as a distinct format, and their growing role as a source of IP for Korean content.

The exhibition focuses on three internationally popular Korean webtoons: All of Us Are Dead, Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, and Solo Leveling. Visitors can encounter characters and scenes from the works in person and explore their worlds through interactive kiosks. The exhibition also showcases examples of webtoon IP being adapted into dramas, animation, and games, offering a look at how a single story can expand across different media and genres.

Webtoons are rarely presented as a formal exhibition rather than a pop-up event. With three of the most widely recognized Korean webtoon properties featured, including works adapted into multiple forms of media, I visited the exhibition with fairly high expectations.

Visitors first encounter a staircase leading to the second-floor exhibition space, with the Korean titles of the featured works already visible along the way. At the top is a brief introduction to the history of Korean comics, fitting the exhibition’s K-Comics Origin title, followed by displays dedicated to the three featured works.

As an experience-focused exhibition, the displays are broadly divided into two sections. One recreates locations and scenes from the webtoons as photo spots and interactive spaces, while the other takes an archival approach to showing how the original webtoons have expanded into other forms of media.

Examples include the classroom blackboard from All of Us Are Dead, the Oksu Station setting from Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, and life-size character displays from Solo Leveling.

There are also several interactive exhibits. Visitors can play a Solo Leveling game and speak Korean lines into a microphone to trigger corresponding video clips. One of the most memorable displays for me was a machine that allowed visitors to draw Solo Leveling character photo cards. As a fan of Sung Jinwoo, I tried several times until I got the character I wanted.

Although the exhibition space isn’t particularly large, it makes good use of what it has. The emphasis on participation rather than simply viewing the displays makes the experience more engaging. Given that admission is free, the exhibition also offers a lot for visitors to experience.

I saw visitors taking photos at the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint photo spot, and they appeared to be enjoying themselves. In that sense, the exhibition succeeds in both introducing the global reach of Korean webtoons and giving fans a chance to interact with the properties they already love.

There are, however, a few areas where I wanted more.

Given the title K-Comics Origin, I would have liked to see a broader selection of webtoons alongside the three major properties. As a longtime webtoon reader and one of the few journalists in North America who regularly cover the Korean webtoon industry, I was also hoping to see more displays focused specifically on what makes webtoons unique as a medium.

Instead, much of the exhibition explains webtoons’ influence through their adaptations into animation, games, and live-action series. These properties have been successfully adapted across multiple forms of media for a reason: the strength of the original webtoons themselves.

Still, the exhibition could have been even stronger with displays exploring the production process of webtoons or other elements that highlight the medium’s appeal.

The Korean Culture Center Los Angeles and KOCCA’s 2026 K-Comics Origin Los Angeles – Korean Webtoon Experience Exhibition runs from September 11 through October 17 at the Korean Culture Center’s second-floor Art Gallery.
Admission is free. The exhibition is open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekdays and from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Saturdays.