HIDIVE has announced that it will exclusively stream the upcoming The World Is Dancing historical period TV anime series as part of its Summer 2026 simulcast schedule. The anime is scheduled to begin broadcasting in Japan on July 2, 2026.
The anime adaptation will debut early on HIDIVE, starting on June 29, 2026, in the U.S. and Canada, as well as Australia and New Zealand. The company also released an English subtitled trailer of the series.
HIDIVE will also host the world premiere of the second episode of The World Is Dancing at Anime Expo 2026 on July 2, 2026. It will take place in Room 403AB at the Los Angeles Convention Center from 6:45 PM to 7:35 PM PST.
Toshimasa Kuroyanagi (Backflip!!, The Great Passage) is directing the anime series, with Keigo Sasaki (Umamusume: Cinderella Gray co-character designer, The Millionaire Detective Balance: Unlimited) as character designer, Sawako Kawamitsu (Tonari no Stella live-action movie scriptwriter) as series composer and scriptwriter, Shuhei Fuchimoto as assistant director, and Daisuke Shinoda (Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online Season 2 co-composer) as music composer. CyPic (formerly known as CygamesPictures) is in charge of the animation production.
Other staff include Iori Hisatake as sub-character designer, Hiromasa Ogura (Backflip!! The Movie) and Kazuhiro Inoue (Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf) as background art directors, Naoko Sato and Kumiko Naruke (ChaO) as color designers, Yutaro Kikuchi (Sasaki and Peeps) as composting director, Yukio Nagasaki (Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War) as sound director, Daisuke Shinoda (Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online Season 2 co-composer) as music composer, Kohei Kawaguchi as Nohgaku supervisor, Kaiji Moriyama and Mimiko Kawamura as choreographers, Katsuyuki Shimizu as historical supervisor, and Kan Mizoguchi (Umamusume: Pretty Derby Road to the Top, Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Beginning of a New Era) as animation producer.
Meanwhile, the anime’s main voice cast stars:
- • Yumiri Hanamori as Oniyasha
- • Simba Tsuchiya as Ishiya
- • Maaya Uchida as Kogane
- • Romi Park as Zojiro
- • Katsuyuki Konishi as Kan’ami
- • Haruki Ishiya as Junigoro
The historical manga series by Kazuto Mihara was serialized in Kodansha’s Morning seinen magazine on March 25, 2021 and released a total of six tankobon volumes in Japan.
Kodansha USA licensed The World Is Dancing manga series for digital English release, describing the main synopsis as:
Born into a life of acting and dance with a traveling theater troupe in 14th-century Japan, 12-year old Oniyasha has one problem-he doesn’t know what the point of any of it is. Why must I step with the left foot here instead of the right? Why is one performance good and another, bad? Why do people dance at all? It all seems perfectly arbitrary, until a chance encounter in a run-down shack sets him down a path to revolutionizing the art form and influencing much of Japanese culture to come.
A fictionalized account of the early life of Zeami Motokiyo (Oniyasha), the founder of modern Noh theater-the world’s oldest surviving theater art-this coming-of-age artist’s journey vividly brings to life a man far ahead of his time during one of Japan’s most culturally and socially vibrant eras.
Source: press release