Even the Student Council Has Its Holes Anime Casts Yumi Uchiyama as Satomi Hiratsuka: Release Date, Studio Passione Updates, and Manga Adaptation News
There is a very specific kind of anime comedy that works because absolutely nobody in the cast behaves like a normal human being. Even the Student Council Has Its Holes! looks like it is aiming squarely at that territory, and honestly, I am here for it. The upcoming TV adaptation of Muchimaro’s manga has just added another major name to its cast, with veteran voice actress Yumi Uchiyama taking on the role of Satomi Hiratsuka, the faculty adviser who may be even less responsible than the students she is supposed to supervise.
The announcement arrives with a new character trailer and visual as the anime prepares for its October 2026 premiere. Studio Passione has been gradually introducing the members of the student council through individual promotional videos, and Satomi becomes the sixth character to get the spotlight. After watching what the series is building toward, I have a feeling she could become one of those supporting characters who quietly steals every scene she appears in.
Satomi Hiratsuka Might Be the Funniest Adult in the Room
Satomi Hiratsuka is technically the responsible adult in this situation. She is Mizunoe Ume’s homeroom teacher and the official adviser to the student council at Fujinari Academy, which sounds like a position that should involve some degree of authority and common sense. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Satomi has a rather impressive talent for abandoning both the moment she is away from school.
That contrast is exactly what makes her appealing. At school, she can at least pretend to be a functioning teacher. Outside the classroom, her aggressively lazy lifestyle becomes part of the joke, creating a hilarious mismatch between the image of a respectable educator and the person she actually is when nobody is watching. In a series already packed with strange personalities, giving the students an equally ridiculous adult supervisor feels like the right decision.
And this is where I think Yumi Uchiyama is an especially interesting choice. She has the range to make Satomi funny without turning her into a one-note gag character. If the performance gets the balance right, Satomi could feel like an actual person who happens to make spectacularly questionable decisions, rather than simply another character designed to deliver punchlines.
Yumi Uchiyama Joins a Surprisingly Strong Cast
Uchiyama’s casting gives the series another recognizable voice, and longtime anime viewers will immediately understand why her involvement is exciting. She has played characters across comedy, fantasy, drama, and more emotionally demanding roles, making her a useful addition to an ensemble that depends heavily on personality clashes.
Her previous credits include Rudeus Greyrat in Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation, Puck in Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World-, and Eren in Eren the Southpaw. That is a pretty broad range, and it is precisely the kind of experience that can help an eccentric adult character land properly.
She is also joining a cast that was already looking pretty stacked. The main student council lineup currently includes:
- Shogo Sakata as Ume Mizunoe, the supposedly normal protagonist who quickly discovers that normality is not an option anymore.
- Haruka Shiraishi as Hisako Kotobuki, the talented student council president who appears almost perfect until her own personality starts showing through.
- Miyu Tomita as Komaro Michinoku, whose chaotic personality is basically a walking invitation for trouble.
- Hiyori Kono as Tan Otori, the eccentric vice president responsible for plenty of the council’s unpredictable energy.
- Shizuka Ishigami as Arisu Terui, the treasurer who brings another strange flavor to an already dysfunctional group.
What I like about this lineup is that the comedy does not appear to depend on one character carrying the entire show. Ume is surrounded by people who can generate their own problems, which gives the anime plenty of opportunities for different character combinations and running jokes.
Passione Is a Very Deliberate Choice for This Manga
The studio behind the adaptation is Passione, and that immediately tells you something about the direction this anime is likely to take. Passione has plenty of experience with series that mix comedy, exaggerated expressions, slice-of-life situations, and more suggestive material. That makes the studio a natural fit for a manga whose humor frequently depends on characters being ridiculous, awkward, and occasionally shameless.
There is another reason fans are paying attention. Passione previously produced an animated promotional video for the manga in 2024, and that project helped demonstrate how well Muchimaro’s exaggerated character designs could translate into animation. The TV adaptation is bringing back members of that creative team, which is probably the smartest decision the production could have made.
| Role | Staff |
|---|---|
| Director | Naoyuki Tatsuwa |
| Series Composition | Masahiro Yokotani |
| Character Design | Ryo Imamura |
| Animation Studio | Passione |
Naoyuki Tatsuwa is directing the series, while Masahiro Yokotani handles series composition. Yokotani’s recent work includes Makeine: Too Many Losing Heroines!, which gives me some confidence that the adaptation will understand how important timing is in a comedy like this. Meanwhile, character designer Ryo Imamura previously worked with Tatsuwa on the manga’s animated promotional material, so there is already some visual continuity between the old teaser and the upcoming TV series.
The Manga Has Been Building This Cast Since 2022
Even the Student Council Has Its Holes! began as Muchimaro’s four-panel comedy manga and has been serialized in Kodansha’s Weekly Shonen Magazine since April 2022. The appeal is fairly simple on paper: Ume joins the student council because he wants to avoid repeating a school year, only to discover that the people running the organization are considerably stranger than he expected.
That setup gives the manga a lot of room to bounce between everyday school comedy and completely absurd character interactions. Nobody is particularly interested in behaving normally, and that is the point. The characters can be perverted, overly serious, airheaded, competitive, or just plain weird, but the series works best when those flaws make them feel like an actual group rather than a collection of isolated jokes.
The manga has also received an official English release through Seven Seas Entertainment, helping the series build a wider audience outside Japan. For international fans discovering the story through the anime, that existing English publication should make it easier to explore the source material while waiting for new episodes.
What Could Make the October 2026 Anime Work?
The biggest question for me is pacing. Four-panel comedy can be deceptively difficult to adapt because a manga panel lets the reader control the timing, while an anime has to decide exactly when a pause, reaction, or punchline happens. If Passione and Yokotani nail that rhythm, the anime could be extremely entertaining. If they rush through the jokes, though, some of the charm could disappear.
Thankfully, the staff lineup suggests that the production understands the material rather than treating it as a generic school comedy. The returning creative team from the 2024 promotional animation is particularly encouraging. The original animated material already showed that the characters could work surprisingly well in motion, so seeing that visual approach expanded into a full television series is one of the things I am most curious about.
There is also the simple fact that the cast has enough personality to carry a seasonal comedy. Ume being the closest thing the audience has to a normal person is a classic setup, but it works when the surrounding characters are genuinely entertaining. Add Satomi into that equation, and suddenly the adults are just as unreliable as the students.
Even the Student Council Has Its Holes! Could Be a Sleeper Hit
Even the Student Council Has Its Holes! premieres in October 2026, and the latest casting announcement gives the anime another reason to stay on the radar during the Fall 2026 season. The combination of Passione, a proven comedy writer, returning members of the promotional video’s creative team, and a talented voice cast makes this one of those adaptations that could end up being far more fun than its premise initially suggests.
I am especially interested in seeing what Yumi Uchiyama does with Satomi. A lazy teacher supervising a student council full of dysfunctional teenagers sounds like the kind of setup where the adult should be the one keeping everyone under control. Instead, I suspect Satomi is going to make everything considerably worse, and that is exactly why I want to see it.
More character trailers and a full promotional video should arrive as the October broadcast gets closer, along with information about the opening and ending themes. For now, though, the message from the production is pretty clear: this student council is not getting any adult supervision that can actually be trusted. Honestly, that might be the best possible news for a comedy like this.
