The original television series Grow Up Show has entered a new story arc as the Sunflower Circus finally turns toward the Circus Collection, the elite global festival that has hung over every dusty tour stop since the show began. Official materials released with the chapter include a new trailer and a new visual that recast circus prodigy Mizuka Tsurumaki as the face of that climb. The Collection Arc begins with episode 10, Beyond the Stage of Dreams, which started airing in Japan on the night of September 5, 2026.
The new trailer presents the chapter as an inheritance of ringmaster Maria’s unfinished wish, with the cash-strapped Sunflower Circus accepting a special berth in the Circus Collection Japan Tournament so it can chase prize money for her medical treatment. In the preview, Mizuka vows to become Japan’s representative and win the world championship, while other members swear they will protect what matters most to Maria even if the work grinds their bodies down. Training montages and a harder competitive scale sit beside that pledge, signaling that provincial fairgrounds are no longer the troupe’s ceiling.
The new visual shows Mizuka as acting ringmaster of the Sunflower Circus, arms crossed in a brown top hat, a red sailor dress, and a mustard-yellow coat with gold epaulettes against a cream field of yellow stars.
Grow Up Show is directed by Kenta Kamei at animation studios A-1 Pictures and Psyde Kick Studio, with Satsuki Takahashi serving as assistant director. Takeshi Kikuchi handles series composition and the scripts, while Kurehito Misaki created the original character designs and Kazutoshi Makino oversees character designs plus chief animation direction. Yugo Kanno composes the music that now follows the company from roadside tents toward the Collection stage.
What is Grow Up Show about?
Here's Crunchyroll's description of Grow Up Show:
Step right up to 1950s Japan! The postwar economy is booming, but the Sunflower Circus is not. Led by ringmaster Maria, the cash-strapped troupe tours the country in desperate competition for a spot in the Circus Collection–an elite global festival. When circus prodigy Mizuka Tsurumaki joins their ranks, the Sunflower Circus’s fortune shifts, finally giving them a shot at big top glory.
The Collection Arc treats that festival as an immediate battlefield rather than a poster on a dressing-room wall. After Maria is hospitalized, she names Mizuka acting ringmaster and sends her to the Japan Tournament drawing, where the Sunflower Circus collides with its sharpest rival, the Blue Rose Circus, and its leader Nanami Sumeragi. The members have already sworn to take the world title so the prize can cover Maria’s treatment, which means the new chapter is both a competition run and a rescue mission stitched into sequins, sawdust, and a borrowed hat.
Grow Up Show streams on Crunchyroll, which has carried the original series since its July 4, 2026 premiere and will keep delivering the Collection Arc as each new episode arrives. Episode 10 does not ask whether a sunflower-yellow tent is allowed to dream of the world stage; it asks whether Mizuka can hold Maria’s whip, coat, and unfinished promise long enough to turn that dream into a finished act.
