Curious Universe, the fourth major booster set in the hololive OCG trading card game lineup, arrives in 2026 with the largest card pool the series has seen yet — 108 base cards paired with a staggering 117 rarities and Secret Rares (SEC), bringing the full set count to 225 unique cards. Bushiroad, the publisher behind the franchise, has quietly built one of the more interesting chase ecosystems in the modern TCG space, and Curious Universe looks like its most ambitious swing to date.
For context: when a booster set carries more Secret Rares and premium rarities than it does base cards, the pull-rate math becomes a serious conversation. Collectors who've tracked Bushiroad's previous hololive releases know that the SEC slots in earlier sets drove secondary market premiums of 3x to 8x over box price on the hottest character pulls. Curious Universe, with 117 chase variants across a 225-card master set, is structured to replicate — and likely amplify — that dynamic.
Who's in the Set
The character roster is where Curious Universe earns its fanfare. The set is built around holomem and Oshi holomem cards, the two primary card types that drive both gameplay and collector demand in the hololive OCG ecosystem. Oshi cards, which represent the VTuber talents themselves rather than in-game characters, have historically commanded the highest secondary prices due to their direct parasocial appeal — collectors aren't just buying a card, they're buying a piece of their favorite creator's identity.
Two additions stand out immediately: Hakui Koyori and La+ Darkness, both members of Secret Society holoX, are confirmed inclusions. holoX debuted in late 2021 as one of hololive's most hyped generation launches, and both talents have cultivated substantial, loyal audiences. La+ Darkness in particular has a fanbase that skews heavily toward collectors and merchandise buyers — her prior TCG appearances have moved quickly at retail and held value on the secondary market. Koyori brings a different energy: high-volume streaming output and a recognizable design aesthetic that tends to photograph well on holographic card stock.
The broader roster spans musicians and stage performers within the hololive universe, leaning into a thematic identity the set telegraphs with its name. Whether that translates to mechanically distinct gameplay cards or primarily cosmetic differentiation in the SEC slots remains to be seen until full checklist images surface.
The Chase Structure and What It Means for the Secondary Market
Here's where serious collectors should pay attention. A 117-card SEC and rarity layer sitting on top of 108 base cards isn't unusual for Bushiroad — they've run similar ratios in their Weiss Schwarz and other TCG properties — but it creates a specific market condition worth understanding before box prices are announced.
When chase card counts approach or exceed base set counts, two things happen simultaneously. Pull rates per box tighten on any individual SEC, which drives up the perceived value of specific character pulls. But the sheer volume of SEC variants also fragments collector demand — a buyer chasing La+ Darkness SEC cards isn't competing for the same pool as someone hunting Koyori. That fragmentation can suppress the floor on lower-demand character pulls while pushing peaks higher on the top-tier talents.
In the hololive OCG's third set, certain Oshi SEC cards were trading at $40–$80 raw within weeks of release, while base rarity versions of the same characters sat at $5–$15. If grading services like PSA or BGS begin establishing population data on Curious Universe pulls — as they have with prior Bushiroad releases — expect the highest-grade SECs on fan-favorite characters to carry meaningful premiums by mid-2026.
The VTuber TCG space is still young enough that population reports are thin and comps are limited, which cuts both ways. Early graded copies of desirable characters can spike dramatically with minimal sales volume. That's opportunity for buyers who move fast, and risk for anyone paying peak prices on incomplete market data.
Curious Universe won't redefine the TCG landscape, but within the hololive collector community, it doesn't need to. It just needs to deliver the right characters in the right foil treatments — and based on the holoX inclusions alone, Bushiroad seems to know exactly what it's doing.