6 Months After Caligo Pt.2, PLAVE Launch HYPERDRIVE with a Tiniping OST Surprise

Two PLAVE announcements landed on the 21st, and together they sketch a very busy October. The group released an OST for Catch! Tiniping at 6 p.m. KST today, timed as a warm-up for the anime's seventh season, Jewelstar Catch! Tiniping, which is confirmed for a November premiere. A visual sampler for their fifth mini-album, HYPERDRIVE, also dropped at midnight, racing jackets, flash photography, low-angle track shots, filling in the album's concept with enough clarity that the theme is no longer in question.

The Tiniping collaboration

SAMG Entertainment, the studio behind Catch! Tiniping, confirmed PLAVE's OST participation on the 21st. The franchise has built a habit of pairing its new seasons with prominent K-pop acts: IVE's Liz and NCT WISH have both contributed to earlier Tiniping soundtracks, using the show's substantial young fanbase as a soft entry point for their music. PLAVE stepping into that slot suggests SAMG sees the group's reach as comparable. The new season centers on the Emotion Festival, a grand music celebration set inside the Emotion Kingdom, with returning characters Hachuring, Lemonping, Cherryping, and Limepping already revealed through the show's official channels.

Later the same evening, at 8 p.m. KST, PLAVE hosted a live broadcast on their official YouTube channel, with a Tiniping-related guest appearance confirmed in advance, the kind of cross-promotion that turns a single song release into an event.

HYPERDRIVE: the racing concept, piece by piece

PLAVE's agency Blast has been methodical about the HYPERDRIVE rollout. A concept film on the 18th set the visual register: vivid color, a helmeted figure, racing cars. Concept photos released on the 19th and 20th moved through full-length shots in front of stacked tires, close-up portraits, and a low-angle group photo taken directly on a track. Today's visual sampler brought the members into the frame as a unit, dressed in matching racing jackets and posed at a photo line while camera flashes went off around them, composed, relaxed, leaning into the aesthetic rather than straining against it.

The album follows Caligo Pt.2 by roughly six months. PLAVE first flagged the comeback in early September during their world tour KEEP IT MANIC, which ran on the 12th and 13th at Incheon Munhak Stadium. They previewed an unreleased track during the encore, which is a reliable way to measure room temperature before a release cycle begins. Upcoming content still to come from Blast includes a track list, album preview, highlight medley, and music video teaser.

HYPERDRIVE goes live on digital platforms on October 12 at 6 p.m. KST. The physical album follows on October 13. For a group that has spent the better part of two years building toward its first world tour, a fifth mini-album arriving within weeks of that milestone is the kind of momentum that compounds. Circle October 12.