Oshi no Ko Will Debut Next Year With 90 Minute Premiere

Almost half a year ago, the J-List Blog published an article revealing that the manga series Oshi no Ko will be adapted into an anime series. This news generated a small amount of buzz in the community, mostly as fans who weren’t already familiar with the story got a second-hand anticipation high from those who were familiar with the manga. At the time of the initial announcement, the staff released a key visual and primary crew details, but nothing else. 

That initial buzz was renewed with a new teaser announcement from the crew released on Wednesday, October 12th. The teaser revealed that the first episode of this idol series will premiere in 2023 with an extended first episode. I know that some of you out there might already be thinking, what’s the big deal? Anime have extended first episodes on a fairly regular basis. Here’s what the big deal is: most of the time when anime has an extended first episode, it spans the length of two episodes (around 45 minutes). Oshi no Ko is breaking that mold by having a 90-minute first episode. That’s around the length of a typical anime movie and should be enough time for the series to tell the story of the entire first volume. 

Along with this, the staff also revealed that the lead actress of the series will be Rie Takahashi, providing the voice for Ai Hoshino. They will reveal more information on a special live stream that will broadcast on December 11th. 

To catch up those who haven’t yet heard anything about this series, Oshi no Ko started as a manga in the seinen magazine Weekly Young Jump in April 2020. Written by the author of Kaguya-Sama: Love Is War, Aka Akasaka, and illustrated by the artist from Scum’s Wish, Mengo Yokoyari, Oshi no Ko will release its ninth volume in Japan in the second half of October 2022. Currently, the series is available to read in English digitally on the Manga Plus service while Yen Press will begin releasing the series in English physically in January 2023.

The anime adaptation will have animation produced by the studio Doga Kobo with Daisuke Hiramaki and Chao Nekotomi as the director and assistant director. The scripts will be written by Jin Tanaka, while Kanna Hirayama will provide character designs. 

Source: Crunchyroll News