YOASOBI -- Idol（アイドル）

No, this isn't Ai Hoshino but it is 
KKP AI representative Kayo Grace Kyoku!

 

Yup, I realize that I missed the trend-and-meme boat when it came to the popular anime "Oshi no Ko"（【推しの子】） in 2023. However, reading about the premise of the Aka Akasaka（赤坂アカ）story and knowing about how cutthroat the aidoru industry can be, I opted not to watch Season 1 just so that I wouldn't end up depressed and that's considering that I actually like my film noir and I had a lot of fun with Akasaka's other epic story "Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai"（かぐや様は告らせたい...Kaguya-sama: Love is War） which happens to take place in the same universe, albeit years earlier than "Oshi no Ko".

Still, I couldn't escape from one famous scene from the first episode. That adorable bit of wotagei took days to finally leave my head. Kinda too bad that things took a very dark spin some minutes later.

What cracked inside of me to finally post YOASOBI's "Idol", the opening theme for "Oshi no Ko", was frankly the duo's performance on the 74th edition of the Kohaku Utagassen a few nights ago. As I noted in my review of the show yesterday, the participation of pretty much every aidoru group invited onto the New Year's Eve special to dance while "Idol" was going had some "Avengers: Endgame" thrills going up my spine. It also didn't hurt having dance troupe Avantgardey start things off. Up until that point, I had only bothered to hear bits and pieces of the song although I observed that the opening credits sequence did look spectacular.

To be honest, when I read that YOASOBI was going to be responsible for the opening theme, I wasn't surprised since I had heard about Ayase and Ikura's penchant for taking on darker material, and "Idol", written and composed by Ayase, is all about the trials and tribulations within the life of an aidoru superstar. Although I can imagine some of the more dynamic alphabet aidoru groups singing this as well, it's been categorized as an anison and a pop tune. However, there is that intro which sounds like a hip-pop riff that Namie Amuro（安室奈美恵）used to tackle and then a chorus which is reminiscent of an anison for an isekai show before listeners get taken on a frenetic roller coaster ride. 

I think having YOASOBI appear on the Kohaku was a foregone conclusion considering that "Idol" not only hit No. 1 on the weeklies but it became the No. 1 song of the year on Oricon and Billboard Japan. It was released in April 2023 and it's also part of the album "The Book 3" which came out later in October, hitting No. 2 and going Gold.