Said episode centers on a gynecologist named Gorou Amemiya, who is asked to help deliver the twins of his favorite teenage idol, Ai Hoshino. But why? Is it because of its feature-length premiere that gave audiences more time than any other premiere this season to hook them? Is it because the story itself is just that good? Or is it because of a calculated gamble taken by Doga Kobo that may fail it in the long run? I’d wager that all of these are true to an extent, and even if the show falls apart in the end, I’d say that we have a strong “anime of the year” contender if only because of its first episode. One can almost certainly make the argument that Oshi no Ko’s explosive status in the community right now is only temporary, but that doesn’t change the fact that Oshi no Ko is a huge success.

It even did the impossible and dethroned Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood as the “top anime” of all time in the scored rankings at, the veritable hub of online anime discourse.

The premiere for this series was released theatrically in Japan in March, and after it debuted on HIDIVE on April 12, it was reported that its premiere was the most successful in the streaming service’s history and brought on more subscribers than ever before.

The staff at the production studio, Doga Kobo, went so far as to turn what is normally meant to be a 23-minute episode into a feature-length 90-minute film. Even then, it only began to be released digitally in English last April, so it’s entirely fair to say that most people probably didn’t hear about Oshi no Ko until around the time the anime premiered.Ĭhances are if they heard about the premiere, it was because of how it became the event of the anime season. The manga was written by Aka Akasaka, the same author behind the enjoyable and popular rom-com Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, but the first volume of Oshi no Ko was only released physically in the West this January, with the second volume releasing next month. Oshi no Ko’s sudden surge in popularity is a bit weird to parse, as this series didn’t really have much of a foothold in the West before its first episode. However, no premiere was quite as strong and as commanding as the premiere for Oshi no Ko, which has gone on to dominate the entire anime community in the two weeks it’s been around. And of those several dozen shows, a significant number of them are new series that need to convince viewers to give them a watch. When a new anime season begins, while decades ago there would only be a handful of shows vying for attention, this spring season alone has over 70 different shows competing against each other for your viewership. There’s something to be said about how important it is for an anime to make a good first impression.

Kaguya sama love is war aka akasaka