Alternative title(s): Kami Kuzu Aidoru
Manga Adaptation by Studio Gokumi
Streaming on HIDIVE

Premise

Yuya is part of the idol duo ZINGS, but he’s lazy, doesn’t care about anyone but himself and only became an idol to earn money easily, which means he’s on a fast track to get fired. Then he meets Asahi, a legendary idol. Or rather, he meets the ghost of her, since she died a year ago. She can posess Yuya and perform in Yuya’s body while Yuya himself can take a mental nap. That’s a win-win scenario, right?

Peter’s verdict: When do they start doing seductive pottery?

As far as idol shows go, this one seems to be trying something fairly original! Episode one was fairly good fun, and honestly could be self-contained relatively safely (like a pilot episode when you don’t know if you’ll be greenlit). However, there’s a few potential directions this show could go that are either interesting or concerning. But before we get into that, an overview of the episode.

We are introduced to idol duo “ZINGS” featuring the peppy one (Kazuki) and the one who gives precisely zero fucks about being an idol (Yuya). They have an awkward live concert intro because Yuya was just commenting how much of a pain being an idol is, while Kazuki attempts to rescue the entire show. Fast forward to after the concert and their manager is giving Yuya a grilling for being a jackass (which, let’s be real here, he kinda is) and he’s told he needs to get his shit together or he’ll be fired, which he responds to with picking up some job listing magazines.

After a bit of self reflection, Asahi appears and is surprised that Yuya can see her. Turns out, she’s a ghost. She died roughly a year prior, which devastated the entertainment industry and fans, etc. She can’t move on because she enjoyed being an idol so much, in stark contrast to our alive protagonist Yuya who hates being an idol. Oh if only they could swap places. Well, through some arguing, Asahi enters the body of Yuya and manages to take control, with Yuya being able to mentally communicate with Asahi but Asahi at the controls. They agree to do a concert with Asahi being controlling Yuya, with Yuya mentally sitting back and watching Asahi do the hard part. The fans are very confused at first with this dramatic change in Yuya’s character, and some believe it to be a group halloucination, but Yuya’s stack of merch that usually sells very poorly sells out that day.

The episode rounds off with Asahi and Yuya agreeing to keep the façade going, with Yuya internally recognising that it’s an easy way to make money without actually doing anything, with the narrator confirming that he is, indeed, a dirtbag.

So I found the jokes fairly entertaining overall, character designs are nice, and you have Touyama Nao performing as Asahi, who reminds me a lot of her character Kanon in The World God Only Knows, especially with Kanon being an idol who also deals with body posession by a spirit. Our main protag though, Yuya, concerns me greatly. There’s been a few shows where the main dude is an unlikeable prick, with the obvious plan that he’ll soften and become more decent as the show goes on, but will he be annoying enough to make me drop it?

I can sorta see the upcoming plot lines if this show decides to stay super generic. In fact, let’s try and predict the future, shall we?

Potentially coming up in Phantom of the Idol:

• First off, group manager says Yuya is on thin ice, but appreciates that he’s taking his job seriously, so he has a probationary period where he can prove himself as being a good idol more than just once
• Yuya becomes less of a jackass even without Asahi controlling his body
• Asahi moves into Yuya’s place, standard boy/girl embarassment stuff ensues (maybe even with Asahi controlling Yuya when on the toilet, although episode 1 seems to imply enough of a shock will eject Asahi out so perhaps not)
• Some sort of romance between Yuya and Asahi? This might just be all the embarassment with none of the relationship building of the above point, and she is literally a ghost, but I dunno I can believe it. Go do pottery together.
• Yuya and Asahi have a falling out towards the end of the series, which means Yuya has to perform without Asahi’s help, with hillarious/tragic results
• Yuya and Kazuki have a falling out when Yuya isn’t acting like himself (and maybe Yuya struggles to kick Asahi out when talking to Kazuki and she says the wrong thing, etc)

I’m sorry, I got a bit carried away there. From episode 1, I feel like this show will be a fun ride overall, but I can’t see it being anything groundbreaking. Very curious to see how many of my predictions come true though. This show’s a keeper, that’s for sure.

Also, the manager is a mood.