About Oshi no Ko
Oshi no Ko began as a manga written by Aka Akasaka, the creator of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, and drawn by Mengo Yokoyari. It ran in Shueisha's Weekly Young Jump from April 2020 to November 2024, fills 16 volumes, is published in English by Yen Press, and had more than 25 million copies in circulation by December 2025. The title is usually taken to mean 'My Favourite Idol's Children'. Doga Kobo's TV anime is directed by Daisuke Hiramaki, with scripts by Jin Tanaka, character designs by Kanna Hirayama and music by Takurō Iga. The first season (11 episodes) aired from April to June 2023, opening with a feature-length episode that had already been shown in cinemas; the second (13 episodes) ran from July to October 2024 and the third (11 episodes) from January to March 2026, 35 episodes in all. A fourth and final season has been announced.
Gorou Amamiya is a doctor at a rural hospital and a devoted fan of Ai Hoshino, the star of the idol group B-Komachi. When Ai turns up at his hospital, secretly pregnant with twins, he resolves to see them safely born, but he is killed before the birth and wakes up as one of the babies: Aquamarine 'Aqua' Hoshino, with all his old memories. His twin sister Ruby is also reborn, as it turns out, from Sarina Tendouji, a young patient of his who idolised Ai. For a few years they get to watch their mother's career from the inside. Then Ai is killed by a stalker, and Aqua works out that someone close to her, probably their unknown father, must have given the man her address. Years later, as teenagers, Ruby chases her dream of becoming an idol like Ai, and Aqua returns to acting to get close to the people in his mother's past.
What sets Oshi no Ko apart is how closely it looks at the business it is set in. Each arc takes on a different corner of Japanese entertainment: a cheap TV drama made from a popular manga, a reality dating show, an idol festival full of underground groups, a 2.5D stage play whose author and scriptwriter cannot agree, a music video shoot, a web variety show and, in season 3, a film about Ai herself. Akasaka has said he researched it by talking to idols, managers and YouTubers, and that he wanted readers to see how young performers are hurt and exploited. Beneath all of that runs a revenge mystery. The anime was a hit from its first episode, which HIDIVE called the most successful premiere in its history; its opening theme, Yoasobi's 'Idol', became the first Japanese-language song to top Billboard's Global Excl. US chart, and the series won Animation of the Year at the Tokyo Anime Award Festival.
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What the Oshi no Ko Quiz Tests
Our Oshi no Ko quiz covers the 35 episodes of the TV anime's first three seasons. It does not use the manga's later chapters or ending, the novels or the live-action series and film. Easy levels cover the basics: who made the series, what the title means, Gorou and Sarina's rebirth as Aqua and Ruby, Ai and B-Komachi, Strawberry Productions, Youtou High School and the main cast. The middle levels follow the story in order, from the babies' first secret and the Sweet Today drama through the dating show, Pieyon and the Japan Idol Festival, the Tokyo Blade play and the trip to Takachiho, into season 3's web variety show. The hard levels are for people who watched closely: a line of Ai's from the first episode, Kana's childhood hit and a pun on her old billing, the colour of her penlight, the password behind 'Idol', and season 3's biggest turns.
Key Characters
Aqua is the cool, calculating centre of the story: a doctor reborn as his favourite idol's son, who keeps his feelings locked away and spends his teenage years using the entertainment business, and the people in it, to find the man behind his mother's death, while guarding his sister more fiercely than he lets on. Ruby is his opposite, loud, warm and fearless, a girl who was too ill to dance in her last life and now wants nothing more than to be an idol like Ai. Ai's own story is told in the first episode, and she shapes everything after it: a dazzling performer who could not always tell whether her own smile was real. Around the twins grow up two rival actresses. Kana Arima, once the child star who could cry on cue, is sharp-tongued, insecure and in love with Aqua, and he talks her into joining B-Komachi, where she becomes the centre. Akane Kurokawa, a gifted and studious stage actress, plays Ai so convincingly on a dating show that Aqua is shaken, and becomes first his fake girlfriend and then a real one. MEM-cho, the YouTuber who is older than she looks, completes the new B-Komachi. Behind them stand the adults: Miyako Saitou, who raised the twins and keeps Strawberry Productions going; her vanished husband Ichigo, the manager who discovered Ai; and Taishi Gotanda, the director who took Aqua on as his apprentice.
Available Quizzes
Oshi no Ko Trivia
50 hand-crafted questions across 5 categories. 10 levels of increasing difficulty.
Which Oshi no Ko Character Are You?
Answer 10 questions to discover which Oshi no Ko character matches your personality!
Random Mix
Questions from all 55 anime including Oshi no Ko. The ultimate challenge.
Characters
Aqua Hoshino
Ruby Hoshino
Ai Hoshino
Kana Arima
Akane Kurokawa
Oshi no Ko Fun Facts
- Akasaka built the series on a Japanese joke. When an idol announces a marriage, fans often say they would like to be reborn as the idol's child; he had thought of writing that story long before he decided it was the right time for a manga about the entertainment industry.
- The first episode, 'Mother and Children', runs about 82 minutes and opened in cinemas in Japan on 17 March 2023, almost a month before it aired on TV. The producers wanted to turn the whole first volume into a single episode, and the animation producer said it needed about 1,000 cuts, against roughly 300 for an ordinary episode.
- Yoasobi's 'Idol' was written by Ayase from a short story by Akasaka called '45510', told by a former member of the original B-Komachi. The title is a password made from the initials of the group's four founders typed on a phone keypad. The song became the first Japanese-language song to top Billboard's Global Excl. US chart and spent 22 weeks at number one on the Japan Hot 100.
- Kana's old billing, 'the genius child actor who can cry in ten seconds', becomes a pun in Japanese that has her licking baking soda. The joke went so far that the anime's official site announced a real tie-in: packs of Kaneyo Soap's baking-soda cleaner, 'Jūsō-chan', with a new picture of Kana on them.
- In a 2023 survey by the publisher Benesse of nearly 19,000 Japanese schoolchildren, Ai Hoshino came third in the list of people they most admired, behind only 'a friend' and 'my mother'. The children named her singing and dancing, her positivity and her kindness to others.
- Akasaka has twice had two series running in Weekly Young Jump at the same time: Oshi no Ko began in April 2020 while Kaguya-sama: Love Is War was still running, and after Kaguya-sama ended he started another series, Renai Daikō, in the same magazine in April 2023.
Oshi no Ko Quiz — Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes of Oshi no Ko are there?
Thirty-five, across three seasons. Season 1 has 11 episodes (12 April – 28 June 2023), starting with the feature-length 'Mother and Children'; season 2 has 13 (3 July – 6 October 2024); and season 3 has 11 (14 January – 25 March 2026), ending with a one-hour special. A fourth and final season has been announced but had not aired by late October 2026.
Is Oshi no Ko finished?
The manga is: it ended in November 2024 and is complete in 16 volumes. The anime is not. A fourth and final season was announced at the end of season 3's last episode in March 2026, and a teaser visual and video followed in August 2026, but no broadcast date had been announced on the official site by late October 2026. The story was also adapted as an eight-episode live-action series on Prime Video and a live-action film, Oshi no Ko: The Final Act, both released in 2024.
What order should I watch Oshi no Ko in?
Watch the TV seasons in order: season 1, season 2, then season 3. Do not skip the long first episode, 'Mother and Children', which sets up the whole story. The 2024 live-action series and the film The Final Act are a separate retelling, not part of the anime's continuity. There are two spin-off novels: Spica of the First Star, a prequel about Ai, and Futari no Etude, about Kana and Akane, which is set partly after the manga's ending.
Where can I watch Oshi no Ko?
The anime is licensed in English by Sentai Filmworks and streams on HIDIVE, where the English dub began in May 2023. Crunchyroll streamed season 3 alongside HIDIVE and in 2026 added the first two seasons too. In much of Asia-Pacific, Medialink has streamed it on its Ani-One Asia YouTube channel. Availability differs by country and changes over time, so check your local services.
What is Oshi no Ko about?
A doctor and one of his former patients are reborn as the secret twin children of their favourite idol, Ai Hoshino. When Ai is killed, her son Aqua sets out to find the person who led the killer to her, and he and his sister Ruby grow up inside Japan's entertainment industry: she as an idol in a revived B-Komachi, he as an actor using every job to get closer to the truth. It mixes comedy, showbiz satire and a revenge mystery, and looks hard at what fame costs the young people who chase it.
