Idol

is a song by Japanese duo Yoasobi from their third extended play (EP), The Book 3 (2023). It was released on April 12, 2023, through Sony Music Entertainment Japan, serving as the opening theme of the Japanese anime series Oshi no Ko. Written by Ayase and based on Aka Akasaka's short story "45510", "Idol" is a pop track with hip-hop elements, depicting the two-faced nature of a star in the Japanese idol industry, as well as perspectives on the anime's character Ai Hoshino from her fans, her B-Komachi's bandmates, and herself. Naoya Nakayama directed the accompanying animated music video for the song, which premiered on April 13 and exceeded 100 million views in a month, the fastest among Japanese acts. Music critics praised the song as a "perfect" representation of Hoshino. Commercially, one of Yoasobi's most successful songs, "Idol" topped the Oricon Combined Singles Chart and Billboard Japan Hot 100, the latter for 21 consecutive weeks, making it the longest-running number-one song in the chart history. It became the highest charted Japanese act on the Billboard Global 200 at number seven, and the first J-pop song to top the Global Excl. US. "Idol" broke the record for the fastest song to earn 500 million streams in Japan within 28 weeks and was certified platinum for downloads and three-time platinum for streaming by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ). The song won Best Animation Video and Song of the Year from the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards Japan. Background and release An anime adaption of manga series Oshi no Ko was announced in June 2022. During a livestream on its official YouTube channel on February 19, 2023, the anime series revealed the opening theme which would be performed by Yoasobi, titled "Idol". As a "super huge" fan of the manga, member Ayase stated that he had personally read Oshi no Ko before and written a demo about it in around 2022. It was initially titled "Kyūkyoku no Ōgi", portraying a girl who is the strongest and unbeatable fighter, showing some dark side, reminiscing about Street Fighter character Chun-Li. The demo was originally expected to release as a Vocaloid song, but the plan was changed after the duo received the offer to perform the opening theme; he interwove the demo and the new composition to be the final version.