Oshi No Ko Season 2 - Everything You Need To Know

Season 1 of "Oshi no Ko" may just be the biggest surprise hit anime of 2023. While there was certainly anticipation surrounding the project leading up to its release, due in no small part to the original manga being another work of "Kaguya-sama: Love is War" author Aka Akasaka, the fresh mystery-thriller ended up beating out some of the biggest shōnen series out there in terms of popularity during the spring 2023 anime season. Now, the first season has all wrapped up, though leads Aqua and Ruby's investigation into the murder of their mother certainly isn't resolved. Needless to say, fans want more.

Fortunately, that's exactly what they're getting. Not too long after the Season 1 finale aired, it was confirmed that "Oshi no Ko" would be returning with Season 2. Details on what fans should expect from the show's sophomore outing are still relatively few and far between, but there's already a few things to go over in preparation for the new season. Here's everything fans should know about "Oshi no Ko" Season 2 at the moment.

While "Oshi no Ko" Season 2 is confirmed, there's unfortunately nothing in the way of a release date or release window yet. That's not too much of a surprise, considering that the announcement of the second season came just a week after the finale of Season 1 aired, back in June 2023.

As many an anime fan will tell you, animation takes time to produce. All of the behind-the-scenes factors that go into getting a new season prepared can oftentimes result in lengthy hiatuses like the years-long delay for "Fire Force" Season 3. Nonetheless, there's reason to be optimistic about "Oshi no Ko" returning before too long. Season 1 of the series was announced back in June 2022, and the series began premiering episodes less than a year later in April 2023. If a similar turnaround occurs for Season 2, then fans can potentially expect "Oshi no Ko" to be a returning show to look forward to in 2024. Still, nothing on this front has been confirmed.

"Oshi no Ko" Season 2 is set to continue the overarching narrative of the first season, in which two fans of pop idol Ai Hoshino are reincarnated as her children — Aqua and Ruby — and must subsequently solve the dark conspiracy behind her murder by entering the entertainment industry themselves. Specifically, the second season will follow up on Season 1's finale, which sees Ruby make her big breakthrough as an idol, while Aqua reevaluates his relationships and sets his sights on locating his father.

Specific plot details on "Oshi no Ko" Season 2 haven't been released, but it's worth noting that the anime has, thus far, been quite a faithful adaptation of the original manga and its corresponding story arcs. Season 1 covered the first four main arcs of the story, up to "The First Concert." As such, Season 2 should follow up by adapting several more arcs, starting with the "2.5D Stage Play" arc. This appears to be accurate, as Doga Kobo's first key visual for the project features characters and designs that correspond with that section of the manga.

"Oshi no Ko" Season 2 is expected to retain the main Japanese voice cast of the first season. That means that fans should expect more of Rie Takahashi ("KonoSuba") as Ai Hoshino, Takeo Ōtsuka ("Beastars") as present-day Aqua, Yurie Igoma ("Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie") as present-day Ruby, Megumi Han ("Hunter x Hunter") as Kana, Manaka Iwami ("Spy x Family") as Akane, and other supporting actors.

"Oshi no Ko" notably received an English dub for Season 1, though official confirmation of such a project for Season 2 has not yet been made. As such, it's unknown at this time whether the English dub cast, including Donna Bella Litton ("Urusei Yatsura") as Ai, Jack Stansbury ("Urusei Yatsura") as Aqua, Alyssa Marek ("Akiba Maid War") as Ruby, Natalie Rial ("Food Wars") as Kana, and Kristen McGuire ("My Hero Academia") as Akane, will be returning.

While there hasn't been official confirmation yet, Daisuke Hiramaki is expected to return to direct "Oshi no Ko" Season 2 after spearheading the first season of the anime. Hiramaki has worked on many notable series in the past, such as "Pokémon XY and Z" and "Naruto Shippūden." Similarly, Jin Tanaka, who wrote the script for the first season, is also expected to return for Season 2. Tanaka has credits on shows like "One Piece" and "Tokyo Ghoul."

As far as the animation studio producing "Oshi no Ko" Season 2 goes, Doga Kobo is confirmed to be sticking with the series for its second batch of episodes. The veteran studio has played a part in developing a massive number of notable projects in decades past, including the "Pokémon" movies, the "Psycho-Pass" franchise, and even iconic Studio Ghibli movies like "Kiki's Delivery Service."

Seeing as how "Oshi no Ko" is a very narrative-driven anime, fans are going to want to make sure they're completely caught up and remember what has happened in the series thus far before Season 2 releases. To that end, a watch-through or rewatch of Season 1 is the best way to prepare for the upcoming season. Fortunately, doing so isn't too much of a time commitment for busy fans with plenty of other things on their watchlist.

Season 1 of "Oshi no Ko" clocks in at a lean 11 episodes. Each episode runs somewhere around the 25 minute mark, except for the pilot, which hits a feature-length runtime of nearly one hour and thirty minutes. There's no need to worry about filler here either — just about every episode advances the plot in some way, so skipping out on any individual entries isn't advisable.

As it stands, there are only two ways to access "Oshi no Ko" Season 1 online. While many of the best anime shows out there can be found on streaming services like Crunchyroll, Netflix, and Hulu, the series is absent from all of these platforms. Instead, it is available exclusively through HIDIVE, another service primarily dedicated to streaming anime. Those who want to watch "Oshi no Ko" must have a paid subscription to the platform.

Fans can also pay for a HIDIVE subscription through The Roku Channel, which also hosts the first season of the show. Accessing "Oshi no Ko" through this method has the added benefit of letting non-subscribers and non-account holders watch the pilot episode of the series for free, though all other episodes require the traditional paid subscription.

There are currently no confirmed plans for "Oshi no Ko" Season 1 to become available to digitally purchase through storefronts like the iTunes store or Amazon Prime Video. Similarly, the series has yet to see a localized physical release via Blu-ray or DVD.