Our feckless protagonist is Yuuya Niyodo, a young man who became one half of an idol duo because he thought it would be an easy way for him to make money without really doing anything. However, an idol isn't just singing and dancing on stage. Idols are also about being available to one's fans. (Agency-managed meet and greets with fans is something you don't really have for performers in the west.) It's a lot of work, but if you manage to buy into the fact that Niyodo somehow stumbled into this gig and was able to survive it for a year before being threatened with getting fired, you're set.
Because Niyodo is like... the worst idol. He doesn't smile, he looks half dead most of the time, and usually talks as though he was bored as soon as he stepped in the room. And yet, he has some fans. Not a lot, mind, but there are a few who are drawn to the fact he is such a weird guy who sometimes forgets the lines to the song he's singing.
In fact, every episode so far (I've seen up to 6) ends with a few of his hardcore fans drinking at the local izakaya as they talk over the latest about him. I've never followed any performer with any level of ferver, but their enthusiasm and belief in their idol is highly relateable for anyone who has ever been a fan of a niche subject matter.
While faced with his impending firing, Niyodo coincidentally meets the ghost of Asahi Mogami, a hugely popular idol who tragically died a year ago. She's been lingering around, unable to pass on, wanting to perform, but unable to be seen, until she meets Niyodo. For some reason, he's the only person who can see her, and when she accidentally falls into him, she ends up taking over his body. (Niyodo is still there, along for the ride, and can experience everything along with her.)
Thus begins their partnership. Though Mogami knows the fans are not there for her, she loves performing regardless and agrees to take on some of Niyodo's performing work, which is a great bargain for him since he no longer needs to do it. They butt heads over how best to improve his career though, since Asahi thinks he could do a lot better than he does, while Niyodo remains firmly in the mindset that he does not want to expend the effort.
But the funny thing is, Mogami is not good at being Niyodo, and part of it is that she doesn't entirely want to try. She wants to perform! A lot of which means being herself. Niyodo's fans definitely notice, and it drives them into a frenzy when they can't tell whether he's going to be his usual flat self or "God Mode." Nobody really questions why Niyodo occasionally goes through these drastic personality shifts, other than to surmise that he's probably gotten more serious about his job, and why would they? He's clearly sane no matter which personality is currently in the driver's seat, and nobody would guess that he's voluntarily letting the ghost of a dead idol perform for him!
This is my first anime hearing Fumiya Imai, the voice of Niyodo, and he does a fantastic job jumping between Niyodo's tired baritone and the tenor he uses when possessed by Mogami. He and the voice actor for Yoshino perform the opening credits as their in-universe duo ZINGS. While it's very common for voice actors to be able to sing in Japan, it's significantly less common for them to perform the opening (or ending) credits to their own shows, so I like the extra level of immersion of having them sing.
The only thing that really bothers me about the show is the use of CG in the dance segments. Most of the show has the look we typically expect from hand drawn anime, but when the show shifts to a ZINGS performance, suddenly Niyodo and Yoshino look like two plastic dolls as they step around the stage. It looks more like robots dancing than people, which is strange when you consider that these sequences are probably mo-capped, and can probably be attributed to the fact their clothing just doesn't sway the way we expect it would.
But aside from that, I find myself looking forward to the next episode every week.
Phantom of the idol should be on Crunchyroll and for free with both English and Japanese language .
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