Phantom of the Idol voice actor Fumiya Imai shared his own rendition of the upcoming anime’s key visual. Imai voices the lead character Yuuya Niyodo and the simplistic drawing is meant to represent the protagonist’s lazy attitude.
Imai posted a photo of himself holding his “masterpiece” on his Twitter page.
原画#神クズ pic.twitter.com/WFKCFKOI0S
— 今井文也 (@imai1005) May 19, 2022
The scrap paper style of Imai’s visual has also been translated to the television anime’s official website. For a limited time, people can scroll through the pages that reflect Imai’s unique art style. The user experience is reminiscent of going through someone’s notebook and the website can be accessed HERE.
A teaser trailer and initial key visual of the anime was first released in March 2022.
Joining Imai in the voice cast are Nao Touyama as Asahi Mogami, Shun Horie as Kazuki Yoshino, Eri Kitamura as Hitomi Shinano, Hitomi Ueda as Kasenjiki, You Taichi as Tsugiko, Manaka Iwami as Shigutaro, and Show Hayami as the Narrator.
Daiki Fukuoka (Radiant series director) is directing the anime, with Yasuko Aoki (Radiant scriptwriter) as scriptwriter, Saori Hosoda (Mieruko-chan chief animation director) as character designer, and myu (Red Data Girl co-music composer) as music composer. Studio Gokumi is the animation production company.
The original manga series was first published on December 28, 2017 and has published five tankoubon volumes in total so far. It is currently running in Ichijinsha’s Monthly Comic Zero-Sum magazine under the Zero Sum Comics label. Kodansha USA publishes the manga in English.
Penguin Random House describes the manga as:
Yuuya, one half of the boy pop duo ZINGS, may be the laziest performer in the Japanese music industry. His partner is out there giving 110% every night, but Yuya’s sloppy dancing and his frankly hostile attitude toward the audience has the fans hating him and his agent looking for any excuse to cut him loose. The career of a pop idol just isn’t the path of easy leisure Yuya expected…
After a particularly lifeless concert appearance, Yuya meets a girl backstage. All she wants from life is to perform. There’s just one problem: She’s been dead for a year.
Source: Phantom of the Idol Twitter
