Oshi no Ko – 11 (Season Finale)

Oshi no Ko getting a sequel is probably the most unsurprising of the season (along with Kimetsu, of course).  In a season where it feels like most shows got continuations this one certainly was going to – it’s a certified megahit.  My track record with certified megahits isn’t especially good to say the least.  I lasted longer than usual with this one, but in the end it totally lost me.  I gave the fast-forward button a workout these last two weeks, that’s for sure.

There’s no simpler explanation that to say I didn’t care about anything much that happened here.  The idol stuff is a slog, the love triangle trite and played out.  Oshi no Ko was really interesting at the start, but even then it always struck me as most likely to be a mirage.  Writers of this sort of series almost invariably lose interest in doing anything really critical or challenging, and Akasaka’s true sympathies were pretty apparent even when the superficial might have fooled you into thinking otherwise.  And he’s a writer that’s never worked for me anyway, so there was no reason for confidence the center would hold.

I sort of wish this had all gone down a few weeks earlier, because by the time it was obvious to me I should have dropped this show it was realistically too late to drop it.  I could have spared both you and myself the past few posts, which I suspect were no more fun to read than they were to write.  A couple folks have mentioned that the upcoming material veers away (backwards, perhaps) from the faffing about that closed the season, so I suppose I’ll watch the first episode or two of S2 just out of curiosity.  But it’s hard to imagine a scenario where I’m sucked back into covering Oshi no Ko again.  I can’t use the “fool me once” line – that ship has long since sailed for me where anime is concerned.  And maybe quoting Pete Townshend would be too optimistic.  But I don’t plan to let this series be the one to fool me again.

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14 comments

  1. M

    honestly it’d be a huge shame for you to not cover the rest of the series cause i feel like you’re the only one who has this specific perspective on the series and its issues so it’s nice to feel validated when reading your posts but obviously i get not wanting to cover something you’re not actually into

  2. If it’s anything like this last arc I’m not touching it with a ten foot pole. But I appreciate the thought.

  3. J

    In a way, Oshi No Ko to me falls into the fallacy of the “good man”, where we’re supposed to believe that there are merely “good people” trying to do the best they can in a rotten industry full of bad people, and those “good people” (mostly female idols) are helpless victims who just need another “good man” to support them. This extends into Aqua being depicted here as the “good fan” in a sea of toxic fandom, despite the fact that he’s a reincarnated ebephile doctor who seems sexually aroused by Ai. It may gesture towards serious issues in the entertainment industry, but it naively assumes that there are still good people (like Ruby, Akane and Kana) working in it, victimized by toxic producers or fans. It allows the viewers to pat themselves in the back, reassured that they are not like those awful people, and they would never harm a “perfect” idol like Ai. Hell, they’d even gladly save depressed, suicidal women like Akane because Aqua gave the impression that all it takes is a “good person” to be their salvation.

    “Some men want so badly to “save” a woman that they’ll break her kneecap just to force her to be carried.”

    The real damning thing about its Very Important Episode halfway through this series? I think that Hana Kimura’s mother was offended less by the fact that Akane’s plight mirrored that of her daughter, but by how much her daughter’s plight was warped and trivialized even further to make it look like she was even more of a helpless victim than she really was. Kimura believed that the Terrance House producers manipulated footage to make it so that she was acting aggressive, violent and out of character. This series implies that she really was acting like that all along.

  4. I agree with most of that. And it’s sadly typical in anime especially.

  5. J

    I think you and me were clearly expecting a much more cynical story that was more of a biting criticism of the entertainment industry and the suckers who buy into the lies, but apparently, that was totally at odds with Akasaka’s intention of writing a feel-good story, so that wide-reaching critique got simplified down to a few bad men that Aqua wants revenge on and constantly monologues about. Which in turn justified my belief that it fell into the fallacy of the “good man”, who helped these struggling actors and idols because they’re merely “good people” trying to do their best in a rotten system, and allow us to go “Thank god I’m not like those bad people!”, comforted to consume idol crap in peace because it was the product of hard-working “good” people. That’s probably why I found this show so… toothless as a result.

    “The idol industry is bad and full of lies! But there are still good people working in it, struggling to make a living, helplessly abused by bad men, and you can’t toss out the baby with the bathwater.” That’s what I get from it.

    Also, I assume you didn’t agree with my thoughts on episode 6 and how Hana Kimura’s mom was bothered by it?

  6. Well, to be clear, I wasn’t expecting it. I fully expected it to sell out (pretty much said so explicitly in my posts), because pretty much all thee sorts of series do. Hoping for it? Sure. But that would have been a huge upset.

    What specifically do you think I disagree about regarding Episode 6 and your comments?

  7. J

    Namely what I said about why I believed Kimura’s mother was pissed off at how Akane’s issues in ep6 mirrored that of her daughter.
    > “I think that Hana Kimura’s mother was offended less by the fact that Akane’s plight mirrored that of her daughter, but by how much her daughter’s plight was warped and trivialized even further to make it look like she was even more of a helpless victim than she really was. Kimura believed that the Terrance House producers manipulated footage to make it so that she was acting aggressive, violent and out of character so audiences could villainize her. This series insinuates that she really was acting like that all along.”

    Sucks that even Kimura’s mom got harassed by OnK “fans” just for bringing this coincidence up (they legit believed she was trying to ruin this show smh), despite being a series that claims to be about empathy and lies.

    It’s unfortunate, because based on all the hype, I was legit expecting something *different* this time around regarding critiques of the idol industry. And I didn’t outside of Aqua constantly telling us about it. I probably expected everyone to come off as a “bad guy”, where even these Good Guys (like Aqua who is essentially using and manipulating women for his revenge plan) are more fickle and self-serving than they initially appear.

  8. I don’t disagree with that, for the most part.

  9. S

    I lost all interest in these characters a while ago, and when the murder mystery faded into the background, there was nothing left. I don’t care a whit about any of the cast, which is pretty damning.

  10. There was something there but whatever it was, the magic was gone by the final few episodes and things just seemed very generic.

  11. B

    It’s a shame that the anime cut the ending of Mana, the idol at the start’s character arc, where she sees Neo B-Komachi perform, reflects on her own lackluster idol career, and quits. It added a much-appreciated leaden lining to the silver cloud that was their performance. As for Kana and Akane, their rivalry has clearly been going on for a while, so that’s a good sign for depth.

    If you do continue reviewing it, then I’ll continue to read your reviews. We’re obviously not in full agreement, but I do find your opinion interesting and refreshingly elaborated upon.

  12. Thanks. We’ll see – I’ve been surprised before, but my skepticism level is very high at the moment.

  13. Man, do I have a lot to say about this one. The premise is very interesting and I like some of the characters but some of the choices about the overall narrative and especially Aqua left me conflicted. Agreed that the 1st ep was one hell of a ride. For me the choice of focusing more on the mystery of “who was the real culprit of Hoshino Ai’s death” kinda underwhelms the other aspects of the story for me, especially Ruby’s quest to follow on her mother’s footsteps. I think Aqua’s particular plight could’ve done for a more interesting take on his personal life path but I do agree with Joshua’s comment above that the “good man fallacy”.

    Aqua is really hard to like because dude behaves more as a “manga main character” (Kana makes a joke about this later in the show) and even gets his very own love triangle just because. Also, his personal crusade to point out how “Japan’s entertainment industry is messed up” gets repetitive and by Episode 6 I felt like “OK, we get it. Enough”. Not that the points the show makes are invalid but could’ve been done with a little more nuance.

    Arima Kana was definitely my favorite and I would like to see more of her, including his rivalry with Akane (Megumi Han does wonders with the character and along with Rie Takahashi’s work as Ai are the highlights of the show). Doga Kobo did a solid work overall and ep.1 is a standout of its own. I think I would watch a S2 out of curiosity but I still torn about it. Maybe I revisit it later but the show still had some good things worth considering.

  14. J

    It seems that despite the massive get that this competing streaming service, Hidive had in the Spring, that Oshi no Ko could not be AMC Network’s savior. https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/amc-networks-earnings-q2-streaming-subscribers-1235687422/

    HiDive has everything to compete against Crunchyroll, except like AMC’s other streaming services, it cannot provide an adequate user experience or even global reach like CR could provide. And in the process, whatever initial gains they could claim to (i.e. an uptick in subbers upon its premiere) couldn’t stave off a decline in the overall struggling AMC business. What a shame.

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