Was that better? Yeah, for sure. I mean, it wasn’t appalling like last week’s episode was. But the equation is always different with Oshi no Ko. What’s “good” or “bad” about it is never the same as it is with most series. I’d be hard-pressed to say I enjoyed this episode, per se. I find the direction the show is headed to be rather ugly and unpleasant on all fronts. The only character I really still like among the ones who matter is Kana, and she’s pretty much a narrative punching bag at this point. I do feel sorry for Aqua on some level, but that’s not the same as affection.
What can be said for certain is Akasaka has completed the 0ld switcheroo. Ruby is now the devious mastermind, manipulating her way towards revenge. And Aqua is positively naive by comparison. I’m kind of with Ichigo on this – the only way Aqua would have bought the story that Ai’s murderer was dead and gone was if he wanted to. And who can blame him? Living life solely for the pursuit of vengeance is existentially exhausting. He was ready to bail, and when an escape hatch was offered, he didn’t ask too many questions. Of course he now feels massive guilt over desiring to live his life for its own sake, which is surely going to drag him back into the dark side before too long.
The dynamic is now basically Ichigo, who’s desperate for revenge himself, using Ruby as his foot soldier. Aqua has figured out where Ruby was sneaking off to and confronts Ichigo, but the main takeaway here is that Ichigo spills the beans about Ai’s true killer still being at-large. It’s going to be impossible for Aqua to keep going on his new path. And that’s especially true since Akane now knows the truth, even more than Ichigo and Ruby do. She likes post-revenge Aqua better of course – that’s the one that slid into a relationship of convenience with her. But will she really keep what she knows from him now? That’s one of the more interesting questions hanging over the story.
That true killer of course is the Miyano Mamoru character (who provides some narration this week), and we’ve pretty much known that since the finale of S2 when Akasaka’s cheat code Tsukuyomi spilled the beans to Ruby. I don’t recall having heard his actual name before, but it’s Kamiki Hikaru. He was indeed about 15 when he was at Lala Lai with Ai, and got her pregnant. It’s kind of funny that neither Aqua or Ruby ever identified him despite a lifetime of obsession but Akane did in like two minutes. But then she is a professional-level stalker.
Vance
February 6, 2026 at 6:28 amFor me personally, ugly and unpleasant can make for great content even if not the most enjoyable, and I found this to be one of the best episodes of Oshi no Ko after the appalling episode from last week. This episode shows very well how the death of a character can ruin the dynamics between a family due to the ensuing trauma and how one’s pursuit of revenge can negatively affect those around you.
Ichigo basically abandoned his family due to being heartbroken over Ai’s murder, and given he considered Ai his daughter, he probably blamed himself on some level for not preparing Ai for something like that given his knowledge of the industry. Now, he’s using Ruby as a foot soldier for his revenge even though it keeps her on a bad path, the daughter of the one he considered a daughter to him. Ichigo was fucked up by Ai’s murder just as much as anybody else, and seeing his nonchalant telling to Aqua that it was just a theory and nothing confirmed after Aqua started having a panic attack while he continues fishing, doing nothing to calm Aqua, the son of the one he considered his daughter, shows how much he has changed.
Aqua’s revenge himself was what kickstarted Ruby going off the deep end since she realized that the reason Aqua had gotten back into the industry despite for years saying he had no further interest in acting was ’cause he could find Ai’s murderer after her realization that Gorou had also been murdered just as Ai was. You probably recall that Gorou was the person most important to Sarina before she reincarnated as Ruby as he spent the most meaningful time with her with her parents not even bothering to visit her, so Aqua being on the path to revenge directly led to Ruby going on this path, and she doesn’t care who she has to hurt to get her revenge whereas Aqua had more apparent limits to the lengths he would go.
I could say more about how this affects Aqua, but as he’s the main character, I’m sure everybody who has been watching knows what’s up, and anything more I’d say would be a retread of what’s already know.
What I haven’t talked about is fans giving Kana major flack for not being in-tune with Aqua’s emotions when he was unresponsive to her due to him spiraling. I’m tired of so many people only watching anime so that they can self-insert into the protagonist’s shoes due to watching anime mainly as an escape. Despite Aqua having a ton of trauma, Kana herself has major trauma from her mother abandoning her when her career stalled, making her develop an inferiority complex and an intense fear of abandonment, making her deeply crave validation even though she goes out of her way not to stand out due to realizing that raw talent is less important than people skills in the industry, which is being triggered by Aqua’s treatment of her, so I believe it’s ridiculous that people are bashing Kana despite Aqua deliberately avoiding her for months and then physically hitting her upon their first meeting in a long while. Kana, with her own trauma, of course reacted in the way she did, and flaming her ’cause she isn’t perfectly in-tune with Aqua’s emotions like Akane is, who is meant to be a perfect waifu of sorts, is just dumb.