Review of [Oshi No Ko]

There's a bunch of anime where you can't really point to one particular genre and call it that because it has so many elements to it. Shows like Wonder Egg Priority is one of them. Oshi no Ko is another. And it's this past season's big one! So obviously I had to check it out. Before we get started, a short trigger warning: This series deals with topics regarding self-harm, so please be aware of that before watching it. Story & Characters: Oshi no Ko starts us out with Ai Hoshino, who is a popular idol figure in the group B Komachi.She sings on stage on captivates fans on TV and on stage. Idol culture isn't something everyone's aware of, but what audiences basically have to know is that idol groups are basically music groups who put an emphasis on singing and dancing on a stage. These are similar to your every day band performance, but puts emphasis on the singers, and dancing they perform, and basically none on the musicians themselves. One day, Ai takes a leave of absence from the stage in order to deal with some health issues. At least publicly that's what she's dealing with. What she's actually dealing with is the pregnancy of twins and much of the first episode takes place around the hospital where she eventually gives birth to Ruby and Aquamarine (or Aqua for short). We eventually take some time skips until we reach the point where the Hoshino twins are in school, hoping to make a difference in the musical world as well.

Aqua is more-so the focus in the first half of the series, and his mission in life is to find a certain individual. He seeks to do this by following connections that he finds throughout the industry. Since he's officially to young to take on paid work, he becomes an understudy for a director he met while following his mom around, and does light editing work. This means he's more of an off-camera guy, but he's dead set on finding everything he can to achieve his goal. He's rather harsh sometimes, but he does have a lighter side, especially when it comes to protecting his sister's asperations of becoming an idol like her mom. Ruby has far more energy, and basically wants to hit the big stage from an early age. She's a pretty big softy at times, like her brother, but wants to make the most of her life becomes of events in the past that made it hard on herself. She's focused far more on in the second half of the series, and the split in focus between the twins in the season was nice for keeping the pacing quick and fresh. Finally, most of what we know about Ai isn't directly shown on screen, but rather, told to us. This is definitely done on purpose, and but of the series' thing is keeping her early life before closed doors. I like the approach, and is what drives much of the plot, especially in the early going.

Kana Arima, like Ruby, has high asperations to be in an idol group. She was 'discovered' at a very early age, and did many on-camera performances. You can tell she doesn't love everything about her past and that link is a sore spot for herself. Unlike Ruby though, she knows how the industry functions, to an extent, and is very harsh on others when they're unknowingly ignore towards it. It adds a nice mix to our characters, and by the time we hit the end, you barely remember. Miyako Saitou, like Aqua, does a lot of work in the background. She works for Strawberry Productions, the idol agency that our characters belong to. She's not too involved in the story, but I found her character motivations weirdly inconsistent considering what she was trying to do in the first episode. Akane is student that enters the same school as Aqua and Ruby early on, and particularly takes an interest in the former. Like Kana, she has a past that she isn't too proud of, but her story gets very deep. Her brief arc might've been the best of the series. MEM-cho is another character that seeks to be an idol, but aside her high energy, I didn't much care for her. Other characters like Taishi, Masaya and Minami have very brief roles, but fit in decently.

I've gotta admit, I wasn't a huge fan of the first episode. It's eighty minutes long and tells us a lot of about Aqua and Ruby's childhood, much of which relates to Ai. After you watch it, it makes sense why it's on its own to start. This is fine, but it really didn't make me feel for what happened to our characters here. It's meant to set up our characters' motives and while it certainly tries that, I wasn't sold on the execution. The things that are kept hidden to our audience - likely on purpose - feel like they're too important.

The thing that stands out with Oshi no Ko is that the tone changes a lot. This is part of the reason why it's really hard to classify it's genre. Drama, music, slice-of-life, school... it all kind of blends together. But that's what makes this series really strong. It manages to pull this all off without feeling like it's leapfrogging from spot to spot. Pacing is kept consistently quick and it never feels like it's dragging. Most noticeably, it jumps from darker to lighter moments episode to episode. These are both handled really well because so much care is done to make sure both the bad and good are drawn out. The ending is an excellent portrayal of the good.

One of the plot points that's followed is regarding the individual that Aqua is looking for. It does feel like a bit of a wild goose chase at points, but they it ultimately is done fine enough. You have an idea who we're looking for, but I figure that the already-announced second season will focus on that. What is does successfully is take you through the steps of what Aqua's trying to do, but those steps along the way provide meaningful growth for him, and the season as a whole. After all, we wouldn't have met all our characters if not for it because there are still some good ones outside of the ones I've already mentioned. (Story: 9/10, Characters: 8/10)

Art: Doga Kobo isn't exactly a big name studio, but they did a solid job here. Their work with Shikimori's Not Just a Cutie was very pretty at times and less so at others. The stands true here. I actually found the start wasn't the best animated, especially the back half of the first episode (which runs longer than an hour in total). Still, there's enough good here that outweighs the bad. (8/10)

Sound: The OST was decent, but nothing stuck out too much. Both the OP, Idol by Yoasobi and ED, Mephisto by Queen Bee were awesome. The OP has a very light tone, but the lyrics are anything but. The ED is a heavier tune that has lyrics that are even harsher than the OP was.

One thing I have to get off my chest is that online harassment is wrong, regardless of the situation that you're seeing. Harassing the VOs because you don't like their work is another level of stupid though. Kristen McGuire (Akane) has a long resumé, and should have earned people's respect by now. This might not be a top tier performance, but that hate she was getting was beyond what anyone should need to deal with - she was still fantastic, and honestly, maybe my favourite VO of this series. And that might be an minor problem here. I wasn't the biggest fan of the VO direction here. Shannon Reed previously worked on Real Girlfriend, which I thought had VO issues throughout the entire thing. This was far better, but it feels like there are some things that weren't as polished as I would have liked. There's still some solid talent here though - Juliet Simmons (MEM-cho), Jack Stansbury (Aqua), Andrew Love (Pieyon) and Alejandro Saab (Sumiaki) were the best of the bunch. (7/10)

Overall: Oshi no Ko was very strong, but not overwhelmingly so. It tells some really strong stories, including the realities of idol life that really stick out, in a good way. There's another season out, so outside of Aqua's goal, I'm not sure where they go. Regardless, I'll check it out when it happens. (8/10)