Review of [Oshi No Ko]

“I have absolutely no interest in idols or the culture surrounding them. Frankly, I find the concept of grown-ass men (and to a lesser extent women), idolizing girls as young as 15 to be… strange at best and utterly creepy at worst. The only reason I picked up Oshi No Ko is because Aka Akasaka wrote it; the author that just happened to write Kaguya-sama, my favorite overall series. Despite the name behind it, I admittedly still had my prejudices.“ That is how I introduced my preliminary review; an admittedly vapid work where I sung my praises about Oshi No Ko by sucking off the firstepisode in ways previously thought impossible by scientists. That review somehow got away with mentioning the second and third episodes for a total of 29 words: about 5% of the entire review. What you may see as shameless pandering to an internet-breaking episode in an effort to drum up updoots on the internet, (in hindsight, it probably comes off like that, although it wasn’t intentional) I see it as an accurate portrayal of the general consensus of the series through the first 3 episodes.

You cannot deny the quality of the first episode without blatantly hating. It serves as the perfect hook to the series by building up a faux premise that is subsequently destroyed by a Madoka Magica-level plot twist. This destroys any type of preconceptions that the viewer had before the series and even during the episode, while also getting the viewer hyped for what’s to come next. The decision to make the first episode 80 minutes long as opposed to making the 4 episodes of normal length also benefits the hook as some viewers may have dropped the series during the first 3 episodes before the actual premise was revealed. However, the second and third episodes were just traditional set-up episodes that were nowhere near first in terms of impact or scope. As the third episode ended, when the hype of the first episode had begun to subside, some people, including me, were beginning to wonder “Would this shit fall off”? In hindsight, I can laugh at this. I tried so hard not to like this series between my preconceptions of the idol genre at the beginning and my skepticism towards the series through the third episode. But here I am, writing a 10/10 review and preaching to the masses that Oshi No Ko is the FUCKING ANIME OF THE SEASON.

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me dispel a misconception about Oshi No Ko. This shit is not an idol anime. It’s not an acting anime, or a mystery anime, or even a romance anime. This series is a damn near exposé that reveals the good, bad and the ugly of the Japanese entertainment industry. That statement is a bit fictitious as the “good” is shown to be what we, the audience, get to see. That perfect smile, the flashy performances, the love confessions, all of the stuff we consider to be the “good” parts of the entertainment industry mask the “bad”: the lies, the suffering, and the depression. The “ugly”: terrible situations that make news and garner support and sympathy on social media before fading into obscurity as all news does. It doesn’t appear an obsessive amount in the series, but it keeps the audience on their toes because, at any moment, shit can hit the fan. This premise works so well because of its novelty to the genre and because it affects characters that the audience is quick to empathize with. Oshi No Ko deals with real problems that really happen to real people, and as a result of that, it handles those problems with a large amount of realism that permeates into every aspect of the story: especially the characters A large amount of realism helps the characters be more relatable, which in turn makes the audience more likely to empathize with the characters, which allows the aforementioned concept to flourish.

Most anime develop their characters with tragic backstories or extraordinary experiences to garner sympathy or excitement for the character moving forward. The only problem with this is that most of these developments are completely unrelatable for the audience. The audience is unlikely to relate to having their family killed by demons or being sold into slavery at a young age. The audience is less likely to empathize with or enjoy unrelatable characters. This isn’t a problem in most story-driven series as the objective there is to create a character that the audience can sympathize with, not empathize with. This is perfectly fine because, in many of these stories, the audience only needs to feel bad for the character; they don’t have to understand or relate to what they are feeling. However, in character-based stories like Oshi No Ko, it’s much more important to make the audience sympathize and empathize with the characters through relatability founded in realism. In an effort to make relatable characters, stories must also make sure that they don’t outright pander to the audience with characters whose sole objective is for the audience to project upon them. The characters of Oshi No Ko perfectly straddle that line in a way that makes the audience empathize with their problems and root for their successes to a far greater extent than what is common in the genre.

A childhood phenom that fell off as she matured who is hungry for her next opportunity to get back into the limelight while perpetually writhing in the cynicism and despair that comes with the possibility that reviving her career may be impossible. A theater performer driven by feelings of uselessness and ineptitude that cause her to overact in a way that ruins her big break and causes an abundance of heinous discourse to befall her. A content creator who aged out of her dream due to familial obligations. Upon first glance, the relatability of some of these side characters may seem minuscule at best. However, upon a closer look, you can see that the side character archetypes in Oshi No Ko underlie some of the basic human fears that threaten self-actualization. The fear of falling off, the fear of not living up to other's expectations, the fear of aging out of the things you love to do, it’s all here and is probably the most relatable aspect of the series.

Now, for the past two paragraphs, I pretty much exclusively talked about how relatable the characters in this series are and how that makes them easy to empathize with. However, throw that shit out the window for Aqua and Ruby as they both fail into the former category of characters in story-driven series, rather than the latter category of series like Oshi No Ko.
(You might be able to explain this because they are reincarnations that aren’t from the present day, but I digress.)

This doesn’t affect Aqua as he’s probably the best character in the series. He’s really similar to a Light Yagami or a Lelouch VI Britannia: a genius who masterminds the plot to accomplish their extreme goal. The reason why he is a genius is actually a little better explained than Light or Lelouch; He was a doctor in his previous life, so he’s naturally intelligent and he uses the experiences he gained in his previous life to make deductions as Aqua. Unlike the two aforementioned characters, he actually hides his genius well through his acting. I’m not implying that Aqua is a better character than Light or Lelouch; it would be silly to say that after just 11 episodes. But I will say that Aqua invokes the same feeling that Lelouch and Light invoke in the audience, and at the very least, he deserves a spot at their proverbial roundtable.

As for Ruby, she heads the B plot while Aqua heads the A plot. However, the A plot takes priority up until the final episodes. The B plot is intermittently developed along with the A plot, and it’s actually Aqua’s motivation for some of the stuff he does throughout the series, but it’s to a far lesser extent than the A plot. Even when the B plot does get screen time as the primary focus, it mainly focuses on Kana and later Mem-Cho. Because of this, Ruby is a far less developed character than Aqua. (This is actually one of my only complaints about the series.) She’s not a bad character, her backstory is actually pretty moving, she just clearly lacks the development that Aqua gets. I expect this to change in later seasons, but as of right now, Oshi No Ko’s B plot is less impactful than the A plot by a decent margin.

There has been a recent trend in the anime industry where production quality just keeps improving; Bocchi the Rock and Chainsaw Man were last year’s proof of that. Oshi No Ko follows that trend of improvement by having way better direction, animation, and music than is necessary for the genre. The quality of direction can easily be shown by the decision to make the first episode 80 minutes long, or how each episode ends with an impactful moment to hype the audience instead of a cliffhanger. The animation quality can be seen literally everywhere, but it’s most impactful when it involves a character’s eyes, especially Aqua’s dark star eyes. And for the music, the Op and Ed are my personal choices for the best in their respective categories for the season. I understand that music is subjective, but if you do a lyric analysis, you can understand that both Op and Ed correlate to the story to a much greater extent than in other series. Not to mention that both of them slap.

In conclusion, Oshi No Ko is the FUCKING ANIME OF THE SEASON. The first episode hits like a Mac Truck, ushering in a unique and novel premise. This premise is supported by realistic characters that deal with realistic problems, which makes them relatable. This allows the audience to easily empathize with them. The main characters are excellent, well, Aqua is excellent, Ruby isn’t fully developed yet, and that’s why I’m off to the manga to find that coveted Ruby development.

Thank you for reading and fuck HiDive.