This show is so disingenuous.
We begin with the famous pop idol Ai Hoshino being murdered at her home by a crazy stalker, and her son Aqua, realizing that the only person from whom the stalker could have obtained their address was their unknown father, sets out on a path of revenge. That’s all very heartbreaking and stuff, but I want you, my dear reader, to ask this to yourself. Is Aqua the real son of Ai, devasted over the loss of their only parent and unable to understand how a fan can be so obsessed with their idol? Nope. Aqua is—drumroll—FUNDAMENTALLY THE SAME AS THE STALKER. Of course he wouldn’t ever harm Ai, but just like the stalker, he’s utterly obsessed and infatuated by Ai, so much so that he was literally reincarnated as her “son”. He seeks revenge not as a son, but as a fan. This distinction is important to make, because while I could sympathize with a real son agonizing over the loss of his mother, I couldn’t care less about a middle-aged dude getting all edgy over the death of his favourite idol.
But hey, I guess I am making a mountain out of a molehill. After all, this storyline is completely sidelined for the rest of the season, and we move to our next topic: the cut-throat nature of Japan’s idol industry. I might be the last guy to care about idols, but as someone who is just getting started with his professional life, I honestly thought this could be interesting and relatable. Unfortunately, the show simply lacks the gravitas. There’s this one character who listens to literally every single person, no matter how irrelevant or uninformed their opinion might be. She is depressed at the overwhelmingly negative response she’s getting online, and tries to commit suicide. Aqua saves her, and her friends make a candid video about her to improve her internet image. All this is great, but it still doesn’t address the root cause of her problems. She needs to learn to ignore others, and as someone who also used to be insecure about what others think of him, trust me that’s a terribly difficult thing to do. But the show doesn’t concern itself with all that, and promptly moves on to her imitating Ai to impress Aqua. There are more examples. There’s this other character who had been shunned by the industry simply because she was no longer a teenager. Aqua, being the nice guy he is, recruits her for a newly-formed idol group. But you have to understand that the people who rejected her did not do so out of some personal preference. Ultimately, it’s the audience who doesn’t want to see older girls. It doesn’t matter which idol group you join, because you would be reaching out to the same audience any way. And of course Oshi no Ko doesn’t address this. It seems to me that this aspect of the show only exists because Akasaka is too insecure to write a straightforward romcom. He wants to give the characters depth in order to appear superior to your average harem ensemble, but the only way he knows how is to give them an emo backstory. All these complex social and psychological issues are merely used as leverage for the audience’s sympathy, and are never explored in greater depth.
This show is not the emotional masterpiece it’s been made up to be, it’s nothing more than your average harem. Aqua is the self-insert MC for people who fantasize about women depending on them and/or falling for them, while they themselves remain emotionally detached and show no interest. Akane, Kana, Mem-Cho and Ruby are little more than your average waifus, who will never leave the idol industry (i.e., will never stop entertaining you), no matter how much they are troubled by it. And before all the fanboys come to my profile and say, ”Nooooo, how can you call this a harem? READ THE MANGA!!! It’s so dark and depressing and blah blah blah”, no thanks. There’s this weird belief in the anime & manga community that if after a hundred million chapters the author finally does something interesting, all the previous tomfoolery can become worthwhile, enjoyable even. Nope, this formula sucks. It’s a gigantic waste of time for the audience and an everlasting cash cow for the publishers and the production committee.
To conclude, if you want a good psychological anime about the brutal nature of the idol industry, go watch Perfect Blue. If you want a good revenge story, go read Berserk. If you want to watch a multicolored assortment of waifus feeling all doki-doki and waku-waku whenever the emotionally detached MC shows them the slightest gesture of kindness, yup, you’ve come to the right place.
Thank you for reading.
