Oshi No Ko (The Idol’s Children)
Genre: Drama, Supernatural, Idol
Studio Doga Kobo
Hello my Friends. Welcome to Another entry of my blog.
I have been very busy this month of April, because I have been working in book for the last weeks, and at the first days of April, I sufferes a pretty acute viral infection that left me in bed for almost a week, and finally, I am planning some holidays for July, so I got a lot of things to do.
Nonetheless, I have also a lot of time to watch some good anime, and prepare some good entries, including Demon Slayer: To The Swordsmith Village, Konosuba, Handyman Saitou, Buddy Daddies, Tomo-chan is a Girl, Hell’s Paradise, Engage Kiss, Maniac, Ranking of Kings, and some manga, including Dandadan, Goodbye Eri, Chainsaw Man part 2 . But right now, I am going to talk about.
OSHI NO KO
To be honest, I did not wanted to take too much time in this story, especially because I thought it wold be that special, but… Damn!!! After watching the first two episodes, and listening to the opening song, I said to myself.
“If I do not talk about Oshi no Ko soon, I will have a heart attack, or a coma.”
This is definitely one of the biggest surprises of anime, especially in 2023, I haven’t felt like this with an anime since Summer Time Rendering, which, by the way, I also made a review a year ago. Here is the link so you can check it out.
But first, I must ask you the typical question:
Are you guys ok? Feeling healthy?
If the answer is yes, then I am happy, now, let’s go to see the fight for the Idolhood (Is that even a word), with Oshi no Ko.
PREMISE
Oshi no Ko, 【推しの子】, is based on the manga written by Aka Akasaka. Yes… This Aka Akasaka!
And illustrated by Mengo Yokoyari, who wrote a peculiar manga called Scum’s Wish, which I hope I can review pretty soon.
Anyway, Oshi no Ko features Ai Hoshino, a very popular idol and main lead of the idol group called B-Komachi. In the recent days, Ai announced that she will be in hiatus, and the reason, believe it or not, is that she is pregnant. The identity of the father is unknown, at least for now. The point is that Ai is under the care of gynaecologist Gorou Amemiya, who is a fan of Ai and will conduct the delivery. Unfortunately, the night before the procedure, Gorou is murdered by a deranged fan of Ai.
Surprinsingly, Gorou reincarnates as one of the children of Ai, the other being a former patient of Gorou who was also a fan of Ai. That’s right. Ai had twins, Aquamarine “Aqua”, who is Gorou and retains the memories of his previous life, and Ruby.
After the babies are born, Ai balances her career as an idol and being a mother, with the help of her agent, Ichigo Saito, and his wife, Miyako. The three look after the twins, and both learn about the harsh reality and complexity of the life of the idols, still, all have a pretty decent life.
That is, until one day, four years after the delivery, the same fan that murdered Gorou…
…murders Ai in cold blood and commits suicide. The twins and the Saitou are devastated, until Aqua, through some deductions, concludes that the murderer was contacted by Ai’s partner, that is… the twins’ biological father.
From that moment, Aqua sets his plan to find his father and get revenge.
Aka Akasaka and Mengo Yokoyari released Oshi no Ko in April 23, 2020, two years before concluding Kaguya-sama: Love is War, and by April 30, on almost the third anniversary of this story, Oshi no Ko has eleven volumes. And the anime, produced by Doga Kobo (Say Yesterday for Me, Shikimori-san is not just a Cutie), started broadcasting on April 12, having released three episodes, each of them pretty good.
Finally, Oshi no Ko has absolutely, one of the best songs of 2023, called Idol, performed by Yoasobi. And believe me… The song rocks!!! It perfectly fits the superficiality, glamour, challenges and dark side of the idol world, but also the joy, energy and beauty of Japanese idols.
I have never felt this frenzied with an opening song since Kick-Back, from Chainsaw Man.
And I would share with you the whole opening, but that would do any justice to this fantastic song, so I will put both links, the TV version and the long version. Trust me, both are worth it.
STORY
Ok. It is time for me to be honest. I have no idea where to start for describing the story of Oshi no Ko. I am literally feeling like this.
I will start saying that I was… shocked. I was perplexed. Because I never expected for the same creator of Kaguya-Sama: Love is War to write such a dark story. I thought it will similar to the latter in everything, especially with such a colourful cover of the first volume
I am dead… freaking serious. However, then I realise that the same person who illustrated Oshi no Ko was the same one behind Scum’s Wish. But now, I see that is true, because the art style of both series is pretty similar.
Finally, some of my friends from the Anime Club just told me that they were heartbroken after watching the first episode. And for very good reasons.
Overall, episode one knows how to balance drama with comedy, starting with a really jovial and energetic Ai Hoshino leading the other idols from B-Komachi, then jumping to the scene of the hospital, with her being pregnant, and know more about Gorou Amemiya, who is a very introverted and reserved person, very logical to say the least, even after being reincarnated as Aqua, he maintains that trait of personality.
Furthermore, I think the story shifts the tone in the perfect moments, when Gorou is murdered by the obsessed fan, or during the murder of Ai. And I think the reason of that is that we already know the characters, their dreams, their struggles, their hopes, and their reasons for loving what they do, and we fall in love with them. Not literally, but we empathize with them, we want them to succeed in everything despite in some of the cases, the battle is lost, like the case of Sarina, Gorou’s patient who has practically been living in hospitals.
By the way, Sarina is Ruby.
And then, the first episode gives us a bit of a break when Aqua and Ruby are born, and then… Oh my Gosh!!! The best scene of all the anime. Look.
Seriously, I couldn’t stop laughing, and feeling comfy of how cute Aqua and Ruby were. And all they could say was…
One could thought that babies talking might take some credit to Episode one due to being so fantastic. But it didn’t. All the contrary. It really add to the story pretty well.
Then we get some quality time with Ai, Ruby, Aqua, Ichigo and Miyako, showing us the harsh reality of being an idol.
And finally…
All that in ninety minutes. I was longer than the first episode of Demon Slayer: To the Swordsmith Village.
Anyway. The story of Oshi No Ko is incredibly beautiful, well-paced, entertaining, heartbroken, and pretty enjoyable, in both happy and tragic moments.
CHARACTERS
What can I say about the characters. I think I already said that I needed to say, but I end up loving all of them.
Except Ai’s murderer.
But the rest are well constructed. Ai is an idol who wants to be with her children and maintain her reputation as an idol, Ruby is an optimistic girl eager to follow her mother’s footsteps, Aqua is an anti-hero that loves his family, but has questionable methods to show it, Miyako starts being jealous, but evolves into a supportive foster mother for the twins, Ichigo is the textbook manager who cannot avoid being a fan himself.
And before I forget to say, Gorou is a professional doctor, rational but well-intentioned, and Sarina, being aware of her condition, maintains an admirable spirit that is perfectly contagious.
And none of them feel artificial, all of them are organic and realistic, especially Ruby and Aqua after being born.
And the characters get better, even after the story gets darker, because, trust me, it does, the same happened with Scum’s Wish, and it will happen here.
But that will be for another time.
CONCLUSION
Oshi No Ko has proven to be one of the best anime of this spring/autumn of 2023, and has the potential of becoming one of the best anime of this year.
Will it succeed?
I think it will. But the impression that it left me with remain for quite a long time, and until we know the identity of the twins’ dad, we will be watching a pretty intense stories, like Scum’s Wish.
I cannot wait until I write my next entry, but for now, I will enjoy a bit of time with our greatest idol…
Mitsuri Kanroji.
See you my friends.
Jainituos Presents 