#Hoshino family

[retr0scum]

way too many Katamari doodles

[thefigureresource]

Ai, Aqua & Ruby Hoshino : Mother and Children [Oshi no Ko] 1/8 scale from Kadokawa coming February 2025.

[love-me-mister]

something black and wretched twists in my gut whenever the main 4 (aqua, ruby, kana and akane) are featured in some new shiny promotional art for the series and ai is also there. drawn the same age as her kids. never older, never dressed differently as if she isn't born in a different generation than the main cast. and it hits me all over again that she died so young. barely or not even twenty years old. she died protecting her kids, what family she has left, and that was it. the brightest tragedy there is. and then aqua never even gets to reach his mom's age. he dies at eighteen. what the fuck

[aihoshiino]

For those of you who weren't around in the early days of the anime boom, you may not know that OnK briefly collabed with Panasonic to have Ai star in a handful of commercials advertising their SOLOTA countertop dishwashing machine. It seems like the official uploads of these ads have been taken down for some reason which meant a particular vid went missing - a cute, two hour lo-fi of Ai relaxing as her SOLOTA unit does her dishes. There's a few really cute snippets of character animation and Aqua and Ruby show up once or twice, so it was a shame for it to go missing!

@oshinohoshi reminded me that I'd managed to archive it before the official upload went down and just forgot to post it on tumblr, so here it is!

[yuseirra]

This manga is truly the epitome of avoidant disaster (Hoshino family analysis)

Yeah... Jotted this down earlier this morning :/ it's been machine-translated so if the writing feels off in some parts, it could be because of that!

After everything, my personal impression of the original manga is that it hurls misfortunes at its characters without resolving, healing, or addressing any of them. Everyone just seems to endure, carrying their festering wounds for years while pretending they’re fine, hiding them, burying them, or even living submerged in them. No one truly confronts their pain or thinks about what to do with it.

Aqua says he’s seeking revenge, but it’s not what he truly wants. He’s suppressing his inner wounds, telling himself it will all be over once he avenges Ai, and that he’ll die afterward. Then he claims it’s all for Ruby, but to me, that feels like rationalization. What Aqua really wanted was to live happily. He kept avoiding his genuine desires.

Ruby said she was chasing her dreams and seemed to be thriving, but in the end, she also turned into an avoidant type.

Ai… she tried so hard, but her basic attachment style leans avoidant. Ai really lived her life with all her might, didn’t she? Yet, as an idealist who wanted so much, she often compromised to make those around her happy. It seems like she always held herself back, standing a step or two away from what could have made her truly happy. She kept postponing things. She would have been happiest if she revealed her truth, but the reality was that the world wouldn’t have accepted it. That’s undeniable.

I think Ai genuinely loved her boyfriend and wanted to convey her feelings to him, but was there just too much to lose if she did? It’s such a classic avoidant way to end things—truly loving someone but cutting them off abruptly, without properly explaining anything, coming to conclusions on her own, and distancing herself. Aqua, it turns out, inherited this unfavorable trait from his mother.

Still… I think if Ai had survived, she would have eventually made a revelation, created a documentary, or told her story. She seemed to be enduring to her limit. If the kids had grown older and more time had passed, or if Kamiki had just gone to see the kids when he got that call instead of sending flowers, I feel like things could have worked out. But instead, he didn’t go, and tragedy struck, leaving everyone miserable. If he had just gone to see them? Everything might have turned out okay. Or if it had happened earlier, while Ai was still in the hospital.

Kamiki… sigh. There’s so little revealed about him, but among the family, he seems to have become the most honest about his desires. However, that doesn't come from his right state of mind... From my perspective, this character completely lost his mind after Ai died. He seems to be in such anguish. Honestly, I think he was as good as dead the moment Ai passed away. His despair feels like something out of Mephisto or Fatal. If Aqua were to turn out to be the one who's, responsible for those songs, the writer is crazy!! I would truly curse them. You just can’t write the story that way. It would invalidate Kana, Akane, and Ruby all at once. That would be horrifying. It would mean Aqua spent the entire series forming connections and relationships with others while secretly being obsessed with Ai. But to Ai, Aqua is her child. If that’s the conclusion, it would feel so wrong. But when you consider Kamiki’s devotion, his emptiness, his corruption—it fits him more than anyone else. Yeah, those songs are his all right.

Returning to Kamiki… he seems to be in terrible shape. His current form feels like fragments barely clinging to the shell of his former self. If Aqua is rotting from within, Kamiki feels like a hollowed-out specter, a human husk that’s already crumbled. He seems to have kept living purely out of some stubborn resolve. And what remained for him? His desire to meet Ai or the urge to bring her back to life. It seems like that was all he had left, and he abandoned everything else, deeming it unnecessary. His state feels beyond avoidant; it’s like he’s become a ghost.

Was this truly the same person who spent time with Ai? He’s so hollow now. How does someone end up like this?

In any case, none of the characters fully addressed their wounds or healed. Ai had plans to confront hers, but the writer killed her off before she could. She should have gone to her boyfriend and had a proper conversation. The video was a plan, but she was planning to confess her love and delay it for 15 years? While having such a huge regret that'd remain for so long. Surely Kamiki wouldn’t have completely misunderstood, would he? He wasn’t a bad person—if anything, he was the kind of person who could help Ai grow.

When a friend said this manga was about everyone being avoidant, I didn’t quite get it, but now it hits home. Everyone keeps burying their true feelings, convincing themselves they want something else, and spiraling endlessly. And in the end, they just keep doing that. The characters started with avoidance and never truly faced their real wishes.

Kamiki is the only one tied so deeply to making and granting wishes. He must be the one who granted those in the story. And yet, because no one expressed their true desires, Kamiki ended up fulfilling all the wrong ones.

That’s why no one’s wishes came true. Even Ruby’s wish feels deceptive—it can’t be considered truly resolved.

Still, Ai had some potential. As for Kamiki... if what he testified about himself is true (and it probably is), then rather than being avoidant, I think the fact that he was abused and became passive was the root cause of many things. Looking at him consistently, he didn’t take much action. And when he did, it often led to bad outcomes. If we’re asking when he started to change or began manipulating people, I think it happened after Ai died. He became her mentor because he was asked to. Ai was the one who stepped up to protect him, and when he tried to sever ties with his abuser, he ended up being gaslit. He froze up.

He’s the type of person who’d hesitate to visit Ai in person the way he's described it as, that's why I don't think he lied in 160. His cautious nature seems to be part of his core personality. When Ai needs something, she’d step up, while he seems more introverted. The idea that he deliberately avoided her or schemed to harm her doesn’t sit right with me. It’s still ambiguous, but judging by how much he liked Ai, it feels like he was afraid she’d reject him, so he hesitated.

But after Ai’s death, it seems like he awakened to something… maybe this just became his behavioral pattern. He’s not someone who actively takes charge, but it feels like he learned to make use of others to achieve his goals. And all of those goals revolved around Ai. It seems like he wanted to keep delivering something to her. Thinking about it, he probably became this way because he didn’t visit her back then, and then after that, he could never see her again even if he wanted to. That longing must have consumed him. So, he really might have been the ultimate avoidant personality.

Wow… this entire family is just ridiculously avoidant.

Still, Kamiki seems like he’s charging straight toward what he wants with no hesitation after losing his mind. The problem is, what he wants no longer exists in this world. Judging by his actions, if Ai were still alive, he might have shrunk back again, been scared, dug himself into a hole, and avoided everything. But because there’s no chance of meeting her now, he’s become reckless.

Everyone should have gone to therapy together... seriously.

LOL. Ah… well, life is short. I hope everyone manages to achieve and get what they want! Fighting!! ♥ This might actually be a very educational manga... though it’s pretty brutal.

The author might be avoidant too, judging by the themes in their work. No offense, but that’s just what I’m thinking. Everyone in the story just circles around what they want without ever actually getting it. The only exception might be Kamiki, who became a little more honest about his desires after going insane, and Ai… if this were another story, maybe she would’ve achieved what she wanted. But this story is so frustrating and harsh. It’s cruel... Who should we even blame? (The writer...yeah. Has to be the writing)

[greatwyrmgold]

i feel like everyone has their own vision for this in their head, so what do YOU think an Ai Lives version of OnK would be like? both in terms of what you think the manga itself would have been like and what you, as a fan, would like to see for the characters in that kind of scenario

So, the fun thing is, I've had a few Ai Lives AU fanfics kinda outlined and semi-scripted in the back of my head. I'll try to keep "what I think makes sense for the AU" separate from "what I thought I could justify in that fanfic," but no promises.

I will divide this into two sections. First, I'll discuss how I expect the Hoshino family dynamic would shift over time if nothing disrupted it. Second, I'll discuss a disruption that I expect/hope would happen sooner or later.

The Hoshino Family

Much like HikAi, the Hoshino family is a bunch of people with complimentary unresolved traumas. Like HikAi, there's theoretically a way where these mesh together cleanly and let everyone involved heal without complication, like a broken bone that sets itself.

Like HikAi, that would require implausible serendipity. Unlike HikAi, I don't see that devolving into violence. But the idyllic Hoshino would devolve into a normal, mildly dysfunctional family, composed of people who have minimal experience with anything except the idyllic Hoshino family and idiosyncratic forms of filial abuse.

Aqua has the least baggage. But depending on how his slide from Goro to Aqua turns out, as Ai and Ruby's baggage comes up, I can imagine him appointing himself as the Family Adult without even realizing it. The part of him that's still Goro still sees Ai as his patient, someone who needs his help.

Of course, Ai doesn't know Aqua remembers being his mother's doctor. To her, this just feels like the child/parent relationship being inverted. And I don't think she'd like that much! She'd probably blame herself before Aqua, thinking that this is all because she's a terrible childish mother, but still.

As for Ruby...she'd react basically how you'd expect a little sister to react to her big brother telling her what to do.

There'd be more tension between Ruby and Ai. Ruby wants the unconditional love a mother is supposed to give her child, Ai wants to feel like she can give someone that love; they should mesh like puzzle pieces designed for each other. But that's conditional on Ai being able to express that love.

One of the AU fics I've outlined is the first time Ai has to spend several weeks away from home. She stars in a move with a bunch of scenes shot in Hokkaido or somewhere, and a week or two later B-Komachi has its first world tour scheduled, and then that gap gets unexpectedly filled when Ai gets hospitalized away from Tokyo. (Maybe she broke her leg in a skiing accident or caught an infectious disease or something.)

Anyways, the end result is that for a couple of months, Ruby doesn't see her mama. All she has are occasional phone calls. Even if the rational part of Ruby realizes that her mama isn't intentionally abandoning her, she feels abandoned, and doesn't appreciate Aqua's appeals to her rationality. She needs Mama and mama isn't here! And Ruby's lonely and scared and mad and explodes when Mama finally shows up again. And Ai is dying inside because she feels like she's failed her kids on a fundamental level.

If there's a single moment where the "idyllic Hoshino family" phase ends, it's that. Maybe not that exact scenario, but whatever moment where Ai's work means she can't maintain that intense positive affection. After that, no matter how real Ai's love for Ruby is, it's not going to feel real the way it used to.

Crucially: The actual Hoshino family experience is, objectively, not that bad. But to Ai and Ruby, it feels like they stepped off the slippery slope. Ai worries that she's going to keep slipping until she's as bad as Ayumi, while Ruby worries that Mama's going to keep growing more and more distant until she's abandoned, like everyone except Sensei abandoned her.

Part of the problem is that the Hoshino family is kinda left to stew by itself. As long as Ai of B-Komachi is a public figure, she has to keep lying. She can't admit that she's the mother of her children to anyone she doesn't trust absolutely. That means they can't give her advice, or comfort, or even point out that from their perspective the family is still okay. It's fine. They're fine. It's fine.

(I guess there's Ichigo and Miyako. But they're not exactly an ideal nuclear family themselves.)

Odds are, the Hoshinos will stew in the fear and paranoia about becoming a Bad Family until something disrupts their status quo.

The Hoshino Disruption

The argument that Ai of B-Komachi needs to hide her family for her whole life, or at least her whole career, is contingent on Ai Hoshino being able to hide her family for her whole career. When she's just a semi-famous idol with a couple kid-kittens at home, that's not unreasonable.

But as Ai of B-Komachi's fame grows, more and more people will poke around, looking for a lead that could make their carer, or at least a tidbit that could let them pay rent. And as Ai Hoshino's kids grow, it will be harder and harder for her to balance their needs and desires against her career.

In one of the AU fics I outlined in my head, the dominoes fall like this: The Saitous set up a livestream so Ai can watch her kids' first sports festival, a paparazzi catches her watching it, he recognizes one of the kids as that boy from That Was the Start, then does a little digging to find out that that boy and his sister are legally the kids of Ai's boss, then does a little more digging to find some circumstantial evidence suggesting that Ichigo Saitou's wife was not actually pregnant when the twins were born and also they seem suspiciously close to Ai of B-Komachi.

Nothing definitive, but enough suggestions and raised questions to catch the world's attention. Because by this point, Ai of B-Komachi is the global face of J-Pop. However these suspicions accumulated into circumstantial evidence, finding out that this perfect, pure idol might have had a secret boyfriend and two children is a major story in Entertainment News.

And then there's Kamiki.

Maybe Strawberry Productions could have answered those suspicions and provided something more (seemingly) concrete than all that circumstantial evidence. But as indicated by the Ai Dies primary universe, Kamiki is still emotionally clinging to Ai and prone to doing impulsive things at her.

In my fic outline, Kamiki crashes a press release where Ai and the Saitous are answering questions about these allegations. He basically says "Yes, it's all true, Ai had children and I'm the father! Ai, will you marry me???" And Ai panics and agrees on live TV and there's no walking that back, even though she realizes it was a mistake.

Whatever the details, Kamiki is gonna do something that makes it impossible for Strawberry Productions to just dismiss the rumors out of hand. If they don't admit that they hid their idol's pregnancy, there are gonna be investigations. And those kids are Ai's children; if Kamiki elevates this story from top-tier celebrity gossip to an evening-news controversy, the truth will come out sooner or later.

The Fallout

Whatever ends up happening to Kamiki, whether he gets to marry the love of his life or gets murdered by Ryosuke for defiling history's most perfect idol, the Hoshino family is free of the burdens of secrecy. Ai can go to PTA meetings and take her kids to the movie theater and show baby pictures to her colleagues. She has so many baby pictures she never got to show anyone, it'll be years before she shows anyone pictures of what they look like now.

Of course, they'll have new burdens. Ai is probably too famous and skilled to go completely without work, but her reputation and income will probably never recover. And Ai of B-Komachi's ex-fans are going to exert as much pressure as they can. Ruby, who has been flaming the haters since she was a toddler, is going to give them more clickbait than they know what to do with.

But at least Ai Hoshino can stop lying. And whatever tribulations she must face, I don't think the Hoshino Family can know peace until that happens.

[soup-lover39]

More fankids!!!! The vegan (Momoi Emiko) and the vegetarian (Hoshino Nagisa) >_<

[aquamarine-hoshino]

Since we've met Ai's mother Ayumi in the manga, do you think Ai's grandparents could still be alive? They would be at least 76~77 by now, and her great-grandparents if even alive- would be 97+... Or even Hikaru's?

What do you think? Would they like to meet their great/ great-great-grandkids Aqua and Ruby? (Speaking from experience, since my Moroccan great-grandfather is alive and well at 91 lol).

I must admit that I congratulate you for knowing your own great-grandfather and he is doing well at the age of 91. I am really happy for you and for him that he knows you! This is truly extraordinary happiness!

It would be so nice to meet their grandparents maybe they are still alive. As for the great-grandparents, I think it is unlikely because these are great-grandparents, it's really very rare to be able to meet your great-grandparents, although it's impossible! Still unlikely.

When it comes to grandparents, it is very possible that they are still alive and get to know them, but with great-grandparents… I'm not sure, probably not, there is still a % chance of meeting them, but for me it's unlikely - I have 50/50

It depends on the author and what he wants to reveal about the Hoshino family.Meeting great grandparents would be something new and a really good idea. I haven't seen a series in which great-grandparents could appear, so is an original idea for me.

Hope you like my answer! Thanks for the ask!

[perverted-martyr]

thinking about oshi no ko chapter 115

ruby trying to turn the truth into a 'lie'.

while ai was trying to turn her lies true.

[akimaisasleep]

[sunsetsmakemesad]

Yeah I found what I had to say about the hoshino eyes it's eyes are the window of the soul

[thefigureresource]

Shibuya Scramble Figure Ai, Aqua & Ruby Hoshino [Oshi no Ko] 1/7 scale from CyberZ coming June 2025.

[yaspup9000]

Drew some more of the hoshino family again..

why are the humans so strange..

[aihoshiino]

If Ai had lived, what kind of parent do you think she would have been to teenage Aqua and Ruby?

luckily for you anon, I have spent a truly healthy [<- lie] amount of time thinking about this!!! This is going to inevitably dip into how Ruby and Aqua are both changed by having her in their lives just because that obviously matters to how she and the twins interact but... honestly at this point if you're following me, my bi-weekly unhinged essays about the Hoshinos are what you're here for.

Also worth noting before I get into it that I'm purposely not thinking too hard about Current Things in the manga like the documentary Gotanda was working on or the DVDs........ we know so little about them I can't really factor them into my rambles here lol so consider this just my most ideal happy end AU for the Hoshinos.

Anyway, I think it goes without saying that Ai would continue being an excellent mom to Aqua and Ruby. There would likely be some bumps in the road following B-Komachi's dome performance as her fame and increased demand puts pressure on her time and energy but Ai's priority is and will always be her babies so I can definitely see her and Miyako having a Stern Talk with Ichigo at some point to make sure Ai isn't overbooked to the extent that she can't spend time with them lol.

I also have a totally self indulgent AU based on Emiya Gohan that lives in my head, based around the framing device of Ai wanting to learn how to cook so she can make proper food for the twins as they grow up... my read of Ai is that she has a lot of issues relating to food security as a result of the abuse & neglect she went through, so being able to make good food for her own children and sort of rewrite her own relationship with food and cooking would be really healing for her.

Something also interesting to consider is the question of whether Ai would have been able to work through enough of her baggage regarding expressing her love to Aqua and Ruby... it takes such a desperate a raw moment for her to finally conquer that fear in canon that it's hard for me to imagine it happening in anything less than an equally cathartic moment, you know? At the same time, I really love the idea of Ai's slow progress towards healing eventually allowing her to do it without that kind of urgent pressure... instead of dying, Ai lives so hard she can eventually overcome that fear by her own strength!!!

I also think there would be a lot more moments like Ai and Ruby's dance with both of the twins – moments of Ai helping them both to untangle the trauma and baggage they carry from their past lives just through the simple act of loving and supporting them as their mother. Both Ruby and Aqua are explicitly described as being children "who never had a mother in the real sense" before their rebirth – for Sarina, she suffered the emotional abuse and neglect of living with a toxic mother who centered and prioritized her own feelings of grief and pain to such a degree that she completely abandoned her dying daughter. For Gorou, he grew up in the shadow of his mother's death as a result of childbirth complications, blaming himself and carrying the burden of his grandparents' grief and expectations in ways that are implied to have strained his relationships with them and left him without a real mother in his life.

Not only is this a healing experience for the twins, it's also ugely cathartic for Ai, too. As I've mentioned before, Ruby's "it's okay for me to dance!" scene with Ai is soooo incredibly powerful because it's about these two victims of toxic motherhood finding safety, healing and empowerment in the wholly loving and supportive parent/child relationship they build together. In general, the Hoshino family is a safe place where these three people who suffered abuse, neglect and the absence of loving mothers could find a place to heal and be loved.

Because of this, while I don't think that Aqua and Ruby would be hugely different on the surface going into their teens, a ton of stuff under the hood would be massively impacted. I like to think that growing up with Ai as a positive influence in their lives would have allowed them to essentially lay Gorou and Sarina to rest much sooner than in canon – not to forget or erase those memories, necessarily, but to definitively move on as their own people, having purified Gorou and Sarina's lingering regrets and trauma and being able to wholeheartedly embrace their new happiness as Aqua and Ruby.

This also means that they both have a much healthier relationship with Ai, in a lot of ways. I don't think they'll ever stop putting her on a bit of a pedestal but more in the way that a lot of people do if they grow up with a loving and good mom. On that note, I also like to think that with Gorou's weird baggage not causing such a conflict that Aqua might actually start calling Ai "mom"....... it makes me so depresso that he never did.....!!!

Without the weight of Ai's death hanging over them and her full and loving support at their backs, Aqua and Ruby still find their way into the entertainment industry, though for different reasons. Without his guilt getting in the way of doing things he enjoys, Aqua can admit to himself that he enjoys acting and tentatively pursues it through his childhood as the protégé of Gotanda again but in happier circumstances. He has similar initial hurdles as he does in canon wrt comparing himself negatively to Ai and underselling his strengths, but Ai would have a good talk with him about valuing what he brings to the table and not worrying about matching up to anyone else. Eventually, he becomes pretty focused on like, weirdo ass self produced projects he does a lot of the work on (acting, directing and producing) that don't make a huge splash in the mainstream necessarily but are well beloved in niche and horror circles and Aqua's happy with his work entirely because it's his and he's happy to make it, which is most important.

Ruby follows a similar track as she does in canon with becoming a member of the second generation of B Komachi, still driven by love and admiration for her mom but from a much healthier and happier place. Rather than feeling like she has to live up to Ai's image in her absence, she is inspired by Ai's presence in her life, her active support and encouragement and her boundless love and excitement to see her kids do what makes them happy. The canonical B-Komachi gen 2 still come together in mostly the same ways because I love them too much to separate them but this time, they're directly mentored by Ai and go full force through the industry with her support.

Eventually, I do think the three of them go public about their family - probably around the time the twins have graduated from high school, just to properly allow them the chance to be relatively normal kids without the scandal and pressure of being Ai's children hanging over their heads. It definitely causes a bit of an explosion, but I think by then Ai would have successfully transitioned from being purely an idol and would be more of a general household name/celeb, so there isn't as much outcry, but it definitely still stirs up some trouble that she and the kids have to weather.

At the end of the day, though, her presence in their lives would be a huge boon to them and it results in all three of the Hoshinos being much happier and healthier people. This response uh got a way from me a little and turned into like a whole AU pitch but what are we here for if not to delulu ourselves about scenarios where the Hoshinos could be happy..............

[dreamyeuphoricll]

Happy mother's day 🥰❤️

Yor at the very top 🥹

[greatwyrmgold]

Reviewing early chapters of Oshi no Ko for fanfic purposes makes me wonder what the domestic situation of Ai and the twins and the Saitous was.

On one hand, there are lots of scenes of Ai and the twins and Miyako/Ichigo/both Saitous. Domestic scenes where they chat casually with couches or a kitchenette or something in the background, scenes clearly taking place at someone's apartment. And it would kinda make sense for the five of them to live together, since the twins are supposed to be the Saitous' kids and Ai doesn't want to live away from them.

But at the same time, a young idol living with her male boss would be radioactive optics. At worst, it could spiral into a scandal that destroys Strawberry Productions and B-Komachi on its own.

At best, it would turn their shared apartment into a papararazzi magnet, which is bad enough without hiding an unrelated nuclear scandal at the same apartment, especially since the twins look enough like Ichigo for people to think they're his kids. And all of that gets so much worse when you remember that Ichigo already has a reputation...

And anyways, Ai gets an apartment that Ichigo calls "your new place," not "our new place". So she obviously lives apart from the Saitous, right?

But they're around a lot. Hardly any apartment scenes before Ai's death are Saitou-free. Sure, part of that is because Ai has more plot-significant conversations with her producer and involuntary babysitter than she does alone with her infant children. Even so, the text we have implies that the Ichigos visit a lot.

And while the optics of a producer living with an idol are radioactive, the optics of regularly visiting her at her personal residence are not much better, even if he brings his wife. And we know the twins live with Ai (since we see them sleeping with her), and that seems like it would fatally wound the narrative that the twins are Miyako's kids if anyone paid enough attention.

EDIT: Also Miyako is working on her laptop in one of the domestic scenes, and that seems like a weird thing to bring with you when you're just visiting an idol working for your husband. Especially when there are a couple small children in the house.

I want to come to a conclusion, but I can't. Every time I try to articulate an arrangement that might work, I think of one of the points against it.