#oshi no ko chapter 141

[ameltouati1]

Oshi no Ko Chapter 141 : Hikaru And Ai

I know the latest chapter of oshi no ko was very controversial and everyone is making their own speculation about what might happen but can we take a moment, just a tiny moment to appreciate this panel :

Hikaru has been lying his whole life, always fooling people and never showing his true colors. However, for the first time in his life, someone was able to see through his lies, someone who could tell that Hikaru wasn't fine as he always says.

And he opened up to her, we saw in the last chapter that both of them were enjoying each other company and having fun together but Hikaru seems to trust her a lot to the point of telling her about the abuse

And Ai, Ai went to confront Airi the moment she heard all of his story, which was huge change in her character, she usually seems detached from the world and not getting involved and always saying -not what she want to say but - what people want to hear, but here, she stood up for Hikaru's sake and made Airi know what she truly is (nothing but an abuser).

[akane-kurokawa]

Chapter 141 thoughts

CSA warning as always with this subplot, though I don’t really get into it this week.

Glad my immediate concerns were addressed, Airi’s character is still flat, but less in the “representation of something rather than a character” way and more in the minor side character way.

Ai is definitely speaking with Aqua’s written dialogue right now, that feels almost exactly like why he said to the director in the reality show arc, which has been proven to be a tenant of his character.

Also, maybe because we don’t have a time frame for this at the moment, but it’s weird imagining Ai confronting Airi like this? Direct confrontation is something Ai actively steers clear of most times, so she comes off as oddly bold here. Could be a sign of how close she and Hikaru are though.

Just included this one because Frill is absolutely killing this shit, we’ve seen so little of her acting despite her big reputation from early and we can see why more and more with every scene she’s in.

Very weird dialogue! Don’t love that (it could work better in the anime depending on delivery though?)

Also very weird! The emphasized “slut” in a chapter about women being forced or expected to engage in sexual situations by the entertainment industry was certainly a choice.

One step forward and three steps back lmao. Hoping next chapter gives us something conclusive for this stupid arc that’s gone no where and has been reduced to the most jarring excuse for comic relief in the series.

I got what I asked for last week, and am still walking away disappointed somehow. At least there’s not a break before the next one.

[aihoshiino]

chapter 141 thoughts!

The usual reminder: because of the content of this arc, I will unavoidably have to discuss CSA and topics related to it in this & future chapter reviews. I do not discuss them in great detail, but if you very understandably just aren't in the headspace for that, no hard feelings - look after yourself and I'll see you next time.

This chapter starts us off on the note of answering something I've been wondering for a while and confirming that Ai did, in fact, know that Hikaru was being abused by Airi. On the one hand, this feels like it should go without saying, since it answers the question of where Aqua would have gotten some of this info, but it feels strange to have this dropped on us in such a matter of fact way.

In general, I continue to be both baffled and impressed by Oshi no Ko's dedication to never showing characters learning or reacting to huge, status-quo altering pieces of information on screen lol. I think this is more a case of the movie's framing than the manga's - hard cutting from the HKAI exchange at the end of last chapter to the Ai & Airi confrontation is very cinematically appropriate - but it does bother me regardless. In isolation, I think it's fine and we get more than enough information about Ai's thoughts and feelings on the situation in the confrontation but it's nevertheless part of a pattern that's been going on for a long while now of important reveals and reactions to really huge pieces of information are happening entirely offscreen and are only told to the viewer in retrospect, or are backfilled into the story once Akasaka wants to make use of it. It's not a world-ending flaw or anything but I'm noticing it more and more and I think it's been harming the series more than it's helping.

That said, I do really like this confrontation Ai has with Airi. It definitely feels more like Ai speaking for Aqua than it does Ai herself speaking - the cold, straightforward way she addresses Airi pretty clearly mirrors the way Aqua spoke to the director on Akane's behalf back in LoveNow. Whether this is a case of Aqua using Ai as a mouthpiece or their similarities as mother and son coming out in a moment like this, I think it's interesting either way. Given what we learned about Ai's own abuse and her own history with narrowly avoided CSA, it makes total sense that upon learning someone she cares about was being similarly exploited by an adult that she would have some very strong feelings about it.

Airi's meltdown in response is also something I have mixed feelings on. As a piece of characterization in isolation, it's fascinating and I think it provides some important insight into how and why Airi was able to rationalize and justify her abuse of Hikaru to herself, even though she clearly knows it was objectively wrong. I honestly can't help but see parallels in the way she centers her own feelings and pain and uses that as justification for her actions with Ayumi, Ai's mother, who had a more subdued but emotionally similar breakdown when talking about her history with her daughter.

Ultimately, I do feel it adds more than it takes away - I would much rather see the story continue to humanize characters who could otherwise have just been left as uncomplicatedly black and white Evil People Doing Bad Things. People very rarely begin acting in cruel, exploitative or antisocial ways out of nowhere and I think the manga's story is better for highlighting that this is the case.

H O W E V E R. . . where my feelings become more negative is the talk that follows, but I have like a million things to say about that so I'll put a pin in it for now to not derail too badly.

Given how Airi responds here, I'm also suddenly very curious as to if this direct confrontation was what put an end to her abuse of Hikaru. It's hard for me to imagine her going back to it after being so directly called out and if that's the case, I can't help but wonder if this was the trigger for the HKAI romance. I already talked last chapter that there's some imagery already implying Hikaru views Ai as his light, which OnK thematically associates with the role of a savior in someone's life. If Ai really did manage to intervene and protect Hikaru from Airi's abuse, then that would have intensified those feelings one hundredfold.

holy shit akane AND miyako are back! wow, isn't it totally crazy that across the arcs where they could have contributed to and potentially resolved the conflicts at play they were just totally absent but now they're just reappearing without comment or reaction to any of that other shit!

As I mentioned before, I have really mixed feelings on this scene with Miyako and the others. In isolation, I do like it and I think it kind of brings into explicit text something that had been just floating around as vibes before, which is how absolutely symbiotic with misogyny and sexual exploitation the entertainment industry is. The way misogyny played into Ai's exploration was always a really fascinating part of her arc to me, but given that Akasaka at least publicly presents as a person without that sort of lived experience, I was curious as to how much was intentional and how much was accidental, just because of how surprising it was to see a man centering this sort of thing so thoroughly in his writing. This scene with Miyako makes it clear that it's something Akasaka absolutely wants to highlight and discuss in Oshi no Ko, to the point of him being willing to call out even likable and sympathetic characters like Taiki for casually taking part in and perpetuating it.

THAT SAID… I really don't like that this scene, accidentally or otherwise, ends up centering and discussing Airi's victimhood over Hikaru's. His story has always been an indictment of the way children, specifically, are at risk in the entertainment industry not just in terms of being exploited as workers, but in the ways that adults in power can and will use their positions of authority to do exactly what Airi has done. That is what needed to be discussed here; the way that Hikaru's abuse is in no way an isolated incident and how people like Airi will continue to get away with hurting children so long as the industry - and society at large - treats children like second-class citizens at best and commodities at worst. I do think this scene is trying to use Airi and Miyako's experiences as a jumping off point to talk about exploitation in general and the way a person's ability to say 'no' can be compromised by outside pressures but it talks so much and so exclusively about the experiences of young girls and adult women specifically that it's hard not to read it as the story placing more value - at least for now - in exploring Airi's perspective over Hikaru's and that just feels kind of grody to me.

The timeline of this chapter is also just… really weird? Given Frill's, uh, appearance at the end of the chapter I have to assume it's taking place right after she films her scene with Aqua last chapter but that makes no sense given where the Ai and Airi confrontation is placed…? My best guess is that the scene we get at the start is some kind of visualization of the script by the characters who are reading it but it's all still very needlessly confusing lol

frill just barging in with her tits out when she knew rbkn were waiting for her was so fucking funny though i gotta admit. weird ass lizard woman.

Her mentioning it was her own decision to do the scene like that is also shrimptresting because it seems to implicitly confirm that there is, thank god, SOME kind of intimacy coordinator on set that the cast are talking about these scenes with. I actually also think the level of trust and comfort between Aqua and Frill this implies is also really interesting…? In general, I've always really like the idea of AQFR friendship, so this is kind of making me daydream a bit about seeing more of one…

As for the ending… man, it's such transparent reaction bait that I can't really summon the energy to get annoyed LOL. At least we won't have to wait a whole extra week to see what it amounts to.

Weary as I am with the reaction bait cliffhangers, I am at least glad to see the story coming around to finally addressing the elephant in the room here. As the chapter end text points out in the Japanese versions of this chapter, a scene like this was an inevitability of playing Ai and Hikaru and it's been where I've expected to see the underlying tension that's been floating around AQRB's relationship since the past life reveal finally get drawn out and addressed. Given its placement in the story (ch 142 is only the second chapter of its corresponding volume) and the framing of that last page as more of a gag/punchline than a serious dramatic beat, I don't things are quite going to play out like Ruby seems to want, but I'm nevertheless curious as to wtf is even going to happen

Honestly, at this point, I kind of just want Akasaka to shit or get off the pot. If he's going to bring a topic like incest to the table, then I want him to actually have something to say about it that isn't just Ruby going 'kyaa oniichan' and acting like a fanservice imouto character from a harem anime. If we're going to have something like 'Ruby falls in love with her brother' actually happen in story, then I want to see how she feels about this, how she rationalizes it, how she expects this to play out when she and Aqua live in a society that by and large condemns incest and treats it as taboo. At the very least, give me something to dig into and examine and chew on that wouldn't have already felt dated during the mid 2010s little sister boom.

[archivalofsins]

It's been a good while since the end of trial two and a lot has changed in the fandom overall. Even more will change over the course of trial three. I think in this area of uncertainty and impatience it's easy to forget everything that transpired.

Admittedly I'm kind of proud of my growth over this period of time and how the experience has impacted how I interact with fandom and the internet overall.

Not to sound incredibly old fashioned but I think there's still much to unpack from trial two before heading into trial three. So, the down time between the end of trial report and now has been greatly appreciated.

A lot happened.

Haruka's broken 50/50 as people highlighted the risks of him remaining unrestrained not only to himself but others.

People stating that anyone voting Yuno guilty was a pro-life conservative, politicizing her trial as pro-life pro-choice debate. Even going as far to state that Milgram was a sexist series for including her at all.

Futa's was just funny because it was a bold faced admission by the audience that they were in fact too much like Futa to properly judge him. Amongst other things.

Mu's trial was a bunch of people politicizing it in the opposite direction using a bunch of right wing buzzwords like calling it fake news, for some reason bringing race into it from headcanoning her victim as half black, then victim blaming like her victim attacked first so she deserved to die.

Shidou well fuck we need a doctor so go off king. Like it wasn't even about him it was about Mahiru I know who I really cared about here. I couldn't give one singular fuck about Shidou even now. Oh he might hurt Kotoko I don't give a fuck if he does his doctor role what he does in his off time is his business. Nobody was thinking oh my god what about the harm the guy with the medical degree can do to others here when they voted him innocent nobody cared. Like honestly he has a medical degree he can do a lot of harm but that wasn't our problem or main concern.

Mahiru ah see he hung himself and he's probably a cheater anyway. Yes some people thought it was justified to drive a man to suicide for being unfaithful. That was a weird hill for some people to build a house on but they did. I don't know a lot of people just conveniently forgot women cheat and can be abusers as well. I don't know how some forgot that but I wish I were them.

Kazui the guilty shrine- seriously a shrine? Really... Oh also men shouldn't be allowed to get divorces because it makes women look bad. Isn't that what abusive husbands were saying when women wanted divorce rights and fought for things like no fault divorce wild. No one was thinking there yeah go on cook me nothing that would be better than the poison you're trying to disguise as feminism. It'd be less detrimental too.

Amane's second trial really was like,

"Sure her mom kills cats and beats children but we can't forget she's a cult survivor too and being a parent is hard."

Bro as someone with an abusive single mom who did some shit and went through some shit um no that's not an excuse. You can't just go parenting is hard get me my taser or my childhood was hard too it's my turn to beat kids. Like not tobring up Oshi No Ko again but the Amane trial really was just chapter 141 to me in real time (read it because that got messy later in).

"She had to live through the cult too. She was having a hard time as well what about her upbringing? Do you know how hard it is to raise a child by oneself."

Her husband was at work not dead what the fuck did y'all mean by this???

What were these takes? Nobodies trauma gives them a free pass to traumatize others- wait we'll get to you hold up put those dogs back where they came from! She's a single mom of one girl meanwhile the woman with two sons and an absent doctor husband. Not doing any of this shit. She was my rock Shidou says fully meaning it. Yuno mom two kids haven't heard a word about her killing cats or beating kids. Wild it's like it's pretty easy to choose not to do the things she did. Every other shit parent here did decide to be shitty Amane's mom included.

Mikoto oh suddenly your trauma does excuse how you responded to a situation. Work hard, such sad boy. Yeah I can believe the stigmatized version of dissociative identity disorder in this one niche situation. Japan is so backwards of course they'd still write it like this they don't know any better. So, of course the other alter is the evil one and Mikoto is still the goodest of boys- Also dissociative identity disorder isn't real unless you have a certain number of alters that act x specific way that's why there has to be this many.

With a tiny hint of if the child is guilty let's just kill this man too~

Fuck Mikoto he's had it too good. Bitch could have went home in fact we see him do it in the video! Where the fuck was Amane gonna go the streets?! We saw how that worked out in her video. Snitch ass streets, if these streets could talk- Don't worry with snitch advisory they can even if you don't want them to!

Kotoko well if you think she's bad then you don't have real trauma. Also grooming can only be sexual actually I heard the term from twitter and never looked into the act of doing this ever outside of that context. God don't even ask me to define groom as a verb.

So on and so forth. It's been a lot and this all just shit I personally experienced.

Trial two showed us one of the worst aspects of humanity,

Our ability as people to use our own experiences as the blueprint for all life.

Our stubborn commitment to seeing something only one way. Because that's always been how we've seen it. That's always been how it was. Milgram trial two and the audience for better or worse put the definition of closed-mindedness on full display.

Regardless of how inclusive, progressive, or forward thinking people believed themselves to be in the moment. We saw what a commitment to only one way of thinking could cause and who it ends up hurting. I think trial two can teach people that even the most progressive leaning individuals can cause harm.

Even those who want to support marginalized individuals or are marginalized themselves are capable of causing harm. Because when we convince ourselves that the only voice that matters is our own we silence, belittle, and ignore the experiences of those around us. It doesn't matter what politically correct framing a person attributes to their belief if one is being closed-minded it will still harm others and the movement they're purporting to care about.

It will more than likely do more harm to the people one is attempting to help the most whether that is themselves or others. That's the only thing being closed-minded can do.

[thena0315]

Based on the recent chapter(141) of Oshi no Ko, I had a feeling they were gonna go with that route with Airi Himekawa. Very likely, she herself was a victim of sexual assault in the entertainment world as well. Victim turned abuser. The cycle never ends.

Like what I said previously, "Where victims of sexual assault during their childhood aren't treated and provided care for their traumatic experience, it can mess up how they see things when they grow up into adulthood. They may even end up repeating what happened to them to someone else when they were at that age."

This entire plot isn't as black & white as some think it is. It's more complicated.

[greatwyrmgold]

Immediate thoughts on Oshi no Ko chapter 141:

Apparently a lot more of this flashback has been movie set than I'd assumed.

Showing Ai confronting Airi about the latter's sex crimes, then pivoting to talking about how women are abused in the entertainment industry and more broadly...I like the two scenes in isolation, but putting them right next to each other has Unfortunate Implications. It implies that the latter is an explanation for Airi's behavior, and hence that such an explanation is more important than how Airi's abuse affected Hikaru.

I like these two panels, which do a good job of distilling what I like about the patriarchy discussion and also point out that this isn't unique to idols and actresses.