#ship aquruby if you want

[mrfangirlapocalypse]

124

oh lord oshi no ko 124 about to be wild. still wont' drop tho cuz I believe in aka to handle it well

how? uh. fuck.

i'm on so much copium please no aquruby pls no aquruby

[lastthroes]

several people reporting from the q&a section that aka and mengo have been holding during an event in barcelona, spain. it's mostly random tweeting now, but like it was reported already yesterday, news site reports should proceed shortly

this basically re-confirms my suspicions that aka was the one freaking out about the possibilities of getting the manga affected by that one bill that was amended back in 2010, in particular after the kiss. after all, other manga that also dared to engage with themes of incest, like aki sora, already suffered the impact, and i remember siscon ani to brocon imouto coming up with a whole warning about how they did not condone the character's actions. even oreimo, which every normie and their mother cried about, ended its story after the bill was put into effect, and you can tell by how it settled for an ambiguous enough resolution

i can't say i shipped aquruby, if anything because as i said several times in the past, i knew it'd never happen (both because of the bill and because it didn't suit the story as it was being told) and i'm old enough to not be satisfied with shallow bait and breadcrumbs: i have talked before about how i dislike works of the kind of eromanga sensei, that want to scratch at the topic but also not really. i'm not really surprised about this: in the end, any manga that decides to tackle sibling incest in recent years needs to bullshit its way out of it with a non-blood related reveal, "only cousins", they are actually step siblings, they die (and this one actually includes one of mengo's oneshots),... i never expected onk to be any different. even less after it got so popular

that doesn't mean, though, that i don't still find disappointing that after ch143 suddenly aqua and ruby weren't really allowed to interact onscreen. not as twins, and not as former doctor and patient. i always figured aqua would turn ruby down or something, but i did expect them to resolve the entanglement, address where the relationship was supposed to stand. when you set aside the incest angle, it's easy to see how goro|aqua and sarina|ruby never got an actual end to their story together. it even gets cut short with my less favorite way of ending a conflict in a story: one of the character gets killed. but oh well. same old. not the first manga negatively affected by the bill and not the last

[aihoshiino]

Atp i would like to see how ruby and aqua's relarionship will go. Not in "Yasss incest!" way but more of how they (mostly ruby) realize that they need to go their past lives and accept their relation as siblings. Or at least how wrong it is even if ruby wants it so much. There is no way incest would happen because Aka hates it. I am more interested in their psychological state and their conflict and resolving that conflict.

I don't think we can definitely say Akasaka Loves or Hates XYZ just because none of us know him, but there is a weird sense of like... discomfort or maybe avoidance on the topic of incest in OnK that I find kind of interesting to just poke at in my head sometimes. Because like, one of my main issues with the way OnK has handled the incest since 123 is that it just... well, hasn't.

I know that sounds insane in a post 143 world but going through the way the AquRuby stuff (or lbr just Ruby) has been written since 123, it feels like there's a very clear distinction between the ideas of "Ruby having feelings for Aqua, her brother" and "Ruby (& Sarina through her) having feelings for Goro, her doctor". When the story wants to play AquRuby for laughs, it leans into Ruby being attracted to her brother. When it actually takes things seriously, the framing is almost always Ruby addressing Gorou and the concept of incest is so loudly, conspicuously absent. You can even sort of see this line being drawn all the way back in 123, just at the end where Ruby very pointedly first addresses Aqua and then, separately, addresses "Sensei". It's almost as if she's purposely trying to create a divide so she can have one without dealing with the reality of what it would mean to be with the other.

It's hard to tell whether or not this is intentional in the sense of being part of Ruby's arc but it nevertheless creates a sense of the series wanting to have its cake and eat it too, indulging in the shock value and spicy intrigue of incest as a taboo without meaningfully engaging with it as subject matter. I've described it elsewhere recently as the series exclusively toying with the *aesthetics* of incest, its surface level referential language and set dressing, while resolutely avoiding going any deeper and I still stand by that. The 143 kiss is actually a really good example of this - the imagery is that of two siblings kissing but on that very same page, Ruby reminds us that in her eyes, she is talking to and in love with her "Sensei". The series has conducted this deeply convoluted narrative trick where it can depict what is very clearly incest without it technically being incest. Even when roadblocks to the GRSR relationship are addressed, it's only ever in reference to their age gap and Ruby always frames it as something that *used* to stand in their way but is no longer an issue now she's 18.

On days I am feeling charitable towards the series, I'm inclined to think this is an intentional part of Ruby's arc and that she is, in universe, being a bit delulu about the whole thing as an unhealthy coping mechanism - her being avoidant of emotionally inconvenient truths is something we see popping up more than once, so this being an extension of that tendency would make sense. When I am feeling more cynical, however, I tend towards thinking this is just an excuse to indulge in shocking imagery that generates clicks without ever having to actually commit to upsetting readers by sinking *or* canonizing incest ship. My best guess is that the truth is somewhere in the middle but it must be stressed that this is just my thoughts and I have no idea what goes on in Akasaka's brain.

Anyway this is just a long and rambly way of saying "word". Regardless of what direction the story takes AquRuby, I just want the story to finally fucking commit to something instead of chickening out every time it gears up to do so.

[aihoshiino]

actually all joking aside i do think the most baffling part of fandom discussions surrounding aquruby seems to mostly come from people fighting for their lives to argue that the twincest ship is somehow the most moral/ethical/whatever or that the incest part is Fine, Actually because incest isn't TECHNICALLY illegal everywhere in real life or how everyone in japan totally loves incest and like

man. you guys are so bad at taboo ships lol. the whole POINT of an incest ship is that it's forbidden. it's wrong. it's the agony of wanting something that you not only can never want, but you SHOULDN'T want it. the guilt, shame, revulsion and self hate caused by longing after something that poisons you just for wanting to have it.

i don't even LIKE incest and i understand how this works. why are you guys even here fighting for your lives to get everyone on board with your incest ship if you don't actually want to deal with any of the incest.

[aihoshiino]

I actually originally had an aside about this that I ultimately removed because I felt like it got away from the actual premise of the post (Ai's sidelining specifically) but like - yeah, while this is the aspect of it that bothers me the most ('and why is that, tumblr user aihoshiino' i hear you ask) it is ultimately part of a much larger trend of the weird retconning with regards to Aqua and Ruby's relationship in a post 123 world.

This has already been present in Ruby's character since tbh her black hoshigan arc (I am Once Again linking 742's excellent Ruby analysis post that breaks this down) but more recently and especially with Spica's release, we've gotten a lot of retconny backfill with regards to her relationship with and feelings for Gorou. Pre-Mainstay, her feelings for Gorou are obviously strong but she's characterized more by a strong, quiet longing and a sort of wistfulness as opposed to an active desire to meet and be in a relationship with him. Black Hoshigan Ruby is obviously and understandably operating on a much higher level of intensity and desire (the Found His Desiccated Corpse of it all) but the main story and Spica both do a bunch of retconning to imply she was not only always operating on this level of intensity wrt Gorou but she has always been actively wanting and believed it was possible to have a fully realized romantic relationship with him.

I actually only really clicked into this as I was writing the above so forgive me if this gets a bit rambly but I'm realizing now that like… honestly, that's how the AquRuby stuff has kind of been written on the whole? None of the relationship development happens in the present day. It's all built on the foundation of Gorou and Sarina's connection that the story has to keep repeatedly backfilling, as if by roiding up the energy of GRSR it can sell AquRuby as a viable endgame ship. But the failure to actually develop a present day dynamic between the two characters and the total lack of any sort of reaction to or feedback about any of this from Aqua and the story's weird reticence to actually do anything remotely serious with the topic of incest just makes it all land with a thud, at least imo.

Oshi no Ko 145: A Story Without 「アイ」

The question of how exactly Aqua and Ruby were reborn is something that floats around vaguely in the early stages of the Oshi no Ko, teased as a mystery that will exist in the background as opposed to one actively pursued for resolution. My theory is that this element of the story was likely more prominent in the version of Oshi no Ko that was originally conceptualized (i.e, the one that did not involve Ai's death) but the abrupt change to the story's dramatic tone and intensity pushed it into the background. As it stands, Aqua's wishy-washy statement that he'll figure it out once he's done enjoying Baby Mode about matches the weight this is given is the narrative, at least to begin with.

Even with the turn in tone and focus the manga takes, we do ultimately circle back to addressing and answering this question via the presence of Crow Girl/Tsukuyomi who seems to be the one responsible for facilitating their reincarnation in some way or another. Admittedly, this reveal in 145 comes a bit abruptly and the implied motivations it ascribes to Tsukuyomi don't… really line up with the things she says and does prior to the Movie Arc. But what really left me a little cold with this reveal is that it does not involve Ai whatsoever. Her name and even her image are not even once mentioned, not even in passing by GRSR.

This made me feel pretty uncomfortable for a variety of reasons I'll get into later but it wasn't until I started going through the manga to look more into how the reincarnation had been discussed before that I realized just why this felt so jarring - it simply wasn't consistent with what came beforehand. While the current explanation excludes Ai entirely, prior discussion of GRSR's reincarnation centers her to an equal and opposite degree.

Both Gorou and Sarina are thinking of Ai as they die, with both of them also (even if only symbolically) hearing her voice in their final moments. Gorou hears her singing as his ringtone plays and Ruby says Ai was "singing in [her] head" up to the very end. Ai's face is implicitly the first thing either of them see after being reborn and Aqua even speculates, as his first guess as to the nature of their rebirth, that it was this strength of feeling all focused on specifically Ai that caused it to happen.

Not only that, but Ai is even centered in the "fake" story of their rebirth that the twins sell Miyako to get her on board.

Perception of this bit in the fandom seems to vary from "it's just a joke" to "Jokes Are The Deepest Lore" and beyond. I myself don't put a massive amount of weight on it. However, in discussions where this is taken even semi-seriously as foreshadowing then it is flatly disingenuous to cherrypick the AQRB crumbs while not giving the same weight to the (imo, equally loaded) implication that Gorou and Sarina were reborn as Ai's children because she herself was favoured by the gods.

As the murder mystery elements of the story take prominence, this question is left unanswered but resurfaces towards the end of the Private arc with the arrival of Tsukuyomi. Here, too, we see Ai being centered as a key figure in Gorou and Sarina's reincarnation - the chapter is even named 'Mother and Mother', in reference to both of Aqua's mothers for each of his lives.

Most tellingly of all to me, however, is Tsukuyomi's appearance at the end of the chapter. Literally her first speaking line is commenting on how kind the gods must be to bring the Hoshinos together - describing them as (paraphrased) two motherless children and a childless mother and ascribing a great deal of weight to their togetherness.

Even if you disagree that the manga is centering Ai in this context, it is undeniable that the togetherness of the Hoshinos as a trio and specifically as a mother and children is what Tsukuyomi is highlighting as being meaningful here.

We even see a repeat of this in chapter 118 and her first on-screen conversation with Aqua.

I've seen people take this to mean, in the context of future chapter hindsight, that she is claiming the 'meaning' of his rebirth is his connection to Ruby. But if you go back and follow the thread that leads to this mic drop... it's a conversation that's about Ai. And specifically, Aqua is told to consider what it means that his soul was reborn in that body (emphasis mine): i.e, what does it mean that he was reborn specifically as Ai Hoshino's son?

With all this laid out, I really don't think it's a stretch to say that Ai, both as an idol and a person, is treated as a more or less equal part of the GRSR -> AQRB reincarnation as the two people being reborn. Which, like… she should be! She's their mother. But when we do finally get around to concretely answering this question..

Zip. Zilch. Nada. It had nothing to do with her. The closest we get to an acknowledgement that she even exists full stop is her goofy ass bunny mascot's face on (presumably) Sarina's snowman.

As I've said before, the basic beats of this as an answer to 'why reincarnation' are not inherently bad or unworkable. An animal repaying human kindness in some supernatural way is a tale as old as tales and given the ways in which Oshi no Ko plays around with mythological and folkloric ideas, making the reincarnation the result of a Tsuru no Ongaeshi-esque repayment of selfless kindness suits it quite well. The issue here is not one of an inherently broken idea, but flawed execution.

If this is the final word on the hows and whys of Gorou and Sarina's reincarnation - and I feel more or less settled that it is - then Ai has been entirely excluded from the birth of her own children. The sheer amount of weight placed on her role, specifically, as Aqua and Ruby's mother has vanished because after all the build up of why? the answer seems to be just that she happened to be pregnant.

I don't think I need to overexplain why it feels gross for Ai to be reduced to a convenient walking uterus in this regard. This was the element of this answer that made me so uncomfortable when from the get go: Ai's arc is so overwhelmingly about her being denied the right to agency over her own body and sexuality and her giving birth to Aqua and Ruby is, in part, a reclamation of it. It wasn't just an act of love performed for her children but also one for herself - she risked everything in order to give herself the family she had longed for her entire life.

If this incongruity was intentional, I think I would be interested in it as an element of Ai's tragedy - the idea that even the birth of her own children was hijacked by forces beyond her control and warped into something that existed to serve her fans. But I really don't get the sense that this was considered at all and honestly… that's kind of equally sad.

I was wordvomiting a much less articulate version of all the above in the Oshi no Brainrot Discord server and @penguinkyun said a few things that I think really nailed the heart of the issue here:

"theres barely anything of ai here when shes such a central character […] removing ai's own emotional stake in the matter and rounding it up to "crow girl felt bad for gorou and sarina because they helped her that one time and then reincarnated them" just…doesnt hold the same impact."

This is, I think, key to what made this reveal fall so flat for me and highlights this chapter's place in a much broader trend of Ai's place in the twins' lives being downplayed and favour of amping up the intensity of the GRSR relationship. To once again quote Lace because I think she sums it up quite neatly:

"[...] akasaka is absolutely ramping up the soap operaness of grsr with ai as collateral."

And that just kind of bums me out. :(