#so . is ai The Mother or is aqua/gorou The Mother

[penguinkyun]

finally got to read onk 136 and wow. okay.

love the understanding we're slowly getting of just how bad things were in first gen b-komachi! that fight is incredibly real and heartbreaking to witness

nino, in her own way is trying out of sheer desperation and a whole emotional cocktail to reach out to ai, to find something, letting loose all her bottled up feelings in one go but all she's getting back are practised perfected smiles and deflecting answers in response to the emotion shes pouring out because ai has no idea how to handle this because shes never had friends nor any major fight before so she's falling back on the "smile and please everyone" tactic but it isnt working here because that isnt what nino wants to hear so she gets even more hurtful but ai doesn't know that so all she can do, all she can try right now is smile and its a slow suffocation of everything that could've been because they were friends but now the cracks go too deep and can't be patched up at all because ai is now dead and nino is left with a bunch unresolved feelings that still affects her more than a decade later

its just so heartbreaking and frustrating to witness just exactly how everything culminated into what it is now because no one who could have did anything about it either, not even their manager which pushed the singular star - everyone else is just a side actor narrative even more

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

continuing on, kana's detachment yet empathy with nino as she observes from a distance while ruby is very much embodying ai, being her instead of keeping herself separate. kana knows herself and now she's able to sort out her hidden feelings easier now that she has an outlet in form of nino (she uses her own emotions for acting after all) but ruby with her years of grief and the sudden understanding of ai...yeah she is Not handling this well at all someone please get her out of there

this movie in terms of Ai Potrayal is getting worse and worse by the second oof

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

oshi no ko ep 4 spoilers under the cut!!

ohhhhh my fucking god this scene this scene this fucking scene this will never leave my brain it’ll rot there until every star in the sky has faded what the FUCK were they thinking (affectionate)

HE’S :((((((( A BABY. HE’S JUST A BABY. he acts so cold and detached but he loves his friends, he loves his sister, he has trouble thinking of happy moments at first but then it all just comes flowing into him!!! and it breaks my heart because i didn’t even know he could smile like this but of course he can because he’s a kid. he’s not gorou anymore. he’s his own person and that person is a high school boy who enjoys his new life even though he thinks he’s not allowed to. even though his past self literally manifests as a stern voice over his shoulder telling him he’s not allowed to.

GODDDDDDD . god. gorou is literally a fucking GHOST telling aqua not to be happy, never to be happy, just keep obsessing over ai and hating yourself for not being able to save her in the same way gorou must’ve hated himself for not being able to save sarina. just keep living for revenge and nothing else. don’t enjoy yourself. don’t enjoy yourself. don’t enjoy yourself. the relationship between these two makes me so ill because they’re literally the same person but also not. it’s like gorou’s bitter soul was born into a body not made to hold it. aqua is his own person but he’s also haunted by a guilt and an obsession that isn’t his own. he’s haunted by the death of his mother but more than anything he’s haunted by himself. ai would have wanted him to be happy. gorou doesn’t. gorou wants them both miserable and guilty.

and don’t even get me STARTED on akane??????????????????? mimicking ai to make aqua feel better??????????????????????????????? it’s all so twisted and it’ll all just make his obsession grow stronger and stronger. aqua is chasing a ghost. ai is dead and gorou is dead and sarina is dead. he isn’t. but if he doesn’t let himself be happy, if he doesn’t let himself move on, then he might as well be.

[hotshitno2]

What are your thoughts on the twins (mis)communicating about whether to dish their secret to save Arima?

Ohhhh that’s a hard one!

I honestly don’t really a side for which twin in correct, cause in a sense, they’re both in the wrong.

The most obvious one is Aqua, my boy went behind Ruby’s back and exposed they’re mother’s secrete without consultation at all. And his defense being that he vaguely explained it to her in an ominous question about protecting her friends.

To give him the benefit of the doubt, it seemed like his goal was to make Ruby dislike him because of it, and pulled the same apathetic attitude he did with Akane when breaking up with her, so we can assume he had a larger goal here given that he could have handled it a lot better and we’ve seen that hes capable of it. ( to add to that thought, he leaked the information when Ruby previously said how much she hated leakers in chapter 93 )

While it was wrong what Aqua did, Ruby is shown to be especially childish here. While Aqua’s question was vague, she did agree to do anything to help her friend. But in the argument, she barley mentioned Kana’s scandal at all and focused on Aqua’s “betrayal” of their Mom’s image. While acknowledging that they’re little to no bad points to what he did and only helped the twins in their popularity. And sadly Ai is still dead, and the protection of her friend should be important enough to sacrifice Ai’s image.

We can also mention she’s being hypocritical here. She got mad at Aqua for doing anything for popularity, while she has done the exact same thing and gained most of her popularity from underhanded methods that she was getting so mad at Aqua about. In their previous argument in chapter 93, we also see that she told him that she would do almost anything to be popular and get to the dome like Ai. And wouldn’t a scandal with on of bkomatchis members affect if they would go or not?

Honestly I really hope they make up soon, as a Hoshino twins focused account this was a slap in the face, but at least they’re interacting???😭

[aihoshiino]

putting aside whatever other problems there are or aren't with the OnK ending, I think the one thing that really drives me up the wall is that Aqua never really gets a chance to reconcile or meaningfully make peace with his relationship with Ai... not even necessarily in the sense of like, 'this character tragically died before resolving this issue' way but more like, with the hindsight of how much the Movie Arc was wasting time and panel space, it's frustrating that an arc that SHOULD have been about Aqua and Ruby working through that kind of had four chapters of Ruby, exclusively, making a breakthrough and then never touched on it as an idea again.

Honestly, I don't think you'd need to change much! Even just having Aqua call her 'Mom' or at least properly embracing her as his mother in spirit would have done it, especially since 163 emphasizes Aqua's life being his own, not just the dregs left behind by Gorou's reincarnation. He does refer to her as 'my/our mother' at certain points, but he also calls Kamiki 'my/our father' in contexts that are very clinical and not necessarily positive. So... idk!

Maybe him wanting to call Miyako 'Mom' was supposed to hit on that same sort of beat and I can understand if Aqua simply felt more bonded with and connected to Miyako as his mom since she actually raised him, but if the conclusion of that relationship is just that Aqua never really felt like Ai was his mom, I think that's excessively cruel to Ai and just kind of a letdown. But the way the story kind of dropped the ball on Aqua's posthumous relationship with her was kind of a letdown in general lol, so...

[wia-tia]

Oshi no ko's handling of suicide has been bothering me

It's been really bothering me that they're framing acting on your suicidal urges like a good thing in the last few chapters. I know that Aqua sees it as a regret in this chapter but he could've done literally anything else, yet the author made him choose to act on his suicidal ideation he had since he was four. Actually, probably since Gorou even. It also makes me sad that Ruby and Miyako never noticed Aqua's PTSD or suicidal ideation nor helped him, even though they should've been the closest. Yeah, Ruby tried with idolising him and all but that didn't adress the main issue which is Aqua's guilt towards his mothers' deaths. It even looked like Aqua loves Kana, Sarina and Akane more than Ruby sometimes (they barely had panels together before the movie arc). So, it feels like making Ruby the reason for his life came out of nowhere? Where is Ai?

Protecting Ruby doesn't make any sense, since when was that the goal? (It was always about giving up his life to further his revenge for Ai, till a certain point that it changed to protecting Ruby; I cannot find this turning point). Give her bodyguards, kill Hikaru and push the body in the sea (if Hikaru was really even that dangerous -> no stakes at all). The author could've made Aqua do anything else. Being alive would've helped to protect her from threats (that don't even exist btw -> again, no stakes). Now, it just feels like Aqua wanted an excuse to kill himself. It's so stupid to kill yourself for someone else's "protection".

He never took the second chance at the life he has been given. Even if he had good moments, Aqua threw it away just like that. He's only 18, he barely lived for himself in that time (he's so young). He's lived for others. That would've been okay if it hadn't been framed like a damaging thing for quite a long time in the manga and now this suicide is shown as a noble sacrifice and not just as suicide what it is?

I hope Aqua will still live next chapter and this message cannot be interpreted from this work, but I fear it.

[aqours]

"Aqua has an Oedipus complex-" first of all beyond the fact the only way you could possibly think this is you never read or watched OnK at all and just read a synopsis and didn't bother to verify if it was accurate or not- this is actually the weakest way you could possibly interpret the nature of the feelings Goro/Aqua had regarding Ai. like, even ignoring the fact that Aqua has such an extreme lack of an Oedipus complex to the point he actively refused to breastfeed from Ai because it would have been creepy and inappropriate to him, everything about Aqua's feelings regarding Ai if anything read as parental quite frankly

Gorou Amamiya became Ai's fan because of Sarina. Because Sarina was somebody important to Gorou that he comforted in her last days, he became a huge fan of Ai in order to carry on Sarina's wishes and to keep supporting her and became a genuine diehard idol fan in the process. Then, he met Ai while pregnant: and had a heart-to-heart conversation with her. And came to the conclusion that Ai was somebody he wanted to support in any capacity. He could have been like Ryousuke and actually become possessive of her and feel like she betrayed him: he did not. He was a medical professional that put aside his own feelings as "a fan" to support her both as a doctor and as a fan in his own way by wishing for her sincere happiness as opposed to an image sold to fans.

He wanted to see her grow up happy and healthy. If Ryousuke had not killed him and there was no murder plot at all? The plot of this story probably would have been about him moving to Tokyo after talking to Ai's manager saying that someone needs to be their family doctor while keeping their secret and him taking the roll. The series would have been about Gorou as the Hoshino family doctor and how he supports them as a member of the sidelines who gives support in his own way.

Aqua never really refers to Ai as his mother much outside of situations when it'd be weirder if he didn't. It's very explicit he does not have a romantic or sexual attraction to Ai in this new life: he already didn't, but now it's like, Negatively So Actually. No longer able to support her as a doctor he even took an acting gig JUST to help further and bolster Ai's career. It's beaten into your face with the subtlety of a dozen hammers to your face his only desire is to watch Ai grow up safe and happily and succesful.

Aqua's/Gorou's relationship with Ai was someone who wanted to see her grow up to be happy. And after some waste of life incel murdered her? To want to make sure that was avenged. Because he was someone older than Ai who valued her and wanted her happiness above everything else in the world, and views the person who is responsible for that as someone who's life is forfeit. Because Ai was a good person who didn't deserve her fate and as someone who only ever wanted to support her, wants to make sure that her memory can rest in peace completely.

If anything, the feelings Aqua/Gorou had towards Ai are parental in nature. So much about his motivations read like a father who wants to avenge his daughter's murder, to kill the man that denied her the happiness the child deserved.

"OnK is soooooooo gross the mc has an Oedipus complex and is a p*do-" not only is this a reading you can only get from a five second sypnosis read and being determined to hate OnK for brownie points, it's not even the right fucked up dead dove way that you could describe their relationship.

EDIT: I feel the need to address this, as it's talked in reblogs and some notes! I never expected this to get notes, and I mostly wrote this in one go. Please understand I wrote this post from the perspective of purely writing Aqua's feelings for Ai purely from a familial perspective. The reality is that Aqua's feelings are complicated and can be read in many different ways: from familial, to that of a lover, to someone who puts Ai on a pedestal as the ultimate Idol and the ideal of what a "true" fan would be: someone who loves their Idol for who she is as opposed to a toxic image. I don't fully 100% agree with this post anymore, but if I had to chose only one familial way for Aqua to view Ai I would probably still default to "vengeful father who wants to avenge his daughter's death." BUT Aqua's feelings are ultra complicated and are on an entire spectrum ranging from "wholesome" to "outright disturbing," so please don't take my words as like a single sure-fire way to interpret him! ty all <3

[thoughtspresso]

Aqua plans to die.

And his death will be necessary to take Kamiki down.

While the full details of Aqua’s revenge plan isn’t entirely clear to all of us yet, his intention to place himself in danger as he tries to take Kamiki down is a very clear, and very crucial part of the plot that he anticipates.

Before we can dive into how Aqua is going to achieve his revenge, we need to back up a little bit and understand who he is as a person, how he makes decisions, and what he personally wants.

What is Aqua’s Goal?

From a top-level view, Aqua has a singular emotional goal:

Aqua wishes to take responsibility for the deaths of his mothers.

Aqua/Gorou absolutely believes that after two lives of the same thing, that he was the common denominator. He was the fault his mothers both died, because he was useless and helpless. Had he never been conceived, and more crucially, if his mothers did not have to lie about his existence, they would have both stayed alive. If Gorou’s mom didn’t have to conceal the pregnancy from her parents, or did not have one at all, she would have lived a long life. He believes that perhaps his second chance at life was to save Ai, but he was paralyzed and helpless during her murder. He blames himself for Ai’s death too.

This is a driving force in Aqua’s character, and informs all of his decision making, even to the detriment of his own plans most times. It leads us to his supplementary goal:

Aqua wants to keep the people he loves safe.

Whether it was shielding Ruby from entertainment or making sure she’s in a safe agency with good group members, or Akane not going too far in enacting his revenge plot for him, or Kana from steering clear of a career-ending love scandal, Aqua’s key traumas has led him to feel compelled to take action and do whatever it takes to save people if he had the power to do so.

Here is a breakdown of Aqua’s plans, and some key questions we have to ask about each one.

1. Why make a movie called The 15-Year Lie? And what is “Ai’s true wish”?

I have reason to believe that Ai’s DVD for Aqua would have either been a message about wishing to be loved truly and be hated with full honesty for the person she really was, that she wanted her actual self to be revealed to people. In line with that, I think Aqua’s DVD included Gotanda’s original documentary for the B-Komachi dome event. Which is why Gotanda tried to defend Aqua's decision to reveal her secret in chapter 112, and why in chapter 108 Gotanda says about the script that “this is finally my time to fulfill that promise.”

2. What does he mean by “using Arima Kana”?

There were theories circulating that the person who texted Frill Shiranui could have been Aqua, trying to get her to encourage Ruby to play the role of Ai in the film. However, that couldn’t be any farther from the truth. As we know, Aqua was saying that Gotanda should “grow up” and understand that the most important thing for a movie is to succeed commercially first before we talk about artistic value. 

If Aqua had full control over the situation, he would have just straight up casted Akane. After all, that was what he initially proposed, and even contacted her for it despite saying he’ll never have anything to do with her again. What he needed, more than anything, was for the film to succeed commercially. And with the headlining actress no longer (a) the most famous celebrity of their generation, or (b) the heralded genius of their generation, Aqua has no other options.

Except: Arima Kana.

I think the aspect of him using her or manipulating her is mainly to encourage her publicity activities. He’ll be encouraging her to do well in her work to garner more star power for the movie to really be a success, and for her to help his sister be the perfect lead for the show. He’s also going to bank on the idea that Kana will do things for him because she has a crush on him, which he only realized in Chapter 102 after Mem-cho points it out, that he can pursuade Kana to get out of the way of his revenge plot if necessary to keep her safe or place her in the spotlight to attract people’s attention for the movie.

While unlikely, he might even encourage her to stay on a little longer until Ruby gets to the Dome performance.

Or, and maybe this is my shipping delulu talking, but it can also be that he’ll try to just be around her frequently to garner media attention about their relationship. In this way, keeping her close without actually dating her could serve a dual purpose: get people talking about them and the movie, but also make sure that Kana stays safe and nobody makes a rumor of pairing her up with anybody else.

Lastly, also not super likely but another option could be to convince her to headline the show, and play Ai in Ruby’s stead.

3. Why does Kaburagi say that the film is bordering on illegal?

This is a truly crucial piece to unveiling Aqua’s plot. We know Kaburagi likes producing shows that include good-looking young people, and that seems to be his main strategy for raking in young audiences and cashing out.

So why would he have hesitated, even for a second, on a plan to cast the top talent of this young generation, on the biggest news Japan has been talking about, handed to him by a first-hand source--the son of Ai himself?

On all accounts, this would have been the perfect formula for a smash success. So why would Kaburagi say things like, “do you have enough evidence”, when everybody already knew about the University student stalker that murdered her? What was so controversial?

Unless, when they said Aqua will play the culprit, they didn’t mean the Ryosuke.

They meant he was playing Hikaru Kamiki.

Here’s what we know about the film, and what I think Aqua is trying to do:

1. Portray Kamiki in the worst possible way and destroy his reputation.

The 15-Year Lie will be a biopic about Ai’s life from when she was starting out as an idol.  Ai will be portrayed as a poor girl abandoned by her parents, searching for the true meaning of love. We know that this framing will be part of Ai’s characterization because of the scenes where Ruby struggled the most:

In the search for love, they will show her falling for a young man and talented actor at Theatre Lalalai--that being Hikaru Kamiki. Once he gets Ai pregnant, he abandons her, and she runs off to the countryside to hide from the press. When Ai asked him to come visit her, Kamiki, in wanting to protect his career, attempted to send out a stalker. A few years later, seeing his kids wotagei on social media, he manages to find them again and kill Ai.

It is a complete and utter character assasination of Hikaru Kamiki, and while revealing Ai as a flawed person, draws for the sympathy of the viewers to love Ai for who she truly is. Which is exactly why Gotanda keeps insisting for Ruby to play the role, even when Aqua and Kaburagi have sensible recommendations for Akane and Frill.

At that moment, when Ai dies, Aqua will reveal his face, and openly declare that it was his father who orchestrated it all. Then he might even portray his father murdering Ryosuke himself, instead of the suicide that was reported in the media.

2. Aqua will use himself to bait his father out, and force Kamiki’s hand to kill Aqua.

The main reason why Aqua finds it necessary for the film to be a commercial success is because he needs the general public to be one hundred percent in agreement that Hikaru Kamiki is an evil man that deserves to be jailed. (Whether or not he reveals his name in the film, which he could but doesn’t need to.) This public lynching is his first control.

But here’s the thing: Kamiki didn’t directly murder Himekawa Airi and Hoshino Ai himself. At this point in time, Aqua is not aware of Katayose Yura’s murder either. And there is no evidence that connects Uehara Seijirou and Ryosuke’s suicides as murders by Kamiki’s hands.

And on top of all that, when these things happened, Kamiki was fully a minor.

Akane’s fears and interpretation was that Aqua would murder his own father because it’s the only form of revenge he could enact himself. 

But she’s wrong, there’s one more thing Aqua could do: make Kamiki commit murder again. If he kills Aqua, there will now be a murder that the public agrees without a doubt was done by Kamiki himself.

He can go to jail once and for all, or he can also get stabbed by an angry fan--Aqua doesn’t care. All he cares about is that it’s a sure win, and it’s over forever. He launches his sister’s career into the spotlight, he keeps everybody safe, and he atones for the death of his mothers with his own life.

In summary: Aqua plans to get killed by his father, so that an actual murder has occurred for which he could be jailed or publicly ostracized or even killed.

And here’s why I think Aqua will fail:

Aqua’s assumptions about his father are incorrect.

He believes that Kamiki’s reason for killing Ai was because her pregnancy would ruin his reputation and career as a rising actor. That’s why Aqua tries to hit him there. And he believes defaming him might provoke him to get killed.

But I don’t think Kamiki cared about his reputation at all anymore. He left his career as an actor behind after Kindaichi kicked him out of Lalalai, and went on to graduate from Faculty of Science. He never went back in front of the spotlight, instead opening a talent agency around the exact time he believed his kids might be joining the industry.

I have reason to believe that Kamiki thinks murdering Airi and Ai was to protect his children or some other great act of justice against his rapist(s). And that even killing Katayose Yura was done because he didn’t want a liar like her to take the spotlight that was supposedly for his daughter Ruby.

I don’t think Kamiki will harm Aqua.

But I do think he will come forward and expose himself and his twisted justification, and he might even openly give interviews to the media.

Instead, I do believe Kamiki might pay attention to Kana’s honest acting--something he’s never seen before in a person, and try to get close to her somehow. And if Kamiki’s name is not revealed, and if the theories are true that Frill works for Kamiki’s agency, he might recruit Kana to join him.

All this is to say, get Kana out of this manga. Somebody, please save her.

[oshinohoshi]

Oshi no Ko Chapter 162 thoughts

Putting aside my issues with the story and characterization, I like this chapter. It makes me feel things which is a strong suit of Oshi no Ko.

Sorrow, horror, and sweetness... it has a little of everything.

As an avid Ai stan, the parts with Ai hit me right where it hurts

Ai's smile below is everything. She loved those kids so much

I'm reminded of the bottom right art. Ai never did get to see their red backpacks but at least the little Hoshino family made happy memories together

Aqua looking after his sister is so sweet. It would hit harder if we had more of the twins interacting past vol 1 but it's still nice

I'm not sure how I feel about Aqua deciding he was reincarnated to protect Ruby. I can't quite put my finger on what's bothering me. Perhaps it's that he's once again making his life's worth revolve around someone else

Or that this disregards one of my favorite lines in the manga: "[God] brought two people who never had a mother in a real sense and a mother who gave birth to soulless children together"

There is a crucial element missing to Aqua's apparent life's purpose and her name is Ai

@aihoshiino's post explains this better than I ever could (thanks @insertusername99 for pointing this out to me)

LMAO I just read Claire's thoughts on the chapter after typing this and she brought this up too. Bc it's so true!

The art is so good. Mengo is amazing

HIKARU

He gets his own damn section because he's just so... AUGH

I'm baffled as to how killing Ruby would bring him closer to Ai

How does "the weight of his sin" help him manifest Ai's presence? Maybe his guilt over his involvement in Ai's death brings her into sharp relief through suffering and embracing his dark side amplifies that? I'm grasping at straws here

I still think his reaction to the DVD was genuine but if so, it feels like he should have had a change of heart

After learning Ai wanted to love him, why would he turn around and try to off their daughter?

Of course his logic is twisted, but it should work with what we know about him!

If you have thoughts, please share

Anyway, I want to compare Aqua's memory of Ai (left) to Hikaru's vision of her (right)

She looks ethereal in both. A fragile being. Ai looks over her shoulder smiling gently in Aqua's mind. She might turn away at any second but she's not gone yet. However, she has her back to Hikaru, beyond his grasp

In both panels Ai is not dressed as an idol. Those who love her remember her as she was when she wasn't on stage (or uhh that's what I want to say but I don't know what to make of Hikaru's view of her anymore)

Moving on...

Shadow Gorou. Until now he's been a manifestation of Aqua's guilt and self-hatred yet now he's dragging Hikaru to the bottom of the sea. Sure, I guess?

I'm probably wildly off the mark here, but it almost shows how harmful Aqua's attempt to kill Hikaru is. Shadow Gorou is scary

And despite Aqua's white stars, he looks horrified and in pain choking his dad. It doesn't look like a triumphant finishing blow

Given the giant moon behind Crow Girl, I guess we should stop calling her that as it seems that Tsukuyomi is not a stage name. But she'll always be Crow Girl to me

Next chapter (3 week break!!): Miyako is not having any of this dying to save Ruby bullshit. She will roll up on a motorcycle and pluck Aqua out of the sea using Ichigo's fishing pole. I have been predicting the fishing pole being a major player in the Hikaru/Aqua conflict for dozens of chapters and I know I cannot be wrong.

[yuseirra]

!!!!!! !!! I CAME TO A REALIZATION!!

DIDN'T THE SONG IDOL HAVE THE LYRIC THAT GOES "一番星の生まれ変わり"? this translates to "a reincarnation of the first star", right? and this is Ai.

"The first star" is the star that shines at the eastern sky at dawn. It usually refers to venus, it also refers to a rising star(job)

I kept mentioning that the stars in this series may be gods themselves, right? (please read my other theory posts if you're curious why I keep making that statement)

Ame-no-Uzume is the goddess of entertainment, AND DAWN.

AI REALLY IS THE REINCARNATION OF AME-NO-UZUME-NO-MIKOTO. IT WAS ALWAYS THERE IN THE SONG. This also explains how Aqua was reacting to her name in a rather weird way in ch 74.

He was like that because she has to do with his mother.

I think his mission that was assigned from the gods have to do with her. I already said this in another theory post, but his mission assigned from the gods = fulfilling Ai's wish,

that's why I believe he says he has only one mission in 118.

He sure does mention a lot about wanting to fulfill Ai's wish, right?

His mission assigned by the gods, his role that was assigned to him as he was reincarnated as Ai's child is this. It's the same thing.

His mission is fulfilling what Ai's wanted.

He's reborn as her child because he's the soul that could help make her wishes come true, he had the right spirit as Gorou so I believe that's why Tsukuyomi hand-picked him and gave him the chance of having another life.

That's the same for BOTH Ruby and him, but Ruby's goal is becoming an idol that surpasses Ai while his is about... yeah, what Ai's requested in the video that she's left him. I think his mission is about helping his dad return to normal..

If Ai IS a god, Ame-no-Uzume, that'd make Kamiki her husband, Sarutahiko Ōkami. I think the gods(Tsukuyomi in this case)either want him gone since they believe he's gone corrupted- out of line- after her death or that they want him to be brought back onto the right path(what Ai wants). This is why Aqua considered saving him but decides to kill him in the end. And if Kamiki IS Sarutahiko.. he DOES have to do with the path of people. He's the god of guidance who's originally supposed to "lead people to the right path". So he CAN alter people's futures. Aqua does have his reasons for considering him as a potential threat in this case if he believes he's beyond hope. He COULD ruin Ruby's future just by existing if he's not functioning properly;

I think that's what's been going on and how the gods tie into this story.

[nijigasakilove]

Ahhhh Akane masterclass! Been waiting on she and Aqua trip to his hometown and as usual DG did a great job with it. I love seeing how fast Akane is to pick up on things and how she just instantly knows when something’s up with Aqua. She’s truly the driving force behind so many big reveals in this story. So many cute moments in this one with she and Aqua too

First of all, the fact we’re finding Gorou body in the anime and then the stuff that’s happening in the manga rn is hilarious. The way they time this stuff is so good. But as for the episode, I loved this walk down memory lane. It had never even occurred to me that both Sarina and Gorou were missing a mother’s love in their life and so them both being reincarnated with a loving mother was fitting.

Akane checking aqua temperature and trying to give him meds after he said he needed to into he hospital was so sweet. She just comes prepared with everything. Ruby calling her onee-chan just feels right because she does have that older sister vibe to her, encouraging Ruby to pursue her love interest who’s funnily enough her current bf 😂

Sarina flashbacks are always gut wrenching because how could you just leave your daughter in that hospital and never come check on her. Like what sort of evil POS do you have to be.. the only happiness she ever had was Gorou and Ai.. at least as Ruby she’s smiled and been happy most of the time.

Crow girl finally in the anime!!

And that ending, man what a cliffhanger to leave off on and we got to wait an extra 4 days for the finale on the 6th. Season 3 announcement better be coming as well!!

[hamliet]

I have a question you said in a review the eyes in the characters of oshi no ko when I read about it design wise I am intersted in the eyes of Akane, Kana and Mem-cho mean something about there role and character in the story I was wondering if you can elabortate on it.

Okay, so! To start with this topic, though, we actually have to talk about Ai first and foremost.

Hoshino Ai breaks down into several meanings. For one thing, it breaks into “hoshi no eye,” which literally means “starry eye” in Japanese. Ai’s eyes notably have stars in them, and Aqua and Ruby have one starry eye each.

Of course, this breaks into several meanings itself. "Starry eyed" is an English idiom for an idealistic, childlike view of the world. If we break the "star eye" idea down further, "star" references Ai being a "star," an idiom for a famous person.

"Hoshino" also contains a homonym for the Japanese verb "hoshi" (欲しい), which means "to want." This also indicates a huge part of Ai's character. The kanji used to write Hoshino means "star" and "indigo"--indigo is the color that you get when you combine aqua and ruby, by the way.

Plus, Ai is written in katakana (アイ), not kanji as would be typical for a name. Katakana is the Japanese script for loan words, which reinforces the literal translation of “eye.” But, it's also a homonym for the Japanese word for love (愛), which is pronounced like "eye." In turn, the story explores love as a major theme--for example, Ai’s final thoughts are about her finally understanding love.

So, from Ai, we see that eyes and particularly starry eyes matter.

In the OP, we see a progression of five eyes--Aqua, Ruby, Kana, Akane, and Mem-Cho.

Hikaru, Aqua, and Ruby

Aqua and Ruby share one starry eye that goes black when they are in a bad mental state (Hikaru's eyes are also starry eyes that have turned black, again reinforcing that he never had a childhood).

The implication of both Ruby and Aqua having one starry eye each and switching between looking more like their mother's eyes and their father's eyes is to emphasize their internal conflict. They both bear the legacy of their parents, and have their own legacies in their past lives and a blank slate, a chance for a new start (the unstarred eye). What they do with this life and which legacy they want to focus on (Ai's love and life, or Hikaru's focus on trauma and repeating a cycle of violence) is their choice.

If we take the saying "the eyes are the window to the sopul," then we also see that as much as Ruby and Aqua are Sarina and Gorou, they are also Ruby and Aqua, children of Ai and Hikaru. That's why I actually am not so sure about the common fan presumption that Crow Girl saying the children had no souls meant they were supposed to be stillborn. They aren't Sarina and Gorou any more so than they are Ruby and Aqua.

Now let's finally move onto your characters.

Kana

Kana’s eyes resemble galaxies.

What this means isn't entirely clear, but instead of a single star, she has hundreds in her eyes. This presumably indicates her potential as a human being, and her way of reminding both Aqua and Ruby (in her better moments, anyways) that they are part of a huge world and a huge cosmos, and don't have to focus on just one aspect of life--namely, revenge on Hikaru for Aqua and revenge for the doctor for Ruby. Other people around them also contain their own light.

Akane and Mem-Cho

Akane’s look like an evening sky.

Mem-Cho’s resemble daytime, complete with light reflections forming clouds as shown below:

Again, I'm not entirely sure what this means per se, but I would guess it emphasizes, thematically, the reality of life. People live, and they die. Day comes, and then night.

Death (something repeatedly associated with Akane--no I don't think she's going to die) is a part of life. I would guess Akane will help Aqua and Ruby accept this part of themselves somehow, as written by @aspoonofsugar here.

Mem-Cho, on the other hand, shines brightly, illuminating their need to grow in some ways and offering wise advice. She's not as complex a character at the moment, but her role so far seems congruent with this idea.

[writeronartblock]

.... (sigh) I don't think I need to say anything

This. This is something that I frankly did expect, just- not- y'know... Just because I expected it to happen, doesn't mean I wanted it.

I was hoping, SO HARD, for any type of intervention (divine or otherwise) to happen. Like, "TSUKUYOMI, GET HIS ASS BACK, PLEASE!" type of desperate. Nope, didn't happen, fuck.

I talked about this with some friends, here are some of my past thoughts...

he's such a tragic character, both of his lives as amamiya gorou and hoshino aqua were cut short before they could truly begin, both with the death of Ai and his first mother. and he's saddled with si much grief, and pain, and anguish, and vengeance, and it's--- (sigh)

AQUA DYING?! LIKE, THAT WOULD BE SO UNSATISFYING!! HE HAS TOO MUCH BAGGAGE, TOO MUCH UNFINISHED BUSINESS!!

if they do really stick with it, i'm gonna be so surprised because that will make so many people mad (including me)

like, objectively high climax (having the main protag die), but just really low catharsis

I, like, genuinely don't know how to feel about this. As Akane said in her monologue towards the end of the chapter and even Aqua himself during his final moments...

And as Tsukuyomi herself has said, he was barely 18 years old, he was a fucking child. I think that's the real tragedy, the fact that this boy sacrificed his whole future for the future of other people. But even if he sees this as a "noble" act, protecting his loved ones, he inadvertently caused them more pain than if he just came clean about everything.

Even if he didn't think so, the people he loved would've still love him in turn and cherish him. Yes, they barely or don't even know what you've done up to this point, but the right thing to do is to fess up and wholeheartedly apologize. Instead he threw away his life in service to a greater future he thought was better for them, even though he himself wanted to continue living.

He left Kana, he left Akane, he left Saito, he left Gotanda, he left Miyako.

And in the end... he also left Ruby. The sister he swore to protect from any harm. The one that made him believe that the reason he was reborn as a twin was to watch over her and keep her safe. The one that would experience the most grief than any other character.

Aqua was her brother, her other half. He was also Dr. Amamiya, the love of her life. He was half of the reason why she wanted to be an idol, he was the one who supported her through it all and helped her make her dream come true.

(claps) Bravo Aka, bravo Mengo. I am impressed as I am mortified, and I'm pretting dang mortified. I am angered as I am in grief, I'm mad and anguished, and I'm experiencing the whole stages of grief again simultaneously and repeatedly.

I'll leave one more thing before I end this post...

I used to hear a simple song...

That was until you came along...

Now in it's place is something new...

I hear it when I look at you...

You took my broken melody...

And now I hear a symphony...

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

oshi no ko will never be a normal love story. never ever ever ever ever ever ever

[penultimate-step]

brief thoughts about Aqua's potential motivations in OnK 154

I notice that the latest chapter has left me a bit confused as to Aqua and Ruby's character motivations in retrospect. Playing with my own thoughts a little: Aqua's impulse for revenge has been portrayed throughout the manga up til now as something inherently destructive, both to himself and others - this contrasts with the revenge we're given, which is forcing Hikaru to confront Ai's emotions and his own failures. Ai asks Aqua to help Hikaru, and indeed, I would argue that showing him this truth, even if it is so many years to late to save him, is a constructive act rather than a destructive one.

And like. On one hand that's nice, that's a sign of growth for Aqua that he isn't prioritizing hurt and pain above all else, that is a good direction for him. On the other hand it does leave me a little unsure what was going on when he talked about revenge in previous chapters? Even as late as chapter 150, after the movie is completely filmed, the drive for revenge is contrasted to the wish to live on and find happiness. One could argue that this had more to do with his own emotions than the actual act itself - that the problem with Aqua's revenge has always been more about his own issues, his suicidal thoughts and how he treated the people around him, than anything in the real world - but I don't think I quite buy that?

So my guess that there was something in this plan that could have been much more harmful and destructive. By confronting Hikaru this way, Aqua is making a choice not to go that route, to move forward and act in a less destructive way, to prioritize Ai's wishes and his own future over his own guilt and self-harm - and I think in future chapter's we'll learn what that other, could-have-been path might have been.

There's another bit in this chapter that gave me a some pause - Ruby. The final page of the chapter has her standing outside the door, listening in - I don't want to assume too much based on one wordless, shadowed facial expression, but she seems deeply unhappy, almost haunted. Given Ruby's previous meeting with Hikaru (also some speculation from 152) I think that while Aqua has been aware of Ai's request, and has been having his internal struggle about what to do with his revenge, he has been keeping Ruby in the dark - she knows this movie is for the sake of revenge, but she likely didn't recognize Hikaru and is possibly unaware of all of these details, even though she was the one acting it out. This might be the first time she's hearing any of this!

(Aqua's line that Ruby "was acting that line as a lie" may completely disavow this. I'm not 100% on this interpretation. But given the surrounding events I'm more willing to believe that she didn't have the full context here.)

When Aqua originally released the information that they were Ai's children, Ruby saw this as a betrayal of their family so severe that she cut ties. They later made up, but not by addressing the fundamental issue - Aqua's identity reveal papered over the issues that were there. But while Ruby sees Gorou as someone who categorically is on her side and wouldn't betray her, that isn't exactly true - the act that caused her to no longer see Aqua as a trustworthy figure were still something he did, and didn't regret. So how will Ruby react to hear Aqua, her beloved idol, say that his revenge was in part something that would help their mother's killer? Aqua has had plenty of chapters considering the worth of revenge versus happiness - Ruby hasn't had that. It's possibly she went along with this plan because it was Aqua who asked - but equally possibly that this is a moment that she realizes that her idol has plans that go against her own, causing their relationship to strain once more.

Now, I've made a lot of guesses from very little information here, it's entirely possible that I'm completely off base on both points - that this was Aqua's plan from the start, and that Ruby was completely informed. But these are points I think are the factors that I think are not fully explained as of right now, which means I think will receive further elaboration in coming chapters.

[aihoshiino]

chapter 164 thoughts

This post discusses suicide and suicidal ideation in the context of Oshi no Ko.

Chapters Until The Story Ends Without The 143 Kiss Being Addressed Or Acknowledged: 2

Bizarrely, I feel like I don't have a ton to say about this chapter. Not because stuff doesn't happen in it but because… fuck, man. What do I even say. I can't quite 100% shake my suspicion that Akasaka has some asspull up his sleeve and that Aqua might come back in style form, even if altered to the point that he isn't the Aqua we know anymore, but this chapter is clearly set up for us to think he's dead and for us to see other character's reactions to this news, so I'll talk about the text with that assumption in mind. This one will probably be kind of all over the place so bear with me ig

That being said… this is all kind of dumb as fuck, huh

Like. There's just so many insane contrivances with this setup that it's impossible for me to take it seriously. Putting aside that there's no way on planet earth Aqua's plan should have fooled anybody, why in God's name are his family and friends finding out about this from a news broadcast and not, like… Being contacted by the police?? Or at least hearing about it beforehand??

I also really don't like that we're setting up to have a whole chapter focusing on Ruby's response to all this while Aqua's Literal Mother and all his friends get like. Two panels to be shocked at the news. If the series ends without giving them all the space to grieve I think I will be legitimately really pissed off lmao

The presence of 15 Year Lie in this chapter also makes me agonizingly aware that we know basically nothing about it to this day, even though the contents of the movie are what this final arc revolves around. Aqua's plan relies on Kamiki's crimes as exposed by the movie being heinous enough that Kamiki would kill Aqua to silence them but…

WHAT FUCKING CRIMES???

The Kamiki we saw in the movie was only ever portrayed as a victim in the scenes we see. Unless the story is trying to imply that Kamiki is somehow responsible for Uehara and Airi's deaths or that 15YL makes him directly responsible for Gorou's death or - literally I have no idea what this could be referring to.

I dunno, man. It's hard for me to really want to buckle down and analyse this because so much of it feels entirely contrary to the story that came before. I've always insisted that the one thing that we could guarantee was that Aqua and Ruby would survive the series and be happy because so much emotional weight is put on Ai's wish for Aqua and Ruby to grow into adults and be happy, and it really seemed like we were building up to an ending of Aqua deciding for himself that he wants to finally live for himself, so this sudden swerve into Aqua being told by God "actually your purpose in life is to nobly commit suicide for your sister" is uh, jarring to say the least.

Part of the issue with this is that I think Akasaka doesn't think of Aqua's sacrifice as being a suicide, narratively speaking, even though Akane literally acknowledges it as such. But the thing is, Aqua's "sacrifice" is emergent from all the same things as his suicidal ideation - his belief that his life is intrinsically less valuable than everyone else's and his continued guilt and self loathing as a result of his trauma. Aqua literally says to Ruby's face in 143 that he feels guilty just for being alive and it's literally never addressed again.

So it's very difficult not to read this ending as the story approving of Aqua killing himself, but only if it's for the right reasons. Not only is that an insanely irresponsible message to put into a story as widespread and visible as OnK is right now, it's also just fucking ghoulish.

Idk. Even if Aqua lived here, I just really dislike this idea of his whole life's purpose being Narratively Affirmed as being to uplift Ruby at his own expense. Aqua is very much like Ai in that he's a person who has spent basically all of both his lives in service to other people, unable to pursue the things that he wants and that make him genuinely fulfilled - an ending that parallels Ai, where he is denied this to the extent that it kills him, is not a bad idea on paper but the execution here makes it fall apart. Like, if the framing was that Aqua and Kamiki were both unable to move on from the past to the point that it kills them, I'd vibe with that or something like it. But as is, this shit is just baffling.

It doesn't help that Aqua's death is just completely unmoored from anything the series has been setting up all this time. I've seen people defending this as being what Aqua's revenge was building up to, but this very explicitly isn't about Aqua's revenge. It's about "protecting Ruby's future", but the idea that Kamiki was a threat to Ruby specifically is something that was introduced all of four chapters ago. Even then, it's deeply undercooked. Like, what it is about Kamiki that makes him SUCH a threat to Ruby that Aqua has no choice but to take the nuclear option and kill them both? Why is this the one and only way to stop him? We don't know - we basically know nothing about Kamiki besides "he's Ai's crazy ex" which is such a massive letdown for an antagonist who's been built up for this long.

Speaking of Ai…. where the fuck is she!!!

I know this is predictable background noise from the Ai Wife Guy, but it really is baffling to me that she's such a nonfactor when the climax happening right now is her son confronting the man who killed her. At best, we get mild lipservice as to her existence but the series is so all-in on this "protecting Ruby's future" framing that Ai's absence here feels jarring. It's not just that Ai should be relevant because I like her (but I DO and she SHOULD) but because it makes for a bizarrely deflated finale. Instead of the tragedy we've been building up to avenging for over 140 chapters, Aqua's death comes as the result of a plan he came up with on the spot to deal with an ill-defined threat that only came into existence 4-6 chapters ago.

It just doesn't really feel satisfying, especially when the series has been so wishy washy when it comes to focusing on Aqua and Ruby's relationship. If the series was going to make that connection The central axis on which this climax revolves, then it needed more fleshing out than it got, regardless of if the series went the AquRuby route or not.

Two chapters left………..

[delicious-p4ncakes]

While I'm sad because of what happened, after all Aqua is one of it not my favourite character in the series, plot-wise it was satisfying.

Aqua has always been a self-sacrificing person with little to no care about himself, but this really hit me in the feels. Ever since his past life as Gorou, he wanted to become a doctor to help people (even if he ended up working in an area he wasn't passionate about thanks to his grandparents), and this wish lives on in Aqua. He formed a strong bond with Sarina and cared for her, probably in a familial sense considering he had no problems accepting her as his sister as Ruby (and personally, this is just a head canon, I believe he saw her as a little sister/daughter when he was still Gorou). Because she sadly passed away in a tragic manner at such a young age, and he was the doctor assigned to her, it's obvious why he felt guilty and the need to protect her once she outed herself as Ruby.

Having Hikaru kill people whom he thought would surpass Ai kinda makes sense, I guess? In his eyes, she was perfect and the reason he kept on going, but she also broke his heart and left him with even more trauma. He was (and still is) incredibly mentally ill and in need of help, so that definetly affected his thought process and course of action. In the end, he accidentally led Ai to her death and that was the reason he decided to protect the image she had as an idol to kinda make up for it ig? But I believe it's more complicated than that.

He decided to murder to atone for his error of having her killed, protect Ai's legacy and also get revenge. He killed those girls similar to Ai not only because they were potential rivals to Ai's popularity, something he wanted to protect since it was that same image/personality that kept him going for years, but also because they reminded Hikaru of the person that knew how hurt he was and hurt him even more. Him murderingthose girls is both a sign of how he wishes for Ai to be cherished beyond her years just like how he cherished her and to get revenge on her for betraying and hurting him.

There are many threads left unfinished, such as Ruby's development arc into realizing she is not Sarina anymore and that she needs to move on, not necessarily forget who she used to be, but move on. Sarina's mother, the group's disbandment, Ruby and Aqua's half sibling and probably more things I can't remember right now. Anyways, I'm excited to see what'll happen next!!! The story is coming to an end soon and hopefully Aka and Mengo can deliver a great finale.