Yeah, I think this show has just fully lost me.
The problem with finally formally introducing our main villain last week is that it makes all the showbiz stuff feel deeply trivial. If that was on purpose, I’d respect it. Unfortunately, it is still portrayed with the same monumental importance it’s always had in this show. Now more than ever, even, now that the movie about Ai is getting off the ground.
Speaking of which, hoo boy.
At what point does something cross the line from tragedy into comedy? How ridiculous does it have to get? How contrived must the situation be? Aqua has some kind of Epic Revenge Plan we are not presently privy to the details of that relies on this movie being a big success. Hence his acting in it as one of the leads—this is probably also a weird pyschosexual thing but the show is weirdly shy about actually saying that—and hence caring so much about how well it does. This much makes sense, but the arc it is trying to set up is short on anything actually worth watching so far.
What this setup means instead is that we get to do the stage play arc from season two warmed over, but with a movie this time and with less visual panache despite the higher stakes. (This might be the first episode of Oshi no Ko that I would say kind of looks so-so overall, in fact. It’s not horrible or anything, but there’s a noticeable lack of dazzle compared to most of its episodes.) You’d be forgiven for forgetting this, but there was a time not that long ago when Hoshino Aqua did in fact care about acting as something other than a means to an end. The fact that he doesn’t anymore isn’t inherently a problem, but as with everything else in this season the real issue is in the execution. There’s something to be said for the pure, granite cynicism of essentially having your lead seem like he’s going to walk into an open grave, but it’s absolutely no fun to watch at all, and it isn’t really that compelling as drama, either. The Aqua I cared about is already dead, so I don’t much care if this guy lives or dies. He says it himself in this episode, he’s given up on living a happy life. Why should I care if he lives one or not?
God bless MEM-cho. She is one of Oshi no Ko‘s vanishingly few characters who might be called “a normal person,” and as such she is totally unequipped to handle Aqua’s whole mess, but at least she’s trying.
Then there’s the whole blind acting contest thing that closes out the episode. Essentially, Frill—yes, more on that in a second—challenging Ruby and Akane to a pseudo-audition where they will vote among themselves for the best actress between them. In principle this is actually interesting, but in practice, it’s the same thing I’ve been saying about every problem I have with this season. It’s not that it’s bad on paper, it just isn’t handled well. Also, I don’t care how true to life it is, contriving the situation such that neither Akane nor Ruby have any idea what they’re actually auditioning for just makes the entire thing less interesting. I want to see Ruby torn the fuck apart by grappling with what she’s going to have to portray if she lands this role, and I want her to do it anyway. I’m sure we’ll get to that eventually but what point does holding off on it serve? Other than being yet another example of the show handling Ruby with kid gloves? (Because god forbid a girl be a tragic heroine while her brother is doing exactly the same thing.)
Right, it serves to reintroduce everyone’s favorite character, Shiranui Frill.
Yeah, you know, Frill. The living piece of trivia who was initially created solely to bridge this series and Love is War!, since she’s related to a character from that manga. That Frill. Are there a lot of Frill stans in the audience? Are the Frillnatics (presently my headcanon for what Frill’s stan army is called in-universe) popping for this? If you are out there and you are reading this, please reply to this post telling me why you like Frill. I’m genuinely curious. Before this episode she was barely a character at all, and hey, to her credit, she makes a solid showing here (it is never a bad idea to add more weirdos to the cast). But it all just seems like such cruft. The anime is apparently cutting quite a lot, and it still feels like it’s paced glacially and is just generally way too decompressed. I want some fucking urgency, man! There’s a killer on the loose! And frankly the contrivance just makes her look like a terrible person! Frill knows that Ruby is Ai’s daughter, surely? The idea that she’d not tip her off just for the sake of being professional strains credulity. Actors break the industry’s unspoken rules for much less in both real life and fiction all the fucking time. (It would be an entirely other matter if she was doing this on purpose in order to give herself an edge in the contest or to mess with Ruby for some other reason, but there’s no real indication that that’s the case.) All told it’s a surprisingly sloggish episode, despite there being, theoretically, quite a few things that happen here.
Also, the heavy-handed Ruby/Ai parallels are a bit much. But honestly if that was my only problem with this season we’d be doing alright. One thing they do genuinely have in common—a much bigger similarity than the contrived “they’re both liars” thing that the show keeps trying to set up—is that they’re dumbass goofballs. For example, we learn about a pair of video letters Ai had Gotanda hold on to (another contrived element), and when he asks her why have him do this, her response is this.
And back in the present, Ruby’s best guess as to what the audition will entail is…this whiteboard doodle.
(This is also something both of them have in common with Frill, who goes on a bizarre rant about her taxes and submits a comedy skit about the actual like from-the-fairytale Boy Who Cried Wolf as her audition, which includes her howling like a wolf. It’s one of the episode’s highlights.)
I’ve said this many times, but it’s so ridiculous to me that Akasaka Aka clearly wants to write Dark And Serious material, because he is so much better at simple comedy and relationship stuff. Kana is a bright spot in this episode when she shows up in its first third. She has a nice little exchange with Aqua and another with Ruby, and exits the episode early on with this line. I would not be surprised if she is the only major character who makes it out of Oshi no Ko with something resembling a happy ending. (Not inherently a better thing, but something Akasaka is far better at writing than whatever the fuck else he’s trying to do here.)
And honestly, that’s the main thing right? I didn’t hate this episode. It has its bright spots! But overall? In aggregate? It’s just a mess and a bore. I don’t respect what Oshi no Ko is doing anymore. Not because it shouldn’t try to have tragic elements or be serious, but because it is simply bad at both of those things.
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