Tag: Kamiki Hikaru

In defense of Akane in Oshi no Ko, who isn’t a perfect waifu, and why that’s a good thing

Posted on | by anicritic | Leave a Comment on In defense of Akane in Oshi no Ko, who isn’t a perfect waifu, and why that’s a good thing

I’ve seen a lot of people call Akane a perfect waifu, and I don’t agree with this sentiment. A perfect waifu wouldn’t tell Aqua in Episode 29 that he needs to make his own decision on how he wants to live and that she’ll support whatever his decision is after he has made it. I get the sense that Akane has taken her psychological profiling that she uses to portray the characters she plays when acting too seriously and has read up too much on psychology to her detriment. Although that’s how she was able to step into Ai’s shoes so well for the Dating Reality Show arc and get Aqua curious about her, not everything can be understood just from reading about psychology.

While Akane is right that when one half of the couple leans too heavily upon the other to make decisions it can be a toxic dynamic/relationship, she clearly has no previous relationship experience before dating Aqua, and it shows. She should know that Aqua was doing better mentally when he wasn’t bothered with revenge, but she merely stated this season that she prefers that version of Aqua rather than fully realizing that Aqua was legitimately in a better headspace after giving up on revenge rather than it being a matter of opinion. She should’ve outright told him to continue letting go of what haunted him as it’s not wrong to encourage your partner to do what’s best for his mental health, and the one time Aqua needed Akane’s emotional support more than ever he didn’t get it.

Akane is clearly a kind girl who doesn’t mean any harm, but I see her naivety being horrible for Aqua. She has made it her goal to kill Hikaru in place of Aqua to keep him out of it, but she perhaps let out a freudian slip about that in Episode 29 when she mused about carrying his burdens with him, hinting to Aqua that she knew all along that his father still lived, and Aqua, with him being the intelligent guy he is, most likely caught onto the possible implications of that, making her attempt to safeguard him a failure, not to mention the potential damage to their relationship.

She just wants to be a supporting girlfriend, but she doesn’t know what’s the best approach of doing that. I’m thinking Akane may not have had a great childhood herself with something clearly missing as her idea of what a girlfriend/loving partner should do is somewhat amiss and moreso along the lines of what a teenage girl would read online about co-dependent relationships instead of following in the example of her parents. I’m glad that Akasaka had the courage to write Akane this way even if will be bad for Aqua’s mental health as he’s showing just what can go wrong as people struggle to grow into adults. She’s relentlessly trying to do what she believes is best for Aqua even if some of her beliefs are misguided, and she’s a well-written and flawed character, not a perfect waifu as some people claim her to be.

This will most likely put Aqua back on the path to revenge against Hikaru, and then they’ll go about it as a couple with Akane supporting him with all her heart. Unfortunately, I believe the direction Episodes 28 and 29 went in point to Oshi no Ko ending in a dark and bleak fashion. And while I can see why fans would be very upset with such an ending, if the first arc with Ai was a criticism of the industry and the last few arcs build up to a dreary ending, I can see Oshi no Ko being a story about the very significant mental health crisis in Japan and how underneath the entertaining aspects of the Japanese entertainment industry lies a message of a country deep in crisis with many of the people who engage with this industry, either directly as a part of it or as fans of it, having major issues.

Watching anime for perfect waifu is in my opinion not the ideal way to watch it. You may get solace from feeling close to such a character when watching anime primarily as an escape, but it will not motivate you to improve your life and meaningfully grow as a person or to diversify your perspectives on life and relationships. I hope anime-onlies such as myself can watch the entire series and not pre-judge the ending as terrible, instead focusing on what message Akasaka was trying to tell. There are big deep-seated issues in Japan that often show up in developed countries later, much like a rapidly aging population, a shrinking workforce, and reduced social interaction/withdrawal. The significant mental health crisis is probably a sleeper issue that will creep up on many countries.

Analysis: Oshi no Ko’s portrayal of how the pursuit of revenge hurts those around you is brilliant and the possible implications of that for the story

Posted on | by anicritic | Leave a Comment on Analysis: Oshi no Ko’s portrayal of how the pursuit of revenge hurts those around you is brilliant and the possible implications of that for the story

For me personally, the ugly and unpleasant can make for great content even if not the most enjoyable, and I found this to be outright one of the best episodes of Oshi no Ko after the appalling episode from last week. This episode shows very well how the death of a character can ruin the dynamics between a family due to the ensuing trauma and how one’s pursuit of revenge can negatively affect those around you.

Ichigo basically abandoned his wife and Strawberry Productions due to being heartbroken over Ai’s murder, and given he considered Ai his daughter of sorts, he probably blamed himself on some level for not preparing Ai for something like that given his knowledge of the industry. Now, he’s using Ruby as a foot soldier for his revenge even though it keeps her on a bad path, the daughter of the one he considered a daughter to him. Ichigo was fucked up by Ai’s murder just as much as anybody else, and seeing his nonchalant telling to Aqua that it was just a theory and nothing confirmed after Aqua started having a panic attack while he continues fishing, doing nothing meaningful to calm Aqua, the son of the one he considered his daughter, shows just how much he has changed with him not caring about his wife, Miyako, and showing zero care for the well-being of Ai’s children.

Aqua’s pursuit of revenge himself was what kickstarted Ruby going off the deep end since she realized that the reason Aqua had gotten back into the industry despite for years saying he had no further interest in acting was so that he could find Ai’s murderer after her realization that Gorou had also been murdered just as Ai was and that it was orchestrated by the same person. Viewers should recall that Gorou was the person most important to Sarina before she reincarnated as Ruby as he spent the most meaningful time with her with her parents not even bothering to visit her, so Aqua being on the path of revenge directly led to Ruby going on this path, and she doesn’t care who she has to hurt to get her revenge whereas Aqua had more apparent limits to the lengths he would go. I can even understand why Ruby reacted the way she has given she lost both Ai and Gorou, but Gorou’s death was truly painful for her given she had wondered for so long what had happened to him with Gorou being the biggest thing tying her to this world.

In turn this came back to hurt Aqua himself seeing Ruby become the way she is after he did so much to protect her innocence and how Ruby’s pursuit of revenge led to him encountering Ichigo again, which shattered his illusion about him no longer having to kill his father, who was revealed to be Hikaru in Episode 28. And of course, Aqua had a one-track mind for revenge since he was 4 until recently after Taiki wrongly concluded that their father had already killed himself.

As for Kana, I’m somewhat miffed that she’s getting major flack for not being in-tune with Aqua’s emotional state when he was unresponsive to her due to him spiraling. I’m tired of so many people only watching anime so that they can self-insert into the protagonist’s shoes due to watching anime mainly as an escape. Despite Aqua having a ton of trauma, Kana herself has major trauma from her mother abandoning her when her career stalled, making her develop an inferiority complex and an intense fear of abandonment, making her deeply crave validation even though she goes out of her way not to stand out due to realizing that raw talent is less important than people skills in the industry, which is being triggered by Aqua’s treatment of her, so I believe it’s ridiculous that people are bashing Kana despite Aqua deliberately avoiding her for months and then physically hitting her upon their first meeting in a long while. Kana, with her own trauma, of course reacted in the way she did since the way Aqua is outwardly presenting himself as not wanting anything to do with her, and flaming Kana ’cause she isn’t perfectly in-tune with Aqua’s emotions like Akane is is a failure in media literacy as Kana being a self-absorbed girl is not the takeaway Akasaka wanted viewers to have from that scene. Kana does not and has never known about Aqua’s issues, and she cannot read minds. Not everyone is into psychologically profiling people like Akane is as that’s actually quite rare. The main takeaway Akasaka wanted viewers to get from this is Aqua’s spiraling and how the pursuit of revenge is not a healthy way to live since it pushes people away, much like how he never really got all the close to Ruby since he was 4 all the way up until now, which is probably one reason Ruby even decided to go on the path of revenge ’cause she never developed a relationship with anybody as meaningful as the one she had with Gorou.

As far as the implications for Oshi no Ko’s story, after I had watched Season 2, I thought that Oshi no Ko would have a happy ending, but I believe Episode 28 dramatically increased the chances of the story having a dark ending with the reason I believe this being ’cause Ichigo didn’t also need to be looped into the revenge story, and since he was, what Akasaka may be going for is showing how people get fucked over by something such as Ai’s death, first shown through Aqua, and then Ruby, and now Ichigo too. Another reason I believe this is that I think if Aqua hadn’t lashed out at Kana, she of all people might’ve been able to calm him down since she is the one he fancies, but maybe Akasaka’s deliberately keeping Kana out of the revenge plot to ensure that Aqua completes his revenge against his Hikaru after all with the only one who could talk him out of it never being looped into things. Akasaka was perhaps friends with an idol who was murdered and knew somewhat of the fallout of that girl’s murder and wants to preach about how a life in pursuit of revenge ends up ruining many people’s lives. This would make sense for a mangaka since Japan has a significant mental health crisis, and someone actively working in the industry like Aka does would be in a position to highlight how this is perhaps magnified for fans of and those working in the in the Japanese entertainment industry with how many fans latch onto idols due to something they lack in their own lives and considering the pressures those working in that industry face. In any case, it was an outstanding episode despite the ugliness of what it depicted. I don’t know Oshi no Ko’s ending, but I know western anime fans hated it, and this could possibly be a case of media illiteracy or a lack of understanding on a serious issue in Japanese culture.