Tag: Kurokawa Akane

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.

A trauma-informed analysis on why Aqua likes Kana in Oshi no Ko and Aqua’s true feelings about him acting

Posted on | by anicritic | Leave a Comment on A trauma-informed analysis on why Aqua likes Kana in Oshi no Ko and Aqua’s true feelings about him acting

For those for whom it wasn’t clear that Aqua likes Kana, Akane, who Akasaka uses as the voice of reason in Oshi no Ko, pretty much outright stated in Episode 26 that that is the case. This is not to say that Akane has no chance in the end, but I’m just sharing why it very much makes sense that Aqua currently likes Kana.

Aqua slowly growing to like Kana was built up on early in the series and was literally intentional. Yes, Aqua did state that he wanted to kill Kana back when they were small kids ’cause of how insufferable she was, but fixating on that one line to try to suggest that he doesn’t like Kana was blatantly disregarding what the story was actually telling.

Just note how Gotanda took note of the difference between Aqua’s reactions to Kana and Akane wanting to see his childhood acting. Although Gotanda didn’t draw any conclusions from what he observed, one reason for the contrast in Aqua’s reactions was to show that as much as Aqua likes to put out that he doesn’t enjoy acting or want to be in the industry, he was still self-conscious enough to not want Kana to see his childhood acting. If he truly didn’t give care even an iota about acting, he also wouldn’t have cared if Kana had seen it or perhaps reluctantly allowed her to see it eventually if he didn’t have any expectations of his abilities. Yes, I know he was a long-time fan of Kana at that point, which contributed to his decision to not allow her to see it, but he wouldn’t have denied Kana seeing his childhood acting so pointedly if he didn’t care at all.

Thus, I believe whether it’s due to being born as Ai’s son or ’cause Ai literally said that she wanted Aqua to be an actor, Aqua does genuinely have some level of desire to be in the Japanese entertainment industry beyond wanting to use the industry as a means of getting revenge on his father.

As much as Aqua talked about his lack of intention to continue in the industry given how he failed Gotanda, who gave him multiple opportunities repeatedly, I believe Kana sharing how she was encouraged that Aqua was also struggling along with her in a world shrouded in darkness and how she personally likes his acting as it feels like that of someone who’s put in the work for a long time with him using techniques that are considerate and meticulous validated Aqua wanting to be an actor, whether subconsciously or consciously, at the direction of his mother, Ai. Although some people may dismiss that scene as only about Kana feeling kinship with Aqua, I believe her words did resonate with him on some level as Ai was a huge influence on him back when she was still alive and even after, meaning deep-down he hoped to hear someone affirm that he had acting chops, and since he followed Kana’s career from childhood, her words meant a lot to him even if part of the reason she said what she did was ’cause of what she learned from childhood that people skills are in a way more important than raw talent in the industry.

As someone who has experienced trauma, I know for a fact that a substantial number of people are drawn to people who activate their trauma, not ’cause of a desire to hurt themselves but due to a subconscious attempt to resolve past traumas, which is what leads them to seek a familiar situation, and I know this because I myself like someone who activates my trauma, so I speak from experience. In asking Kana to join his sister’s idol group, he inadvertently created a situation that reactivated his trauma once Akane put it into his mind what could happen to Kana, and whether it be to due to his subconscious influencing him to seek a familiar situation in making that request of Kana or ’cause he saw how accommodating of a person Kana was for the Sweet Today project, which made Kana the perfect person for him to rely on to take care of his sister, Ruby, the situation that eventually ensued with Aqua avoiding Kana in fear of her being killed was a very natural progression of events for people who understand how trauma can affect a person.

And furthermore, another reason Kana is an easy person for Aqua to fall for is she had something more going for her than someone like Akane in that Aqua spent time with Kana in early childhood, and Kana is thus somewhat of a reminder of what things were like back before Ai was murdered and when Ai had wanted him to pursue acting. Hell, Kana herself having expectations of his acting is like a continuation of Ai having expectations him, which increases the sense of familiarity of the situation. Even though his life was thrown upside down after Ai was murdered, he did have a loving mother who genuinely wished the best for him, and that film he was in with Kana was Aqua’s shining moment in the industry for a long time. Kana may have been intolerable as a young child, but she actually has people skills now to iron out her worst qualities, and Aqua still likes the dynamic he has with her casually roasting him due to that past meeting. As much as Akane supports Aqua emotionally and how she’s the one Aqua has shared his issues with, and how she’s the one who improved his acting, he still likes Kana at the moment and that development is rooted in real-world experiences with trauma survivors often being drawn to certain familiar situations.