Oshi No Ko
Short Synopsis: Doctor meets his favorite idol who is secretly pregnant, then gets killed, and is reborn as her kid like that day.
Amun: I, uh, yeah, this ain’t for me. One of my absolute non-starters for the “reincarnation” (I guess this isn’t technically an isekai?) is the restart from a baby and all the infant activities done with an adult mind. It’s a bit messed up (there’s a reason your memories wipe around 3). Getting to this behemoth of an episode, the animation is fine and the characters sure do sparkle. Unfortunately, the idol genre is a dish I very rarely enjoy, so it has to be something truly special to keep me interested (pretty much just “Zombie Land Saga”). Full disclosure: I only watched about 25 minutes to where there was some children feeding, but that’s about the length of a single episode, which is all I’m really willing to give this show. I just wonder what the target demographic here is: you need to enjoy reborn shows, but also shows about idols, but also shows about little kids. Seems a fairly small intersection – I guess “Spy x Family” for idol fans? Just a very strange premise. You get the stalker otaku, some murder, some intrigue, bunch of scummy entertainment people, whatever. “Oshi No Ko” just didn’t leave a good taste in my mouth, so I’m sure not coming back for seconds (or even finishing this first gigantic plate).
P.S. I’m no conspiracy theorist, but has anyone else noticed a bunch of anime getting greenlit that involve child-rearing and how great it is? I can only think of “Beelzebub” from back in the day – there couldn’t possibly be an agenda to try and help out the herbivore Japanese population, could there?
Potential: 0%
Mario: Now, this is unusual. Oshi no Ko’s first episode turned out to be a feature length affair, and after going through it, I don’t think it deserves its long, long runtime. Well, the exact phrase should be: it doesn’t deserve 80 minutes of my time since I would normally drop it after 20 minutes. The episode takes a critical look at the idol industry. It’s clearly established how our idol girl/mom Ai is “made of lies.” It also goes to great lengths to hit the point home that the idol industry is an unforgiving place where talent alone isn’t enough. Those are critical observations, sure, but the issue I have with the episode is that it’s also a wish-fulfillment fantasy about a fully-grown adult reincarnated as that idol’s son. That is why he gets a free pass to act in a film, and there are many other instances where I feel like I’m watching a scene from Boss Baby. The writing is blatant at times. There’s a scene where our main guy, still in his adult body, is confronted by an obsessive fan of Ai’s, and his very first reaction was to admit that she’s staying at the hospital where he works. I also don’t get why the show keeps his twin sister’s real identity a secret from him. They are together like… all the time. This review is running long so I’ll cut it short here – despite spending time with these characters the longest, I have very little interest to find out more about any of them or the true killer’s identity.
Potential: Not deserving of its length
A Galaxy Next Door
Short Synopsis: A desperate mangaka hires a proficient assistant who turns out to be a princess.
Wooper: You know how the old saying “write what you know” has resulted in a lot of novels about English professors contemplating adultery? Well, A Galaxy Next Door is cut from a similar cloth, only it took the adage less literally – it’s about an (unmarried) manga artist named Ichiro falling in love with his female assistant Shiori, but she’s also a princess, and also not human, and also her tail acts as a portal to another realm. The show gives her a convincingly human appearance in order to save all these reveals until the last few minutes, and in my opinion they constitute the only interesting part of the episode. Much of the rest of its runtime involved Ichiro fretting over the deadline for his next chapter, talking to his boring family, and passing pages to Shiori or telling her she’s allowed to take a break (she naturally refuses all such offers, this being a Japanese production). I know it’s hard to make a meticulous process like drawing manga seem entertaining, but Galaxy Next Door takes such a grounded approach that it doesn’t even attempt to tackle that issue. The show looks remarkably plain, as well – every single interior shot made me doubt Ichiro’s compositional skills, given the drab state of his building (did I mention he’s also a landlord?), and the character designs are some of the dullest of the season. It’s a shame that one of the few adult romances we’ve received in recent years had to end up this way, but at least last season’s Koori Zokusei Danshi fared a bit better on the production front.
Potential: 10%
Amun: By the way, in case anyone else got confused, this is NOT the anime about the kids with insomnia and the observatory. I also did not realize this was a reverse-isekai either. This premise is weird – but I do appreciate how wonderful it is to find a competent assistant. I also liked how straightforward the characters are here….and then things got a little bit weird. Overall, the visual quality does feel a bit low, but I didn’t hate the characters or the settings. Just kind of a very complicated setup off the bat – there could have been some slow playing all the various parts (landlord manga artist has to raise his two little kids and gets an assistant who is a star princess with a spiky tail who is a fan of his….hey, at least they didn’t use that as the title of the show). I might watch a few more, but since the little kids look like the primary supporting cast (and the inevitable other neighbors in the building), this doesn’t look like it’ll hold my interest for an entire season.
Potential: 40%
Ousama Ranking:
The Treasure Chest of Courage
Short Synopsis: Bojji and Kage get up to all kinds of hijinks…set in the middle of the first season?
Mario: This season is a batch of side-stories from Ousama Ranking, which also means that it’s more of Ousama Ranking without an actual arc. If you are already a fan of these characters (I am), or want to see more worldbuilding (I do), then this season should be a treat!! Well, that’s only partly right. If this first episode is any indication, it will tell heart-warming tales about our Bojji and Kage that should please the audience, but at the same time, it already feels repetitive. That feeling is not from the set-up (which is different enough), but more from its educational message. “Being kind” and compassionate is obviously a theme here, and it’s an important attribute for Bojji to be a great King in the future. I adore Ousama’s Ranking world and characters for sure, but I hope the season provides enough reasons for me to care beyond that.
Potential: 40%
Amun: The rarest of sequels – the mid-quel! I can only think of “Steins;Gate” as an example of this off the top of my head, although there are tons of spinoffs that tell the same story with different characters. And it was good! (well, the OP song was very not good, but the video was fine). This looks to be basically all the filler episodes that weren’t present in the first season – that’s fine with me, since we already know the larger plot. I don’t actually mind that, since it doesn’t interfere with the larger stories and can be all fun no stakes – “Reincarnated As a Slime” did that recently, and I thought it was great. Animation remains top notch, characters are still good, and we won’t have any of the weird Miranjo stuff to deal with (I hope). This may not win any awards, but I’ll watch this.
Potential: 75%
Oof, talk about all time bad takes…
Lenlo already yelled at us 😀
You guys seem to want to put Oshi No Ko in a box it just doesn’t fit in. I understand that it’s juggling a LOT and some elements of the story are eyeroll-inducing, but your ‘critiques’ come off as needlessly contrarian. It’s not about child-rearing, it’s not wish fulfillment, it’s not SpyXFamily for idol fans (that’s almost offensively off base) and if you’d give it half a chance maybe you’d have something to accurately critique instead of jumping the gun trying to find fault in a story based on what is effectively a prologue.
I have (not insubstantial) issues with the manga, but at least I’ve read enough to know what kind of story it’s attempting to tell.
I think Amun/Mario made a big mistake not finishing it. Like I have issues with it, I’m not big on the reincarnation angle either and I think it tells the story awkwardly, but the premier has a movie length for a reason. The finale completely shifts the story in a way that’s rather important. This is an L from them both imo.
It’s not even just this episode; the story as a whole delves into subject matter that is legitimately interesting. It’s a massive disappointment that nobody on this site is willing to give it a chance, it really does have a lot to offer outside some of the it’s more superficial elements.
This site has always been crying out for more interesting premises in anime, ever since psgels ran it. I guess if something’s popular enough (with enough eyeroll-inducing tropes to be fair), an interesting premise doesn’t really matter, no matter how well produced and animated it is. It’s a bit of a time investment considering one of the episodes is 90 minutes long but I’d give this at least three episodes to know where it’s even going to pass judgment on this series, especially considering how frequently it shifts genres and subject matter. But that’s just me, I’m sure the writers on this site would prefer to write about Danmachi or whatever’s getting a mediocre adaptation this season.
DanMachi catching the random-est of strays 😀
At 90 minutes, it’s already been 3 episodes worth! xD
I think it’s an interesting enough subject matter (I think I read through the first part of the source for season preview) – it’s just in a compilation of genre’s that I don’t tend to like. Is it good for someone with more refined tastes? Sure!
Just a note that I did finish the entire first episode, and yes, I’m not totally sold on what Oshi no Ko trying to sell. It touches on the dark side of entertainment industry, but then it gives a pass to Aqua having a chance to act / perform well on it. It deals with the obssessive level fans have for their idols (to the point of killing them), but then having two obssessive fans reborn as her kids. I just feel that while the show is clear on its intent, sometimes it uses the same tropes it critiques to move the plot forward.
You have a point, though as a matter of practicality I’m not sure how you’d write a story about the entertainment industry without the main characters being able to actively interact with its many facets. I also think that you can critique and celebrate something without the two things contradicting each other; there’s a pretty clear line drawn between the kind of benignly obsessive fans Aqua and Ruby are and the kind of obsessive fan that will kill their favourite star when learning they’re not the person they sell themselves as. This line exists in real life as well, so to me it doesn’t come off as dishonest or hypocritical when it’s depicted in Oshi No Ko.
I totally understand if the tonal dissonance is a complete turn off though, I think that’s something you either love or hate.
I complain all the time about Spy x Family trying to marry the found family and spy genres…both of which I like on their own. In this case, Oshi No Ko is combining high school, isekai (wait, that one I like), idols, intrigue, etc. Probably too much for me.
I was thinking about the comp to Odd Taxi actually. While the production levels and look are completely different, there’s idols in both and a gimmick (“animals” vs isekai). Maybe it can turn out after all.
I dunno, maybe I’ll give it a few more, why not.
I already knew the big shift from the source, by the way. I just wasn’t that into getting there >_<
Oshi no Ko certainly seems the most divisive anime of the season: it’s very popular among most viewers, of course, currently even topping the MAL rankings, but at the same time it has a very vocal minority of haters, like you guys.
Personally I quite liked the premiere: its critical look at the idol industry, and how it is being sustained by “lies”, is – though hardly groundbreaking – refreshing, and Ai is such a fascinating character (charming yet thoroughly broken) that she easily kept my interest throughout. And the premiere just looked and sounded very good, of course, which always helps. But I do get the complaints. Neither of the two leads is particularly likable (and both are more than a little creepy, and even more cringeworthy), and the mishmash of genres can feel a little forced. I mean, did this story really need reincarnation and all the wish fulfilment tropes that come with it? It does make for a lighthearted tone, I suppose, in an otherwise very dark episode, but in the long run, I’m not sure it’ll make the show better. It’s just … odd.
But in the end, my biggest gripe is that, even after a feature length premiere, I still don’t have a clue whether I’ll like the show. So much of the charm of this premiere comes from the character of Ai, so if you take here out of the series, what do you really have left? Two oddballs, one driven by revenge and another by following in the footsteps of her mother? A strange mixture of an idol show and a revenge flick, presumably in a high school setting? None of these elements seems particularly appealing to me, and although the critical look at the entertainment industry will presumably endure, other than that the tone will probably be very different. But after such a strong premiere (and given the author’s excellent track record with Kaguya-sama), I’ll give Oshi no Ko the benefit of the doubt for now. Hopefully the twist in tone and genres will grow on me after a few episodes.
Oh, I didn’t realize they got to “that” twist in this first ep – they actually went pretty far in the source. And I totally agree – it’s really the “mishmash of genres” that turns me off.
Oshi no Ko may not be for everybody, but the first episode was the perfect lenght, as itself says it´s the prologue for the real story to come. The doc becoming Aqua and a darker version of himself has everything to do with the episode ending and IMO sets the tone for the rest of the series. Ai´s charm will be seen in Ruby later.