This Week in Anime

Oshi no Ko and the Idol Industry's Dirty Secret

Nicky
Well, as the saying goes, there's no rest for the wicked, especially for a star. Social media is just one act of the chaotic circus surrounding entertainers and consumers. We love to harsh on social media because the interface makes the corporate-driven meddling more obvious. Still, for decades, poor taste and immoral tactics have been a facet of the entertainment industry and culture. The only way to end such conspiring evil forces is to be reincarnated as an idol's child and infiltrate from the inside?!

It's also a theme wrapped in a premise so wild that it takes 90 minutes to detail everything, a PR move that has undoubtedly caught attention. I have been hyping up the show in past columns, and the length is earned by its stunning performance. Since I, like many others, wanted to give everyone a chance to be surprised, I've avoided talking about its actual contents. Now that the second episode is out, we're raising our self-imposed embargo and opening the stage for the real show!

Oshi no Ko isn't like anything that you'd expect on paper. I've recommended most people go into the premiere blind because a straightforward plot summary doesn't do it justice. In fact, it's pretty goddamn off-putting. Overall, I find even the out-there build-up as a sign of confidence. Still, I don't think most people would know that if they only had 20 minutes of some regular doctor muddling about with his inner fanboy because his favorite idol is his new patient trying to keep her teen pregnancy secret.

I, too, love characters who can flaunt their baggage like it's nothing. Ai Hoshino puts on a fair show of making her personal and professional burdens seem weightless, but her deception turns out to be a huge flex. She's very self-aware and upfront about her place in society as an object of a fantasy and not a person. We don't get to see all the contents of what she carries as an orphan recruited into stardom at a young age, but each detail about the idol industry makes you realize the true heaviness of what we're dealing with here.

While Oshi no Ko is a piece of fiction, it draws from criticism of the real idol industry. As an avid and long-time anime fan, the presence of idols and even criticism thereof isn't entirely new to me. Heck, one of the most critically-acclaimed anime films of all time, Perfect Blue, is about the dire consequences such stardom has on one woman's identity. However, the toxicity is more than just a fun way to get a reaction out of an audience. There have been many publications exposing various cases of the ways idols are exploited, from long hours to stalking, and scandals, to even sexual favors. Like the West, the life of glamour and fame in Japan isn't all it's cracked up to be. What makes idols unique from other starlets is the emphasis on moral and sexual purity, which Ai pointedly has neither!

Plus, most international popstars aren't catering to anti-social adults! I understand it's fun to take fan worship seriously; Gorou and his young cancer patient Sarina show deep and sincere passion for Ai's talent. Many more recent anime highlight the positive nature of idol culture and fandom. Yet, the toxicity caused by such severe adoration is still highly present. IRL there's been many incidents of stalking, assault, and harassment at the hands of people claiming to be fans, often citing their actions as a product of love. Gorou is a fatality of such emotion when a stalker enraged by Ai's falsehood confronts him the night the babies are supposed to be born. However, as a fanboy at heart, he doesn't seem too bothered when he's reincarnated as Ai's son, Aqua.

Hollywood's #MeToo also sparked various women in Japan to speak up against their mistreatment by male superiors, using the label #KuToo. I feel like it's intentional that Gorou's murder is brushed off so quickly as the lone actions of a deranged individual, as we shift focus to the inside baseball, where we learn how much internal politics make the idols themselves powerless, even for a dedicated talent like Ai.

Oshi no Ko never goes as far as being explicitly sexual, but the chauvinism is there. Even many young male singers have claimed to be forced into uncomfortable sexual situations by their bosses as part of a normalized part of their career. The BBC even made a documentary of specific incidents.

Still, many of the worst attitudes are often horrifically casual. The anime's direction does a great job of making such chatter stick out.

Many idols don't just sing and dance; they're expected to be multi-talented and do long hours for the same pay. It's common to see idols acting as models or in dramas as part of cross-promotion. Even anime isn't free of this, as we've often seen idols as voice actors or voice actors become idols. An idol might be cast in a live-action drama adaptation. Walk into any convenience store, and the magazines are all covered with underage idols in revealing swimwear, even manga magazines! Many idols are recruited in middle or high school but don't even make it to adulthood as they might age out or fail to land solo, which shows they're also pretty disposable.

Yet, we rarely see idols go international (though the industry's music licensing is another issue), which I reckon is partially because many of them are short-lived and partially because so much of those campaigns I mentioned are entirely localized. As an outsider, the overall success of idols as a phenomenon may feel unbelievable even when compared to other popstars or celebrities because their marketing is so laser-focused.

The disposable nature also makes it sting after we see Ai fading away at the height of her success, having fallen victim to the same fan who killed Aqua/Gorou in his previous life. It's an incredible tragedy that Aqua and Ruby experience firsthand, but the kind of entitled mentality and narrative feels so common too.

We talked a lot about the negative aspects of the idol industry, but what makes Oshi no Ko interesting as a story is that both Aqua and Ruby have really complicated relationships with Ai and their participation in their fandom. They're not innocent of pedestalling Ai as a mythic figure from their previous lives, but their life as a family is somehow real. They're each other's biggest fans!

We haven't talked about Ruby much, but that's because her motivation is largely from having a positive relationship with her interest and role model. Her reincarnation granted her a miraculous second chance at life that her previous body couldn't have achieved.

Aqua has grown more distant from his past life due to his awareness, almost like self-hatred or guilt. The twins have an interesting contrast. It shows how they interact with the industry, with Ruby wanting to be upfront like her mom and Aqua choosing to "work in the shadows" like the detective he is, sometimes even going to extremes. Regardless, they're both talented, and I'm interested to see how they'll grow into that talent. Some people say they don't like the "out-there" aspect of the reincarnation, but I think a multi-layered perspective is somehow easier to relate to in the abstract.

There are some other pretty messy criticisms to be made of that choice, but the whole story is very YMMV for the risks it decides to take. It was a pretty emotional characterization, even as entertainment and not just a message. There's a lot of credit to how Asakasa writes characters, but I adore how Doga Kobo emulates Mengo Yokoyari's character designs and illustration style.

And in its heart, I don't think Oshi no Ko's intention isn't just to criticize or scandalize the harmful elements of a thing people love to ruin it for everyone or for shock value. Most anime might be too soft on making criticisms or actively discourage them as part of fluffy advertising, but outside media is more likely to only depict the horrors in a way that may further stigmatization and othering. I think the point of criticism is to make people aware.