Keira

[keira835]

The final season is coming, and some of my thoughts on the manga’s ending:

Freedom is fast approaching!

Kadokawa, I forgive you for all the light novels you never gave a second season, for taking onk all the way to the end!

If the final volume is adapted into one episode, we might have 7 episodes left🥹

I want to try writing about the final episode later and talk about how I think reincarnation works in this story.

Basically, they are two perspectives; each with its own dreams, goals, understanding of romantic love and relationships (for Gorou Ruby is Sarina-his oshi, but for Aqua, she’s his sister).

Ruby and Sarina are mostly aligned, but Aqua and Gorou aren’t, which is why we see the latter split and clash more often, and Ruby and Sarina are treated as one.

I was a bit worried after the Kana changes, but as I suspected since E4: they aren’t making any significant changes, aside from carefully removing the criticism Kana received.

I wanted to write my full thoughts on the onk ending and all the characters arcs, but I think it’s better to wait because of the wildcard that is Kana (I’m not even sure what her fight with Ruby will look like, not to mention the funeral…)

But I’ll write a bit about Aqua’s arc:

First, this is the ending Onk and its fans deserve. People spent the entire manga ignoring any meaningful words and moments Aqua had, praying and hoping he was actually a Light Yagami level sociopath, all for the very important purpose of devaluing his relationship with Akane, with the peak being romanticizing Gorou, all for the sake of Kana. Don’t let them gaslight you it’s for any other reason.

But that just doesn’t hold up, it completely falls apart by the ending.

[footnote: If the author sets up a conflict around the definition of love, it doesn’t just disappear, it comes back. A character who can’t distinguish between loving an oshi and romantic love will inevitably play that out, with one girl representing each. Gorou thinking Aqua’s feelings for Kana as romantic is the clearest proof they’re actually for an oshi.]

Aqua spent a year believing his revenge was over. He dated Akane and stayed in the entertainment industry, and when he realized it wasn’t, he tried to fight for a future with her. The final push that sent him fully back into revenge and the black eyes was walking away from Akane.

Now, in the manga, he spends another year (or a bit less) before he dies.

So of course post-Akane breakup, after a year with the girl who brings him back to his old self (Kana) and the girl who only sees him as that old self(Ruby), Aqua would end up acting like Gorou: sacrificing everything for the sake of his oshi’s career. The very thing that gave his life meaning in the first place.

Salvation in Ruby being an idol you say, Gorou? That’s the reason you can let go of the knife and disappear, you say? Wow… I sure hope no one ever threatens Ruby’s idol career and makes you pick up the knife again…

Edit: This was also his specific trauma with Ai: feeling responsible for ending his oshi’s idol future. It’s fleshed out throughout Aqua avoiding Kana in chapters 83 (“Who will be responsible”), 103 (Kana has a real scandal that isn’t his fault, and he doesn’t act), 105 (Ruby: “It will affect her career” + Mem: “She became an idol because you wished for it”), 107, and 108,(after she tells him she quit in 107, he stops caring about scandals all together ) and is made even clearer in the anime.

Don’t complain that the ending is meaningless if you thought a promise not to talk about dying and singing a song would save Aqua, all while again ignoring who Aqua himself said actually saved him:

These words are too much, too strong, and there’s no coming back from them. It’s no coincidence that this is the only time Aqua ever used them.

It’s almost like what Aqua needed was someone who could take him away from his twisted old self…

Gorou always saw Aqua’s life as meaningless, so the moment his “salvation” was threatened, he threw it away like garbage. And poor Aqua, who lost all sense of himself over that year (even thinks becoming a doctor is his own dream), is left curled up on the floor, knowing it’s the wrong choice but not having enough will to fight Gorou, who’s happily dreaming about cheering for his oshis.

And we see the same in 164. Aqua wants to live, he still refuses to become one with the ocean’s darkness. All he needs is a reason to fight and swim up. But then… the song Ruby dedicates to her oshi (Gorou) reaches him and makes him give up completely. It becomes okay to die for Ruby’s idol career.

As usual, I find it funny that people think he isn’t thinking of Akane here because she “doesn’t matter”, when what actually happens is that thinking of B-komachi is what makes him give up and die.

Pretty nice tragedy, if you ask me that emphasizes the selfishness of fans.

I’m the last person to take VA (voice actors) interviews seriously. In fact I think people should ignore them altogether, because VAs’ opinions are just that- their opinions. nothing more.

But getting to the point where people can’t even accept the sound director’s clear words just because they clash with their headcanon that Kana’s entire role in the manga is to represent a “normal life”.

Who do you think actually works with Aka and gets guidance from him? Each VA individually? No, it’s the directors. The sound director decides how the VAs perform and always override everyone else’s interpretations.

Edit: my opinion on what the other director said. I’m mad about his “manage hate” agenda, but I’m glad I learned the difference between 人情, 義理, and 義務感, roughly “I want”, “I should” and “I must”.

The real reason I insist on Akane = romantic love and Kana = oshi love is because it’s the first step toward understanding anything meaningful in this manga. But people refuse to accept this very simple point, probably for the same profound reason many still reject the QQ ending: “I can’t see it”/ “MC has more chemistry with x”

You’d expect it to be clear that Onk emphasizes the importance of real, personal connections, being seen for who you truly are and accepted, and how that can truly impact someone and lead to real happiness vs idols who can be a light and offer hope, fun, and escapism, but nothing beyond that.

The twins to Ai, Ai to Kamiki, Akane to Aqua, Gorou to Sarina(The problems began when Sarina idolized Gorou and his flaws…)

But no.

Even Aqua remembering him and Akane sharing an umbrella —the peak of Japanese romance—with the dim environment and bubble lighting, still isn’t enough for them to understand what truly matters to Aqua: Akane’s presence. He’s the one who seeks romance with her.

It’s a mix of my experience with Violet Evergarden and QQ. People will keep fighting for meaningless interpretations for years…

If you claim to understand the story but “just” not the final 10 chapters, the point where everything converges into one clear direction, then what’s the point of your interpretation?

So the only thing I can recommend is to watch QQ (yes the sisters harem) to realize that being the emotional focus of an anime doesn’t guarantee you anything. And honestly, just stay away from Onk discussions, they’re completely futile. No one seems interested in actually understanding the ending because Aka didn’t do what they wanted.

Good luck, Aqrby fans! It should be obvious that the moment you start romanticizing the idol-fan relationship, no one beats Sarina.

Some general things:

-Aqua realized in Sweet Today, when he saw Kana act that she reminded him of Ai/Sarina, which is why he was sure she would be a successful idol and recruited her.

-What I think Aqua realized in the first catch game is: “When Kana is being herself, not just acting, I feel the same way I did with Ai, with Akane it’s only when she’s acting”.

-Akane excels at observation, but she can’t understand emotions even her own, which is why her acting style relies on analysis.

Edit: It’s explicitly stated in the novel that she can’t understand people’s feelings, this isn’t just my guess.

-Kana is the opposite: she’s horrible at objective observation, but she deeply understands emotions and can sense others’ feelings, which is why she can match them in her acting. She’s also the first to sense that there’s a difference in Aqua after he gives up on revenge.

-“Akane understands Aqua” is a double-edged sword that ends up breaking their relationship. Aqua assumes he doesn’t need to communicate his feelings directly, which is why, even after he kisses her a second time, Akane still doesn’t even know if they’re dating or what her place in the relationship is, and continues to think she needs to be useful.

-It seems that no one, including Aqua’s VA, was given a clear answer to why Aqua kept the GPS. So I still think it’s a symbol of Aqua never making amends for his intent to use Akane.

-Despite Kana crying, from Aqua’s pov she isn’t crying in the umbrella scene, just like he can’t see Ai crying.

-The anime also removed the bubble filters from Aqua’s pov of Kana and replaced them with a sparkling effect (oshi sense, balcony scene).

-The OST track that plays for Miyako and Ichigo in the last episode is none other than “Akane and Aqua”.

[keira835]

My thoughts on the director comments:

There were always frames I couldn’t fully make sense of.

Let’s focus on two key moments, because Aqua’s behavior there doesn’t read as either guilt or love.

In ch78, while Akane cries, Aqua wipes her tears and kisses her.

If he were acting out of guilt, he wouldn’t feel like he deserves to touch her, let alone kiss her. A guilty man doesn’t see his kiss as some kind of “reward”.

But if this were purely love, he would at most hold her and let her cry (like he does when Ruby cries at the reveal).

Either way what he does is not what she needs or wants at that moment. She still cries when he kisses her.

Here’s a man who feels both guilt and love, yet even as he wants to wipe her tears, he doesn’t (around 4:30).

The scene is labeled as “you had interest in romantic love” (and it’s also the first time he recognized it) and “I want to protect you” typically read as romantic (another one) when there’s no actual danger. So I thought it was just romantic, But it still doesn’t fully fit. Aqua has romantic feelings for Akane, but there’s something more.

Because what it actually looks like is that Aqua is in panic mode. He’s trying to immediately shut down the possibility of Akane leaving and the relationship ending, rather than acting from a place of clear love or guilt.

In the anime, it feels a bit weirder. Aqua looks like he’s leaning on Akane even while kissing her, when in the manga he looks more stable. And compared to the first kiss, his back and shoulders are folded much more towards her( in the first kiss his back is completely straight), because he doesn’t wait for her to lean in as well and instead closes the distance himself. What’s the rush? Why not wait for her to react? The poor girl doesn’t even know if they’re actually dating after this…

[footnote: there’s a nice contrast, fake lights vs sky lights, in front of cameras vs completely secluded, and no space between them in the second kiss. And if you compare the scenes, you’ll see Aqua follows the same flow in both, but in the second he doesn’t wait for any sign that Akane is okay with it, unlike the first : puts his hand on her face → says something → kisses her]

[footnote2: I’m also waiting to see if the faint Milky Way between them will get stronger someday… maybe in the beach chapter…]

The second one is his reaction to Akane saying she’s happy in ch97 during the phone call.

If he were acting out of guilt and obligation, just trying to be a good boyfriend, that should make him happy, because it means he did a good job.

If he were acting purely out of love, hearing that he made the person he loves happy should make him happy as well.

But instead, It cracks something in him. And it makes him confesses to Akane that she’s actually his savior, and that he doesn’t want to let go of his days with her, so he leaves the decision of what to do to her.

It’s a strange trigger for that kind of reaction…

What the director said:

The director said Akane didn’t understand Aqua’s real motives. Akane thought he wanted to be a good boyfriend- so that’s not the truth.

He also mocks Aqua’s line “this time I want to protect Akane” calling it half-baked responsibility.

But the line itself sounds like the peak of responsibility, so it made me rethink it: What Aqua is actually doing here is assigning himself a role, like Akane’s knight or protector, but his real motives are different.

The director says Aqua is acting out of 義務感 inner duty (not giri 義理), but as I said, he’s clearly not acting out of guilt. So what makes him feel like he needs to “repay” Akane?

And of course, it’s all this:

Saving him, accepting him, staying with him. In the original, everything he says also uses くれて, which means “you did this for me.”

That’s why her saying she’s happy triggers him. It should reassure him that he’s being a good boyfriend, that he’s the one giving to her.

But it does the opposite. It forces him to face the contradiction, because he knows he’s not the one really supporting her, he’s the one relying on her.

And that’s why he breaks. He drops the mask and corrects her: you’re the one saving me.

the relationship isn’t something he’s providing, it’s something he’s depending on.

His real motive in this relationship wasn’t simply love or being her protector or a good boyfriend, it was to stay close to her.

[footnote: one mystery the anime didn’t solve for me is what Akane actually heard in that speech… but it seems like nothing]

And that’s what Akane misses. She thinks he only depended on her in that moment, but in reality, he’s been depending on her the entire time just to not fall back to his other duty to Ai.

Does that sound familiar? Can you think of another character who depended completely on their partner but still tried to frame it as mutual support to them?

Kamiki needs to pretend he supports Ai for the same reason Aqua needs to pretend he protects Akane, so they don’t feel like they’re just a charity case for the girls and are actually useless.

* I wrote more about the parallels between the 2 couples at the end.

Aqua’s Loop of Turning Gratitude into Debt:

Every time Aqua tries to do what’s “right” for Akane, he ends up feeling even more indebted to her.

Akane hugs him and says she’ll always be his ally → he thinks he has to push her away for her sake→ he shows her his worst side → Akane still accepts him and stays.

[footnote: imo Akane in this panel reflects Aqua’s darkness, not her own. She’s holding up a mirror to him.]

When Aqua thinks Akane doesn’t have romantic feelings for him, he decides the best thing he can do is let her go. But the same pattern repeats:

He tries to leave for her sake → she hugs him → he feels even more indebted to her for staying.

Aqua is stuck in a loop. He processes Akane’s love as something he has to “repay” to her:

Akane saves me → I feel grateful and need to repay her → I’ll be a good boyfriend → I’ll do things for her, like walking her home with an umbrella → being with her, when she grabs my arm under that umbrella, is what saves me.

From Akane’s Pov, Aqua looks like he’s on a mission here trying to be a good boyfriend. But from his side, he feels like she’s the one saving him.

*I don’t care that the translation is off, he says 少しずっと救われた

So Aqua isn’t free to act on his own desires to begin with. He’s driven by 義務感 (gimukan), a self-imposed sense of duty, like he has to repay what he owes her.

Because of that, the loop keeps going. He believes he has to repay her for saving him, but ends up feeling like he just owes her more, because simply being next to her is already enough to save him.

For Aqua, even though he acts out of this obligation, he still finds happiness in a life like this.

And that’s because Aqua is also in love with Akane (As we saw in 163, the problem wasn’t a lack of romantic love toward her). That’s why it’s her presence that makes him feel saved to begin with, and not anyone else’s.

Because as long as he can stay with her, the reason doesn’t matter to him.

Why he holds onto her tears as part of the days he doesn’t want to let go of, even when he did nothing and just looked at her, and when he was the one to wipe them away. Even when she shows him her vulnerable side, it only deepens his sense of gratitude and makes him want to keep holding on to those moments with her:

[footnote: reminder that he claims Ai never cried despite clearly seeing her cry, and Kana gets similar treatment in the anime]

[footnote2: I think I understand why the only frame with the bubble filter is the umbrella one. It’s only after the relationship started, when Aqua feels like he’s “repaying” her and gives something back to her, that his romantic feelings can come through, because in his mind he’s finally “earned” it. Before that, he sees himself as only receiving from her, so everything is filtered through that sense of debt.]

[footnote 3: the person who storyboarded the phone call scene and added these panels is the director]

Why, when she tells him he still deserves happiness, it’s what truly moves him:

*And the next thing that happens is him talking to Gorou, even though Gorou already found salvation in ch123 with knowing Sarina is living her dream to be an idol.

[footnote: if I had to guess why one star is white here after the twins reveal, I’d say it’s because the Gorou side has already found peace and let go of revenge (because Sarina is Ruby and an idol). The one being pulled toward revenge now is only Aqua.

But that’s also why they can never be equal in their current relationship. From Aqua’s perspective, they aren’t in the same position, they are the one who saves and the one who is saved. He tries to frame it as protector and protected, but even then, he keeps feeling that Akane is the one saving him, and he acts out of duty to repay her.

That’s why only Akane can decide for him whether he’s allowed to continue his happy life or return to revenge.

If it’s what his savior wants, he can turn it into a duty he must follow, something he has to do to repay her, instead of something he chooses for himself. Because if it comes from his own desire, the pull toward revenge will win.

It’s similar to how Suzaku used the “live!” command to his advantage.

Apparently, the meaning of this frame and the sequence that follows in the OP is that Ai’s wish on the DVD “woke Aqua up” and solidified his resolve to create the movie. Her wish is something he truly feels he must fulfill.

[footnote: Although I still don’t fully understand how Ai’s wish and Aqua’s original revenge plan go together… maybe he intended to “save” Kimiki with the movie first, and then kill him by surprise one day, the same way he did to Ai…]

[footnote2: Maybe Aqua didn’t know that Ai also wanted her kids to be happy and healthy, since it was only on Ruby’s DVD…]

And that’s why Aqua treats his relationship with Akane as a form of inner duty that he must carry, so that it keeps him from returning to revenge and to the duty he feels toward Ai and her wish.

That’s why, the moment he walks away from Akane and the relationship ends, that “duty” with his happy days ends, and the drive for revenge comes back immediately with his duty to Ai taking back its place.

[footnote: Aka is truly a genius, because he makes Aqua’s sense of duty overlap with his idea of love: constantly trying to make the other person happy.]

So because Aqua was trying to escape his duty to Ai and the pull of revenge, he had to replace it with another duty strong enough to keep him from facing the truth, all so he could hold on to some form of happiness.

Edit: And to the question of what makes Aqua act this way, what makes him think love is something he has to “repay” for to begin with? I’d say it’s Gorou’s otaku mind twisting Ai’s unconditional, motherly love in a way that kept it from reaching Aqua when he was a child. He didn’t even let her breastfeed him…

今度こそ- this time for sure…

And that’s the real power of his final declaration.

He understands that he can’t mix the two. First, he needs to stop feeling like he owes her, and only then can they have a relationship where they are equal.

He seems to take Akane cutting her hair as a sign she’s moved on and no longer has any interest in a relationship with him.

And with Aqua weird mindset, the only way he can make a decision out of his own desire is if he believes the relationship is no longer what Akane wants. That way, he can’t turn it into something he uses to repay her.

[Footnote: Ai struggled with lies and love, and Aqua struggled with duty and love, so it’s nice that at least before the end of their lives, both were able to express themselves purely out of love, without lies or duty.]

Unfortunately, Aqua’s will isn’t as strong as Gorou’s when it comes to protecting his own salvation…

*It would be better if he realized he doesn’t need to repay her at all.

Edit: A reminder that Aka already addressed the idea of being equals very clearly in Kaguya…

General things I:

I don’t mind rethinking things or changing my view to better understand the story. I actually like that he said it, because I wouldn’t have reached that on my own.

My issue is that he knew people would take a delicate statement like this at face value and ignore everything the story shows. We already saw that with his “Kana is the sun” line to try to undermine Ruby being the light of the story, and here it’s even worse.

[He likely meant Kana as a source of inspiration. For Aqua, Akane, and Ruby.]

Same with the “Akane was selfish” comment. I even agree with it, but what’s the point of phrasing it like that? It doesn’t add anything, it just comes off in poor taste.

So he mocks Aqua and only criticizes Akane, while with Kana he pushes a whole “hate management” agenda to protect her from backlash.

I thought this season would help people accept the ending as it is, but instead it made even me not sure if it will change because of this obsession with “managing hate”.

It feels off. Staff can have favorites, but they usually keep things balanced. Here, the bias isn’t even hidden.

In the end, it just comes off as unprofessional. Why are you so focused on your favorite getting hate? And how can you try to “direct” it toward Shima when Aka wrote him the way he did?

General things II:

I never even thought about writing about ONK before the manga ended, because it was nonstop bait presented as “evidence” that Kana would be x, y, z:

his old self, his “light”, Aka’s tweet, the promise, the concert (even after 161…), Gotanda’s words, the narrative, the Ai parallels…

You really had to be there to get it. It felt impossible to say anything, to the point people just ran to the AquaRuby church lol

And there’s always a new “clear evidence” only for it to end up being something like an insert song with lines like “a little pain will bring us a greater healing”. I’m not even going to explain how shameless this line is.

I’m just tired of it not being obvious that there’s more than one kind of love. And that romantic love doesn’t make you wish for the person you love to be an idol- someone who devotes herself to her fans.

And again. No, Aqua didn’t say anything to Mem that would make her think he has romantic feelings for Kana, when she knows he’s dating Akane. Her reaction says it all: she just smiles, apologizes, and everyone moves on with their lives.

Like I said, the English fandom gets thrown off by a few words. “On your side” is clearly 味方, not 傍に. But honestly I can’t explain everything.

But in the end, that’s your loss, because this scene shows Aqua’s specific trauma with Ai and the mindset he has when stabbing himself: feeling responsible for ruining his oshi’s idol career.

[footnote: Oh, and I’ve changed my mind. Aqua revealed Ai’s secret regardless of revenge, because Mem’s (“she became an idol for you” == you’re responsible) and Ruby’s (“it will affect her future activities”) words triggered that trauma again…]

I’m also tired of people romanticizing what Aqua says about Kana in 161.

I still think Aqua acts out of duty with Kana there, but it’s giri 義理, not gimukan 義務感. It’s not an internal, moral drive that he must do it, it’s a social obligation, He feels he should at least consider her feelings, because she has feelings for him and wants an answer. That’s why it’s so weak.

[footnote: I didn’t know what gimukan is, to be honest. I only knew giri, and since one of the biggest tropes is ninjo vs giri, I thought it was always binary.…]

When the promise chapter came out, I was sure Aqua would die. Aka set it up so Aqua could keep his promise and still die, but that Kana will have to break hers.

When chapter 150 came out, it was the final confirmation of the oshi theory, and that Aqua never saw his feeling for Kana as romantic.

And when he dropped her ball, it was clear he wasn’t going to her concert. That was the conclusion of a relationship framed as bad timing, but even when everything aligns (Gorou and Akane’s approval, Kana being honest), they still can’t be in sync.

But back then, it wasn’t the time to try and say any of this. Everyone already had their “evidence” that Kana would be the one to save Aqua.

* People did talk about the ball drop, though…

And honestly, it feels the same now. There’s still too much hope that things will turn out differently.

So I’ll take that as my cue to stop for now, and probably come back at season 4.

I do believe Aka when he said he wrote this manga for Mengo (someone with the skills of a mangaka…), and that Aqua is the character with the most complex psychology he’s created. So I don’t mind changing my mind, but I doubt the idea of the girls representing 3 different types of love will change.

Especially when chapter 150 makes it clear that Aqua’s feelings for Kana come from gap moe and gaze, a kind of love that isn’t even about personal connection.

And the foundation of Japanese romance is about closing the distance and getting in sync, and Aka already showed in Kaguya that he’s no exception.

General things III:

Aqua says 救われた “I was saved”, the same kanji as in 救い “salvation”.

Akane uses 助けて, more like “help”.

They don’t use the same word.

Aqua sees Akane as someone who truly saved him in a deep way, while she only sees him as someone who helped her.

I don’t get why people think Akane sees Aqua as her savior, when she’s the one who talks about and wants equality between them to begin with.

It was actually fun to recontextualize their whole relationship with this new information, and to see the full parallel with Kamiki and Ai.

Even the insert song “The Way of Leaving” fits both. The issue was never Ai leaving, but the way she left while telling a lie that cemented Hikaru’s belief that his true self was unworthy of love.

Literally half the lyrics fit Ai:

“What was the love we had? I can’t give it a name”

The way Ai left:

“that was your kindness and your way of leaving”

Because for Ai, love is lies.

Just like for Akane, love is being useful.

And maybe for Aqua, love is repaying for kindness…

I think that’s mostly related to Aqua and Akane, but even the theme of repayment and equality shows up in the song!

“If you gave me something, how do I give it back”

“I’m not greedy, but I hope we’re equal”

[footnote: But maybe Ai hoped the separation would make Hikaru stronger, and that one day, when he’s independent, they could try again as equals…]

With this understanding, and how every piece falls into place, I’ve reached an even more extreme level of apathy toward how people interpret this story. And that says a lot, considering I already had no patience for anyone who thinks the ending is “inconsistent”/ “rushed” / “Aka got bored”😴

[keira835]

hi, mem says aqua gave mixed signals to kana? how exactly? even kana says something along those lines to director shima when she complained about aqua? to me, as a reader i never saw any signs that aqua lead her on that could be interpreted as romantic. whats your opinion?

Thanks for the lovely question:

Kana tells us exactly what she means when she says Aqua is “leading her on”. Is he keeps calling her cute and flattering her? Is it that he gives her attention he does not give other girls? Does he show her parts of himself that he doesn’t show to anyone else? Is he always trying to get close to her?

No.

It is because he is kind to her.

Kind here was translated to nice but she says 優しくしてきて :

Kana is actually saying the opposite in the red bubble, she feels like he is not interested in her at all.

The thing that Kana doesn’t understand is that Aqua is kind to everyone. His kindness is not exclusive to her.

Akane understands that, she sees it as part of his nature. she uses 優しい as well.

Even Ruby/Sarina understands this. She does not take his kindness as proof that she is special, she just calls him “a kind person”. Again she also uses the same word 優しい人 not just “nice”.

Neither of them sees his kindness as “leading them on”. Only Kana does, probably because of how she grew up being valued just for her work.

As I said in a previous post, while Kana is bad at observation, she is very sharp at understanding others emotions.

And that is the problem she has with Aqua until the very end: she fails to sense if he has any interest in her, even though she makes her own feelings quite clear.

So of course he doesn’t “lead her on”.

About Mem, it is probably because Kana bragged that Aqua took her out to eat. But Mem (and Akane) do not know that Aqua is also a 30+ year old doctor (especially with the girl who brings him back to his old self…), so for him this is just a normal way of repaying favors.

And she doesn’t know how Aqua actually behaved:

They barely talk during the shopping and the meal, and the only time he says something personal is because Kana brings up Akane. Even then, he avoids making eye contact with her:

And ofc, when Kana tries to talk about romantic love Aqua immediately shuts her down and reminds her that an idol shouldn’t be talking about it == romantic love.

also in Japanese:

[fun fact: I only noticed this line because Japanese Kana fans kept saying that the word “idol” became a curse to Aqua after his conversation with Akane in ch76, and it made me remember he used that word somewhere lol]

The anime makes it even clearer, adding a line where he explicitly tells her he took her to eat as a thank you for the shopping.

You can say “he’s just making excuses” but claiming that he “led her on” completely ignores what he is actually doing and saying, and how Kana herself see it.

Aqua actually went out of his way to make sure Kana would not get the wrong idea.

I’ll also take the opportunity to talk about this original scene:

Kana picks up zero interest from him during the date so much so that she is more concerned about what he is going to do with Akane. She has no idea what his intentions are, and she definitely does not get a clear impression that he plans to break up with Akane.

Again: it does not matter whether she is right or not, the point is that it’s ridiculous to say he was leading her on when this is what she thinks.

Despite that, Kana goes to Akane and brags about eating with him.

At this point, I can only hope that the change with Mako made some people realize how reckless it is for an idol to go around bragging about eating with a guy. And Mako was just Kana’s friend, Akane is her direct rival.

The framing gives the answer why Kana did it: she was trying to stir things up and get between Aqua and Akane (She is physically between them in the bottom frame).

This was the climax of Kana’s jealous and inappropriate behavior in these two arcs. And like in most anime, actions like this end up backfiring: with Aqua distancing himself from her.

Akane didn’t remind Aqua that Kana is an idol who cannot date, he already knew that. What she did was make him realize how dangerous even the public perception of a romance is, and how Kana’s recklessness could easily lead to a scandal.

Which is exactly what happened with Mako and Shima.

Did she learn anything from that, or become more careful in public? Not really… and that’s while she still thinks he has a girlfriend and his peak popularity…

At least it was just his sleeve, but apparently that is on Aka! the anime director wanted her to grab his arm.

Edit: I wrote here a bit (at the end) why I think Aqua doesn’t care about scandals anymore...

This Arima Kana is nowhere to be found now…:

And this was when she was just in Sweet Today. No one knows better than Kana how reckless it was to go suitcase shopping with Aqua when she’s an idol...

At least we get this contrast:

The mere idea of Kana grabbing his arm triggers fear, scandal, and trauma in Aqua’s mind.

The memory of Akane grabbing his arm is something he associates with warmth and being saved.

yeah yeah, not the same circumstances,but the contrast is clearly intentional.

Edit: as we see from how Kana behaves even after her actual scandal, Aqua was definitely right to think she might do something as reckless as grabbing his arm in public.

[keira835]

okay. then what do you think abt this theory?

Thanks for the question I’ll use it to make my final case about all of this.

Tldr: Imo, any theory that romanticizes the relationship between an idol and her fan is completely meaningless and misses the point of the story. There should be boundaries with your oshi, you shouldn’t die for them. You’re shown Nino and Ryosuke’s relationship to make the problems with this clear.

**Also lol are the 123, 143, 163 people back?

of course Aqua projects both Ai and Sarina onto Kana.

Kana wasn’t suited to being an idol, and she wasn’t popular either (she doesn’t like her fans, so what do you expect…) and yet Aqua was certain she would become a huge success. Why? Because ever since Sweet Today, when he saw her acting, she reminded him of Ai. That’s why he recruited her, and probably also because he saw Sarina in her.

That’s also why Gorou thinks Aqua has romantic feelings for her, because he confuses romantic love with having an oshi. And he gives this conflict to aqua as well:

This is the frame Gorou uses to explain that Aqua has always liked Kana’s gaze:

In the anime, who does Kana resemble in this frame? Ai, of course.

Aqua doesn’t have romantic feelings for Kana, she’s his oshi.

Gorou doesn’t have romantic feelings for Ai, she’s his oshi.

Gorou doesn’t have romantic feelings for Sarina, she’s his oshi.

Aqua doesn’t have romantic feelings for Ruby, she’s his little sister.

We have a nice parallel in chapter 163 to make it all clear:

Back in ch21, Yuki asks Aqua if he has any interest in romantic love, and although he says yes, his immediate reference point is Ai.

But in ch163, Crow Girl confirms that Aqua’s interest in romance is “like anyone else” == like a normal person, meaning not to his mother.

So who do we see here? Who is the first girl who actually opened his heart and made him realize that?

Akane in ch78:

And with that, Aqua’s conflict over his feelings for Ai is resolved. He wasn’t in love with her, he now understands what romantic love actually is.

[footnote: Though I believe his feelings for her remain messy and unclear, I don’t think he saw her as his actual mother or anything like that.]

Gorou on the other hand remains stuck, because unlike Sarina, he refuses to accept his reincarnation and move forward. Instead he chooses to “disappear” whenever there’s no revenge or idols involved.

This also confirms the obvious point that Aqua didn’t recognize any romantic feelings for Kana during the first catch ball game.

[footnote1: As I already said, what I believe he realizes is that when Kana being herself, and not just acting, he feels toward her what he felt for Ai. With Akane, those feelings are only when she acts.]

[foonote2: From that point on, he starts calling Kana primarily as “Arima” == creating distance. while he begins calling Akane just “Akane” == less distance between them.]

Edit: being called by first name only is a big deal…

[footnote3: I assume he does this because he doesn’t want to confront the complex feelings he has with Ai that he sees in Kana. With Akane he doesn’t have that concern since he knows it’s different, so he doesn’t mind getting closer to her.]

And then what do we see? No Ruby. At all.

But also no Kana before ch151, which again makes it clear that Gorou was wrong. Aqua did not have romantic feelings for Kana in ch150.

Also nothing in 151 when Kana tells him it’s a date, or when she compliments him and he blushes.

It’s the missed ball moment.

And then look at the panel we get. Do you see who’s missing? They cut out Kana!!

* This is the image exactly as it appears in Volume 16. I didn’t crop anything. I’ll also add the original from ch151.

So while Kana triggers this realization, it isn’t directed at her.

It’s a real mystery who it’s directed to, considering he dropped it when she asked him to look only at her, and then imagines himself looking directly at Akane with a shoujo filter… but I still don’t want to talk about it too much.

Anyway…

In other words, the only girl he actually sees here under “interest in romantic love” is Akane…

2 more small things about the double spread of Aqua’s memories in ch163:

[footnote1: Notice there is a shard of glass in every panel of the double spread (it’s hard to spot…), and it seems that the larger it is, the more weight it carries in terms of the feelings Aqua is experiencing.]

[footnote2: If you care about panel structure, the kiss with Akane being in the bottom corner suggests it’s something fundamental to him, just like the panel with him having the same eyes as Hikaru is fundamental to his identity.]

But that was Aqua.

Now for Gorou:

In the end we see that no matter what Gorou thinks his feelings are, his dream isn’t to date either Ai or Sarina, it’s to cheer for them as idols:

So the conclusion should be clear.

Gorou doesn’t have romantic feelings for them.

It should be said that Sarina doesn’t have romantic feelings for Gorou either. The moment she crosses into romantic territory by kissing him, she realizes that, and what we see in the next chapter (ch144) is her as Gorou’s fan. With Crow girl confirming that Gorou is the person she admires. Not the person she loves.

I think it’s nice that the second time Aqua kisses Akane is when he realizes what romantic love is, because this time that’s what he truly feels for her. And when Ruby kisses Aqua, believing her feelings are romantic, that’s the moment she realizes they aren’t.

[keira835]

Oshi no ko season 3 epsidoe 10:

I planned to wait until the final, but this epsidoe was too good.

Aqua and Akane:

First, the staging: Aqua waits for Akane on her way home, sits between two bushes that isolate him into his own separate space, cut off from the road.

We even see Akane stop outside of that space.

In this version, from Aqua’s pov, Akane isn’t really an option anyway. The director wants Ruby, the producer wants Frill, and Akane is never seriously being considered from what he knows.

And yet, this is what he says…

Again, we know she isn’t even being considered from the production side, so it’s just an excuse. So why is he here at night?

To me, it seems like he wants to make sure Akane stays in his life, but under his own conditions.

So we see Akane step into that space and get closer to him, but she sets her own conditions:

If it’s just about the movie, fine. Anything else is a no.

First, this is a very different Akane compared to before, when she said things like “once you make your decision, I’ll help you as much as I can” or “I’ll go to hell with you.”

Here, she sets a clear boundary with Aqua. She’s the one standing tall, while he’s the one with his head down, unable to even look at her.

She chose when to enter, and now, after saying what she wanted, she chooses to leave.

Despite Aqua staging this entire situation, Akane doesn’t play along with it the way he might have anticipated, and instead walks away on her own terms.

He loses control over the interaction, and that seems to be what triggers his reaction. It’s not that he expected her to agree with him, but he likely expected her to stay within the framework he set. Instead, she rejects it and walks outside of it.

That’s why his expression is so sharp here. It’s not simple anger, but irritation at the fact that she refused to stay within his control.

Aqua and Kana:

Even with the changes in the anime, and despite Kana still not knowing that Aqua avoided her only because he was afraid of scandals (ONK makes it pretty clear that scandals can happen with any man- Shima, Ai’s classmate), not because he hates her, there’s no real tension between them.

Especially compared to what we just saw with Aqua and Akane.

I’d even say they feel like they’re back in the Sweet Today arc, like the karaoke place scene == before Kana realized she was in love with him and started acting… the way she does.

Kana asks Aqua about the role she’s going to play, and in a way, it feels like she’s looking for his approval about taking it.

Aqua calls her “special” and ofc, she completely loses it immediately.

Then we see Aqua alone, smiling, because unlike Akane, Kana behaved exactly as he expected.

And there’s something striking about how Kana hasn’t really changed since Sweet Today. Back then, calling her “cute” was enough, and now calling her “special” is enough for her to act exactly as he wants.

But there’s also something sad and frustrating about this, for him (and for us). Because what would it actually take at this point for Kana to stop acting this way?

Considering that the anime is open to changes with Kana, we’ll have to see how this develops.

Aqua and crow girl:

Aqua’s ocean motif begins!

Aqua is facing the ocean for the first time, but he’s still safe behind the fence.

We also got an original scene where crow girl called him a “tragic hero” and this moment continues from that.

She crushes whatever hope he still had left about Ai. Ai will never smile again.

In other words, there’s no point in trying to fulfill Ai’s “wishes” (Aqua couldn’t care less about what Ai actually wanted anyway).

None of this would make her smile or be happy.

Everything Aqua is doing is for himself, not for Ai.

He isn’t the tragic hero he tries to present himself as.

I don’t really see the point in discussing Ruby before the final episode airs, since they can still change things. As usual I’m annoyed that the translation doesn’t capture the distinction she makes with Ai, calling her “mama,” vs Marina, whom she calls mom.

Some Manga spoilers:

Oh and for those wondering the way they adapted ch107–108 made me realize that Aqua “protected” Kana in the exact same way he later “protects” Ruby. It’s all about her future as an idol, and his fear of being responsible for ruining that future, the same way he believes he did with Ai.

That’s why the ending looks so ridiculous to everyone. The way Aka has always portrayed the relationship between a fan and their oshi is as the peak of selfishness, and in Gorou’s case complete madness. Yet people still try to romanticize it…

Aqua knew very well that what he was doing would hurt Kana, just like Gorou knew that what mattered most to Serina, was simply having him alive and by her side.

But the moment that clashes with the idol future, it stops mattering. The idol comes first, no matter what.

That’s why, after she tells him she’s quitting, he basically stops caring about scandals for the rest of the series, even though she’s still technically an idol.

This one is from before she even publicly announced her retirement:

even goes on a date with her in ch151, despite her still being an idol. Any fear of fans doing something to her is completely gone.

[keira835]

onk always recontextualizes scenes with new information. That’s normal. But the anime changed things in a way that messes with the internal logic…

Does that line still stand? Is it even true anymore?

the balcony flow in the manga was clear:

Ruby says Kana’s life will be affected by the scandal → Aqua remembers Mem’s words about how Kana became an idol because of what he wanted → Aqua does his usual logic and decides he has to take responsibility.

the line from last episode “Arima is fine, she doesn’t need me” is suddenly irrelevant . Now she actually has to be saved.

Edit: This makes it clear that his decision to act on the balcony was driven by Ruby and Mem’s words, not by his own desire or a plan he had already formed before fully grasping the impact of the scandal. Before that, as we saw he seemed to think it was just online backlash and that Kana was strong enough to handle it.

Also, notice how any “what if a fan kills her?” fear is completely gone now.

This is the flow in the anime as well. The difference is that he already had the black eyes in the manga. So it felt like he had always planned to expose Ai’s secret and just used the scandal as the perfect opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

But in the anime… with how episode 31 frames it, it looks like Aqua only decides to return to revenge the moment he picks up the knife.

After he already exposed Ai’s secret.

So will that line stay? Did Aqua decide to go back to revenge before the moment he picked up the knife? Or was that the actual turning point? Are they going to remove the line? Hard to tell…

Until that’s clarified, I honestly can’t write anything solid. I’ll probably have to wait until the end of the season.

Also: “no one wants Arima Kana the way she is…“ yeah, apparently so. The amount of changes made to tone down Kana’s behavior is insane. And again, it just makes it impossible to know what they’re going to keep and what they’re going to cut.

It was already clear that she felt bad for causing trouble, right? So why add an extra scene of her bowing and apologizing properly? Because she got criticized for that in the manga. That’s it. Nothing deeper than that.

She also got criticized for chapters 107 and 108, so who even knows what they’re going to do with that…

Also,so what now? Aqua just goes home from here and fights with Ruby?

[keira835]

Oshi no ko season 3 episode 4 with manga spoilers:

Chapter 93:

Ruby clearly shows more love for the craft than Aqua does. I think this comes down to Sarina having been a powerless, restricted child, while Gorou was already a full adult, burdened by guilt with every extra breath he took. Because of that, this sense of power is something new and exciting for her, regardless of her ultimate goal.

We also get a very important reminder:

An idol simply meeting her classmate on the street is already scandal material. Remember that.

Aqua and Kana buying a suitcase together was already a scandal. And again, why? Because to fans, an idol being seen with a man means an idol with a boyfriend. That alone is enough to shatter the illusion that she is devoted only to them.

Aqua still seems to idolize Ai. Even though he knows she was a liar, hearing Ruby say it still shock him.

Chapter 94:

We see Ruby obsessed with Ai’s idol dream, performing at the dome, even though that dream was never truly hers (and her real dream for both her kids to grown healthy is something no one even cares about…)

It makes you wonder, did Ruby ever truly see Ai as her mother, or did she always remain her fan?

It’s interesting that Aqua is fully aware that Ruby is acting like a completely different person, yet he doesn’t intervene.

Even his decision to go see Ichigo feels less like concern for Ruby and more like an attempt to confront Ichigo about Miyako and why he helps Ruby, rather than understanding Ruby’s behavior.

Chapter 95:

It took four tries, but one translator finally translated the actual words “normal happiness” it’s on Netflix so I can’t show it directly:

Aqua found normal happiness.

(Is this a strange phrase in English? Is that why it isn’t translated this way 3/4 times?)

So while his inner voices use boku (僕), Aqua himself uses ore (俺).

He tries to fight those voices and push them away, and then… Kana.

It’s a sad misunderstanding. Aqua is made to feel guilty even when he’s trying to protect himself.

About Kana here: some people say she’s completely innocent and blame Aqua, while others say she’s self-centered. The truth, of course, is somewhere in the middle.

I don’t understand why the idea of understanding a character without justifying her actions doesn’t seem to exist here.

Kana’s reaction is, once again, about how fragile she’s become because Aqua didn’t choose her.

The anime confirms that she saw him sitting alone in the rain, which is clearly not normal behavior. Despite everything, she does take the courage to try to help him. She sees that he isn’t well and tries to snap him out of it. But when she’s rejected, it becomes one thing too many.

At that point, she can’t think logically anymore. She automatically assumes that his rejection means she did something wrong, instead of recognizing that Aqua is sitting alone in the rain and screaming because he’s going through something completely unrelated to her.

So Kana did want to support Aqua, but the way she tried to do it ended up making him feel guilty.

People try to deny Kana’s agency in this scene, but the anime actually makes it clearer than ever that she does recognize how broken Aqua was at that moment and worried about him. She sees him in that state and makes the decision to rush toward him and shield him. So claiming that she couldn’t have known something was wrong just because he wasn’t talking to her doesn’t really hold up.

But now Aqua is fully awake to everything: the culprit is still alive, and his behavior deeply affected Kana.

Chapter 96:

Akane is also rejected, but her reaction is completely different. She doesn’t pry, she doesn’t take it personally, and she tells him that he can always lean on her, even though she herself is nervous about her upcoming event.

We see the difference in Aqua as well, He feels no guilt with Akane: he can reject her without fear of her reaction because he knows it won’t make her fall apart, he can tease her and watch her get mad without feeling guilty.

And now to this line:

But first, were you here when people said he never smiled at Akane? This is actually a good example of what I mentioned before:

the Japanese text is the only thing that really matters. If you read it, you’d know that the girl exclusively connected to the word happiness (幸せ) for Aqua is Akane. Kana, on the other hand, is connected to fun (楽しい).

So all those claims that “Kana’s role was to represent normality and happiness” were always complete nonsense. And let’s see what happens next week…

So about the line itself:

With Akane, Aqua is the person he was always meant to be 「本来のアクアくん」 (the original Aqua, or the “true” Aqua. take your pick)

With Kana, Aqua is his old self 「昔のお兄ちゃん」

So which girl do you think base on that draws out Aqua, and which one draws out Gorou? I’ll make a separate post about this later.

A small detail, but Akane saves her mom and her manager in her phone very formally as お母さん and マネージャーさん, while she saves Aqua as アクアくん.

Something interesting I’ve always noticed is that suddenly, in chapter 97, Aqua is saved simply as アクア (even though she still calls him Aqua-kun). At first I thought it was a mistake or something, but of course it wasn’t.

And now to this:

What a surprise this was.

An amazing masterpiece that ofc immediately reminds me of another masterpiece.

At first, I thought she was simply praying for him. But, the way she grips the phone with both hands, combined with the slowness of her movement, made me look at the scene more carefully.

With Violet, the meaning is very clear: She wants to feel closer to the Major, who is absent (and whom she believes has abandoned her because she is no longer useful…). Since she cannot reach him directly, she bites the brooch that symbolizes him - same color as his eyes.

With Akane, I think the core is similar. She wants to feel closer to Aqua without reaching out to him directly, because calling him again could burden him further right now. The phone is the last remaining trace of his presence, which is why she brings it close to her face.

But considering how different her reaction will be to his call in the next chapter, this moment seems to have more than just that.

I thinks She is also restraining herself from acting any further. She does not call him back, ask what happened, press for information, or continue praying. She has already told him during the call that he can lean on her, and once that is done, she stops. Now all she allows herself to do is wish.

Edit: she isn’t wishing for their peaceful days to continue. She’s wishing for Aqua’s peace to continue. she does not automatically include herself in that.

So Akane makes a clear decision here to let this go. She chooses restraint. She is not looking for anything, but unfortunately… she ends up discovering the father’s identity anyway:

And this btw is why I’m so annoyed with Kana fans who keep stripping her of any agency. Kana is probably the characters with the most agency in this series. Ruby wasn’t looking for the truth a god literally told her. The same goes to Aqua with Ichigo, and now Akane as well (specifically to finding out his identity).

Non of them find the truth because they are chasing it, but because of how they act and move through the world.

As usual, there’s more to say about this once chapter 108 is adapted. But I’ll give a small spoiler: the person who made Aqua avoid Kana was Kana herself.

She decided to go to Akane and tell her about going shopping with Aqua. As I said at the beginning, this was already scandal material, and she chose to bring it directly to her acting rival… those scandal are usually leaked by the close circle of the idol, so to go and tell it to someone with a clear motive to hurt you… *it shows you are reckless.

Edit: To be clear, what Kana’s bragging to Akane (again, her rival) showed Aqua is that Kana is reckless and could easily cause a scandal. Akane, of course, was simply warning him to act more responsibly to avoid a scandal.

Congratulations to Akane for finding the culprit in a single afternoon. When the manga ended, there was an interview with mystery writers, and one of them said that the “mystery” of ONK lies in its structure. I completely agree. This was never really a murder mystery.

A general note:

This episode kind of confirms for me that the anime is going to follow the manga exactly as it is, without any major additions. Needless to say, the ending will remain the same, as it should.

I was hoping that the distinction between Aqua and Gorou, especially in terms of their dreams, would get at least one small scene. But for Aka, it seems enough that Aqua stayed in the entertainment industry all this time to make that point. The anime will likely continue this approach of not spoon-feeding the answers.

It’s probably the same with the GPS next week. Aka doesn’t bother explaining small details, it’s symbolic. It represents Aqua’s intent to use Akane, and the fact that he never truly makes amends for that intent. That’s all there is to it.

The gap between what relationship he intended for her and what she became…

[keira835]

About “男 is the same as boyfriend- 彼氏”:

So someone vagueposted about me! I’m honored, I guess the missing が wasn’t enough…

So we’re talking again about what Aqua said to Mem… I explained here why it falls apart anyway in ch107.

I’m not that surprised, I knew people would never let go of the “boyfriend” thing, but I didn’t expect a dictionary entry level argument. Are you people even serious?

The dictionary entry for man in english :

Does saying “got a man” carry the same tone and nuance as saying “got a lover”? Is “man” a synonym for “lover”? Of course not.

*The British one also has the option of male servant!

So no, you can’t grasp nuance of words by quoting a dictionary. Calling 男 “boyfriend” in a dictionary does not mean it is used that way in natural speech, or that it carries the same tone or intent as the official term 彼氏.

So does Aqua ever use the actual word for “boyfriend” 彼氏?

Ofc he does! With Akane. Even though they write it in katakana (probably to make it more casual to say while they’re still a business couple), the word itself is already loaded, because 彼氏 is the official term (same with 彼女).

And what’s the title of this chapter?

Boyfriend Girlfriend!

It’s almost as if them using the official words 彼氏 彼女 actually carries meaning, while using 男 carries nothing.

Want to know how I’m so sure he’s talking about public perception? Because I asked native speakers years ago. I also searched for this phrase, 男が出来た, across other manga and light novels I’ve read, and I was never able to find it except in the Eren scene I already showed. In actual romantic contexts, they consistently use 彼氏 or 恋人.

So once again, the nuance here is that the phrase Aqua uses with Mem is something a rude blunt man would say to describe someone else’s relationship, not something Aqua Hoshino would use to label his own.

If you want an example of the kind of character who would use 男 instead of 彼氏, it’s someone like Denji:

He always speaks in a blunt, rough way and even he uses 男 just for gossip, asking if Makima “has a man?”.

Aqua Hoshino does not speak like him.

Again, here’s how a normal character would ask:

Here’s also Ruby in 102:

A random example of a man confirming that a woman doesn’t have a boyfriend. Even in casual speech, they do not switch to 男:

No one who speaks normally uses 男 or 女 like Aqua did with Mem.

And is it a secret that this gets resolved in chapter 107 and is never brought up again?

I’m still trying to take the high road, but this complete lack of basic integrity is honestly pretty annoying.

And for the level of boastfulness to be off the charts like that… lol the 4th definition of a dictionary entry to explain nuance?

What’s next, does saying “doll” equal to saying “woman” just because some men use it that way?

Oh, it must be true, it’s in a dictionary!

We’ll get a very interesting detail about all this next week, so I’m kind of glad I had the opportunity to write more about it.

[keira835]

Back to what Aqua says to Mem in the first episode.

I’ve seen people claim that 男 means “boyfriend”… so to state the obvious: 男 and 彼氏 are not interchangeable.

Aqua Hoshino is not the kind of character who would use 男が出来た instead of the standard 彼氏が出来た to describe an actual, personal romantic relationship.

There’s a reason this is the only time he uses that wording in the series, and every other time he talks about relationships, he uses 彼氏 or 付き合って.

I don’t remember anyone else in the series using 男が出来た either. Even when Kana asks Aqua after ST, she uses the standard 彼女とかいる. So does Ruby in ch84 彼女がいる.

Edit: correction there is one time! and it’s from idol fans: “Would you be able to support an idol who has a man and kids?”

They avoid saying “boyfriend” on purpose. Here it’s not even boyfriend it’s a fiancé. Idol fans mostly use 男 to avoid acknowledging a legitimate romantic relationship. Using 男 frames the situation as a problematic male presence, that has "tainted" the idol's purity. Again this is not how normal people speak.

Manga spoilers:

While I’ve mentioned that I’m waiting for chapter 108 to be adapted to talk about all this, chapter 107 already gives you the answer to why he avoided her, and why Kana, specifically, receives this deluxe treatment:

Kana doesn’t keep her distance = she tries to get close to him.

So what does Kana think about the reason?

Foolish!

Because the reason isn’t romance, it’s public perception, the fear that obsessive fans will assume he’s her boyfriend and will put her in danger.

Want more? Here’s a Japanese review of the first episode from Animate times. I’ll include the machine translation below:

Here, they use 親しい男がいる.

Suddenly it’s just a close man, not boyfriend. Why?

Because 男が出来た gets automatically translated as “got a boyfriend” by AI translation, which flatten the nuance. What gets erased is that Aqua Hoshino does not speak this way when referring to an actual relationship.

“got a man” obviously implies “got a boyfriend,” but it’s also obvious that Aqua wouldn’t phrase it like that himself.

He’s talking about public perception and gossip, not a real relationship.

The specific words the author chose matter.

The words translators choose don’t.

The Mem scene is essentially her excusing Aqua, thinking he doesn’t really care about Kana, and then realizing that he actually cares too much—without understanding that he’s projecting Ai onto her.

Do I need to remind again that aqua always remembered kana is an idol? Here’s the anime version:

How exactly did Aqua “lead Kana on” when he doesn’t even think she should talk about love privately with him?

But as expected, people cling to it anyway, whether it makes sense or not. At the very least, stop claiming it’s a retcon when Aka never even wrote what people insist he did.

[keira835]

Oshi no ko season 3 episode 2 with manga spoilers:

There’s just no avoiding the contrast between them:

People sometimes fail to understand that Oshi no Ko is a Harem, and that almost everything about the girls is framed through their relationship with Aqua.

I won’t talk about the frames right now, but Kana’s tragedy is that what she actually wanted was someone who sees her efforts and supports her even when she’s not number one, and that person was Aqua. Her trying to mix this with romance is what led them to drift apart every time.

We also got a very in-your-face reminder that Akane’s imitation of Ai only happens when she has the star eyes, not because of her hairstyle.

God only knows what people were trying to make out of ch155, but of course it always came from the worst intentions and didn’t really hold up.

Saying that Akane imitated Ai 24/7 just because she always had her bangs to the left is like saying we never saw the real Ai because she was always wearing her “lying” star eyes.

And the anime even gave Akane a frame with her bangs on her “natural side”:

All pretty ridiculous bad-faith claims, but it’s nice to get direct, single-frame refutations.

The cosplay arc continues… the main cast barely moves.

We see that Aqua is noticing Ruby’s weird behavior again, and yet he does nothing.

Ruby’s soap story is probably the biggest direct lie the Hoshino family has ever told.

Ch 87:

I’ll write shortly, because I still prefer to wait until ch.97.

The umbrella scene was absolutely gorgeous. I can’t believe it’s already like this from Akane’s pov.

And a reminder that this scene returns in a few episodes, from Aqua’s pov:

We see that Akane shows a completely childish side of herself to Aqua (and to him only). The change in her acting, from leaving the studio to seeing Aqua, made that very clear to me. It was the same in the previous episode. It feels like a fever dream that people ever tried to argue she has some kind of maternal obsession toward him.

She’s very excited, and why wouldn’t she be, this is the peak of a Japanese romantic gesture…

But as we see from the shadowing on her face, Akane is split between enjoying the moment and her insecurities. It overwhelms her so much that it triggers all her fears about this relationship.

If she were to just lean toward Aqua, she could step out of the shadow, but she chooses to stay this way:

We see immediately that when she starts thinking about Kana, she and Aqua fall out of sync in their steps:

She calms herself down about his feelings for Kana and is able to send him off with a smile.

But is that it?

No… We also get yandere Akane. Because Akane’s insecurities aren’t just about Kana, they’re about everything, so of course the possibility of him cheating on her with other girls exists in her mind too.

She simply doesn’t believe she was truly chosen, and feels like it might all be some kind of mistake.

And now to the specific words she used:

Akane says 惹かれてた, which is closer to “was being drawn to” and not sexual attraction at all.

Edit: I replaced the example because this one is clearer.

Here’s an example from Gotoubun: they aren’t singing about all of them being sexually attracted to Futaro… and again, as you can see, Akane is speaking in past progressive tense:

*It’s one of those words whose nuance we’ve seen get lost because of AI…

Also notice that “drawn to” comes before “fall in love” here. So of course saying someone is drawn to someone does not mean they are already in love.

Can it be romantic? Absolutely. But it doesn’t have to be romantic. It can also apply to your oshi.

And this is something people don’t seem to get:

The “everyone notices it” trope is everyone constantly saying suki. Not all this ambiguous wording that can also apply to your oshi.

And who is the only one who explicitly says suki? Of course, it’s the one who blurred the line between romantic love and love for your oshi in the first place - Gorou.

So not only do I think Akane is correct that Aqua was drawn to Kana- because she’s his oshi, but Kana is also correct here:

And I don’t think that scene will get even a bit of the nice, cute, childish atmosphere the umbrella scene had, but we still have a lot of years until we’ll see…

[keira835]

Onk season 3 episode 1 with manga spoilers:

also:

I don’t care about mistranslations. The only thing that matters is the Japanese text.

I feel like it’s pretty obvious that something about what Aqua says to Mem doesn’t make sense, but I’m sure some people will still cling to the mistranslation no matter what.

Who would have thought the mva would end up being the most interesting part?

I’m also glad the MVA shows Ruby and Kana switching the center position so many times.

And Hikaru picking and eating Ruby…

Seeing Ichigo at the bar makes me think episode 11 will be around an hour long and will probably cover up to about chapter 125.

Ch81:

Almost nothing to say.

There’s a very beautiful detail: Aqua tells Kana that he’s dating Akane near the location of their first catch game.

Because of that, the scene in the crossover works as a kind of reverse parallel to chapters 29–30. Back then, Kana felt unseen, but Aqua asked her to skip school with him. For Kana, that place represents a moment when Aqua chose her over everyone else.

So having her stand outside that same space while Aqua essentially tells her he chose someone else is a very strong visual and emotional choice. That said… the scene moved so fast that I barely had time to feel anything.

Chapter 82:

We get to see Kana’s twisted perception of love, which she got from her mother. It’s a very conditional form of love: work hard, be number one, shine more than everyone else, and you’ll be rewarded with love.

Because of that mindset, Kana thinks Aqua chose Akane simply because Akane is more admirable than her, nothing more. To her, love is like going to the butcher and picking what looks best.

It’s funny to me how, when Kana thinks Aqua stays away from her because he’s being honest and straightforward with Akane, everyone agrees she’s wrong because she’s missing crucial information about his trauma. But when Mem makes assumptions while also missing crucial information about his trauma? Suddenly, that’s treated as completely fine.

But this is probably the result of the mistranslation…

Chapter 83:

Aqua seems a bit torn between the career he seems to want to pursue in entertainment and Gorou’s dream of becoming a surgeon. I hope the anime expands on that.

And now they start talking about Kana.

At first, Mem tries to approach it gently by saying something like, “Kana’s performance isn’t good.” That gets her nowhere. So then she switches tactics and starts blaming Aqua of misleading Kana and implying he wasn’t acting responsibly because of his behavior.

And that is what gets a reaction from him.

He pushes back by showing her that she wasn’t being responsible by letting him into her home without fear and that there were other dangerous options she didn’t even consider.

Then he says he knows his behavior hurts Kana.

That’s interesting, because despite knowing this, he still didn’t leave Kana any real choice, even though she’s been telling him since Sweet Today how important being an actress is to her. So it’s not like she doesn’t have other options.

Now to the first mistranslation:

Aqua is not saying boyfriend and aqua does not explain why he can’t date kana- he can just not date her. no need to cut her out, let alone start dating Akane. He’s talking about social preseption of an idol having a boyfriend:

Aqua uses the very specific 男が出来た - get a man is not the common or neutral way to describe a relationship. Maybe I should just show the only anime character I know who ever uses this phrase:

It’s Eren describing Mikasa having a relationship with someone other than him!

When said by a man, it usually comes off as blunt and jealous. It’s the kind of thing an idol fan might say when suspecting their idol is dating someone.

The second phrase he uses 男居る literally means there’s a man.

At the end of the day, this comes down to understanding idol culture.

An idol is not a singer. She’s expected to devote herself to her fans and signal availability to them.

I’ll repeat what I already said: any man near an idol will be treated as her boyfriend by fans, regardless of who he actually is. They don’t care whether it’s true or not.

So it’s not like Aqua is saying something particularly interesting or revealing with that sentence.

Edit: Could it be that I saw people claiming that 男 means “boyfriend”? We’re really getting desperate here…

In Japanese, there are clear words for relationships:

彼氏 = boyfriend、恋人 = lover、付き合って= dating

Those are the three terms actually used to describe romantic relationships.

男が出来た literally means “got a man”. He could have used the standard 彼氏が出来た, but he deliberately uses 男 instead.

It works the same as in English, if you say a woman “got a man,” ofc people infer she got a boyfriend, but it’s blunt compare to just saying “got a boyfriend”.

Aqua Hoshino is not a character who speaks this way.

He’s speaking from the perspective of a fan.

A fan doesn’t know the truth.

A fan sees an idol with a man and immediately assumes, “That’s her boyfriend.”

This is the nuance that gets lost: he uses a very blunt, vague term for “got a boyfriend,” precisely because he’s speaking from the perspective of public, fan-based perception.

The weird thing is that Aqua immediately jumps to the idea that a scandal could lead some deranged fan to murder Kana. In reality, most of the time the worst outcome is an idol getting kicked out, and even that wouldn’t apply to Kana because of Miyako. So it’s no surprise that Mem can’t understand Aqua’s reaction or why his thoughts go that far.

Aqua’s fear comes from the fear of feeling responsible again, the same way he feels with Ai.

We will see this clearly later during Kana’s actual scandal. It’s another reminder that Aqua never forgets Kana is an idol and that she can’t even talk about romance privately with him.I Already wrote about it here and attached an example to how an idol scandal actually looks like, and I’ll go into it more once chapter 108 is adapted.

Now, about what Mem is saying.

I’ve seen two English versions so far: the usual “obsessed,” and now a new one, “down bad.

Kana’s va seems to think this word has a lot of layered meaning in this episode, but no. The Crunchyroll translator says so.

But seriously, all this noise over the word 入れ込み is wild. I don’t think I’ve ever seen even the most hardcore Japanese Kana fans care this much about this word.

It means being overinvested or too attached. That’s it.

But as usual with translators these days, they think they know better. So if they can take a word the author deliberately left ambiguous and force it into a single, loaded interpretation, of course they will.

ONK English discourse is almost completely useless because of the mistranslation of like five key words that people keep clinging to. These words have very little to do with the original text, and then people turn around and blame Aka for “retconning” things.

I never really understood why people read so much into this scene, so I’m actually glad to see that Japanese viewers seem pretty much the same: Aqua avoids Kana not because he doesn’t care about her, but because of his trauma. At most, people seem to focus on the daisuki shirt, and that’s about it.

Edit: People don’t care about Aqua’s wording. You won’t see anyone saying “oh look, he said 男が出来た.” What they care about is that he showed heavy emotions. The real question is where those feelings come from, Ai or Kana. Most people immediately say Ai… And manga readers already know those heavy feelings will never be shown again…

Ch84 was here to.

To sum it up, I don’t think those chapters could have been elevated much more anyway, so I think the anime made the right call by pushing four chapters together and adding the MV, which was honestly the most interesting part for me.

The series composer clearly has a lot on their plate this season.

[keira835]

@keira835 Yes, I know. Good analysis👍🏻 Also, if it's not too much of a hassle, can you also explain the parts of the pentagons? I did research on the internet but could not find anything solid related to the pentagon filter.

It’s a Japanese visual cue; the more you notice it yourself and try to understand why it appears in a particular scene and what it is meant to represent, the more you will understand it. It doesn’t have a one definition to what exactly it is for all scenes. Fan arts have a lot of them.

But basically, the bubble filter is used to represent raw, immediate emotion.

As emotions become more defined and clearer, the bubbles changes as well into a more distinct, geometric shapes- and that’s the pentagon filter

In this example from Kaoru Hana (it appears relatively early in the story) there are only a few of these shapes, and they are still warped and unclear, unlike the more clear ones in the previous example, because they still figuring out their feelings here:

What helps you understand what the feeling is and what it means is the context - both what is being said and the situation itself.

Here when Kaguya decides to grab Miyuki’s arm, you see bubbles because it is an impulsive decision:

btw this is what it looks like when a girl grabs a boy’s arm romantically, not the way Kana does.

Here, Miyuki is considering whether they are equal and if he can finally confess so you can see the pentagon shape, but it is smaller and not that strong:

As you can see, this is exactly the same position Aqua and Akane are in. Two people who are emotionally reaching toward each other, but someone still needs to take the first step forward. With both Miyuki and Aqua feel they cannot take the next step because they are not equal to the other person yet.

The anime also did somthing nice.

This is from S2E4 shown from a general pov, you can see the lights in the background, but they are not yet clearly shaped like bubbles.

Then from Aqua’s pov in S2E11: the shapes suddenly become much clearer and stronger

Here is an example where it’s not necessarily romantic:

Btw what’s most suspicious about the first catch game is that there’s no filter through which Aqua sees Kana even when it’s his pov:

However, as we see in the trailer, when it is not Kana the person but Kana the idol, the bubble filter suddenly appears!:

People can argue all they want, but it changes nothing:

Kana is Aqua’s oshi, and nothing more.

From a story, narrative, and visual perspective

Gorou, who understood romantic feelings only as love for his oshi, will not help you.

Here’s another random example of the pentagon filter, just because:

[keira835]

@keira835 Well, someone did point this out how Hikaru words what he says, "Pursue your dreams, fall in love (ironically a Kana panel), hand out with your friends (Memcho shown)," etc. And how Aqua responds to it. "I want to become a doctor, It might also be a good idea to respond to Arima's feelings,..." like the other was Dream>love>friendship, other stuff. A pretty solid argument in my opinion; could you look into it? Another one is constant 3rd party input where every character is like "Kana is Aqua's light", "He's attracted to Kana", and all

Thank you for the question.

I feel like an important nuance of Japanese confession culture is being completely missed here.

Kana asked Aqua to give her an answer to her indirect confession on the day of the concert.

Now, look at the panel:

Kana does not look like Ruby, who is clearly focused on the concert. Instead, Kana looks distracted, like she is searching for something, or someone.

This is the narrative reminding you that Kana is waiting for Aqua’s answer, the answer she explicitly asked for that same day.

Aqua cannot ignore Kana’s request for an answer.

If Aqua is a decent person, he also cannot pursue a romantic relationship with anyone else until he gives Kana a clear response.

Let’s look at two examples of this in other manga.

I’ll start with the gentler example, and then move on to the Kaguya-sama one… I think people who have not read Kaguya-sama have a very mistaken idea of Aka…

First, Hina in Blue Box:

Hina knows that Taiki likes someone else, and yet she confesses to him. She explicitly tells him that he does not need to give her an answer right away. She even makes it clear that he is free to continue pursuing the other girl.

The whole situation affects him badly, even during his matches.

Taiki is told by others to consider her as an option, despite the fact that he likes someone else.

In the end, he gives her an answer (despite her asking him to keep thinking about it) because he cannot properly pursue the person he truly wants while leaving her feelings unresolved and when he considers them.

Now, in Kaguya-sama: Ishigami and Tsubame.

Ishigami confesses by accident, and Tsubame becomes extremely stressed over how to turn him down.

It is problematic because it is also a heartfelt confession, and he is a good person and a good friend to her.

As usual, she is asked by others to consider dating him:

He tells her that she can give him an answer by spring and that she does not need to worry.

After that we see her trying to sleep with him as a way to “thank” him for liking her because she doesn’t feel she can just reject him.

He still asks her to think it over.

She even tries to go on dates with him.

She tries to fall in love with him and gives him a genuine chance. She truly believed that if she gave him a chance, she would, but she simply couldn’t.

In the end, all of this leads to her finally giving him an answer.

* Btw she begs him to stay friends with her and tells him how much he means to her, and he agrees. And… their friendship is completely over. Later, he even says that he cannot remain friends with someone who rejected him.

So this was meant to stress an important point:

You cannot ignore someone’s confession, and you certainly cannot ignore someone who explicitly asks for an answer.

If they are a good honest person and a good friend of yours, you are even expected to seriously consider the possibility of dating them, even if you currently have no feelings for them, sometimes even if you like someone else.

So while Kana is assigned to “love” and Akane to “obligation,” Aqua’s words here suggest the opposite. He treats Kana’s confession as an obligation, while his true desire lies with Akane.

And for those familiar with Japanese tropes, Aka is probably playing with ninjo vs. giri here.

This is another point I think many people miss:

The real question here is not who Aqua would date if he were alive. The question is where his true desire lies, where his heart is, and what he actually wants.

*My guess is that if he were alive, the usual pattern would repeat, just like with Tsubame. He would not be able to lie to himself or to her, and would eventually end up rejecting her.

Even in Kaguya-sama, there is a couple who starts dating despite the girl having no romantic interest in the boy at first, simply because he confessed to her.

With Kana, it is even worse, because she does not simply say, “I like you, please go out with me.” She tells him her dreams, dreams that only he can fulfill.

And we see that Aqua cannot give her those dreams, because he looks at Akane, and Ruby is also his oshi (or at least Gorou’s).

So everything becomes a mess.

In any case, the situation here is extremely complicated, which is why the only thing that truly matters is Aqua’s own words.

I have not seen enough situations like this in manga where I can say with 100% certainty why he chooses these exact words, but what stands out here is that his words express a lack of desire, and that part is what matters most.

Does he want to honor her courage after knowing she felt this way all those years?

Does he feel guilty about not being able to fulfill her dreams, and so at least considers dating her?

Does he want to avoid ruining their relationship if he rejects her?

I cannot tell which of these it is, and there are probably more possibilities that I have not thought of. My guess would be the first or the second.

But one thing is clear: he does not want to date her.

As for the order in which Kamiki says these things, it is not accidental. Aka wrote it that way because it’s a monologue, which builds upward.

We can see Aqua’s desire grows step by step:

someday → might → want → definitely want.

* again, about Kana being assigned to fall in love: because Aqua needs to give her an answer, he cannot put anyone else in that position.

About the 3th party:

Mem Cho- obsessed :

*Neither actually uses the literal Japanese word for “obsessed” (執着). But, they use words with very similar meaning to each other’s.

Akane- was attracted to 「惹かれてた」:

* not in a sexual sense, but emotionally. It more like being pulled toward/drawn in by them.

Ruby: his old self.

This is Aqua’s old self. It is Gorou being close to his oshi, Ai:

Everything always comes back to how Gorou felt about Ai.

[keira835]

These are my thoughts on a comment from discord responding to what I said yesterday here:

Reblog by @keira835 · 8 images

💬 0  🔁 5  ❤️ 8 · This all becomes even clearer once we remember the context: Kana has basically confessed to Aqua and explicitly asked him t

The idea that Aqua realized he had romantic feelings for Kana at the first catch game is actually refuted at least four times.

(The ost of this scene is literally “Challenge Completed,” so it is not like it was ever framed as so emotionally heavy)

Edit: I realized I never wrote here what I think he actually understood during the first catch game, so here’s my take, with one more refutation. I still prefer this one….

but I’ll give the one that is clearest imo:

And after that Aqua’s line “Why Arima?”

If Aqua had already admitted to himself that his feelings for Kana were romantic during the first catch game, or at any point before this chapter, there would be no reason for Gorou to push and try to convince him to admit it.

because he supposedly already admitted them himself.

But because he never actually acknowledged anything like that, we get this conversation.

And at the end, Gorou fails to make Aqua acknowledge anything like that and can only end with:

“It’s okay to love someone”

And not “it’s okay to love Arima.”

The reason Aqua gets angry with Gorou is that he realizes Gorou is talking about the same kind of feelings he once had for Ai, and Aqua is not comfortable with those feelings being labeled as romantic love.

Chapter 150 is truly not what people think it is, and I recommend looking closely at the specific panels chosen for Kana’s confession, then going back to those chapters and seeing how Aqua felt. This girl truly never gets anything nice.

Now to the second part:

The “considered dating her[Kana]” I assume refers to this panel in the Private arc:

And… nothing here implies that he was thinking about who to date. It seems more likely that he was simply imagining a life where both of them are part of his life.

The Taiki panel comes after they both approach Aqua. Aqua is not doing anything to toy with them but it could be interpreted that way in this situation when both girls asks about him at the same time.It was also cut from the anime, so it likely was not meant to carry that much weight.

Now, as I have said many times:

Aqua has always remembered that Kana is an idol.

Kana starts talking about romantic love, and Aqua immediately reminds her that this is not something an idol should say.

So if he thinks she should not even talk to him privately about romance, then he obviously does not think she should be in a romantic relationship with anyone including himself.

So now let’s go a few lines back with this information in mind.

Kana asks Aqua what he is going to do about Akane, and he says that the next time they meet, he will have an answer.

Now, something general about speech bubble placement: it is very deliberate.

The author decides how much the speech bubble will cover the character, if at all.

Here, despite having two large speech bubbles, Akane is still clearly visible, because she is the center of Aqua’s thoughts right now.

and then:

the left speech bubble completely covers Kana’s head. The exact opposite of what I just showed.

This means that what he is saying at that moment is not directed at her.

And that why visually she is removed from the emotional focus of the line.

* Also because Aqua knows Kana is an idol, it’s clear that this line is exclusively about Akane, and Akane alone.

We can see how this was carried over into the anime as well, where Aqua stares down at the table while she looks directly at him.

We can also see the effect of his words here:

they create a clear distance between them.

They look much farther apart than they did when they were sitting together at the start.

I am a bit unsure about what people consider a date in anime at this point, because I keep seeing strange claims like “Aqua turned it into a date just by going to a restaurant.”

so I’ll put this here:

*Thanks Aka, for explaining things so clearly in Kaguya already

In anime, any time a man and a woman are alone together somewhere outside of school, it is often treated as a date, even when the one character confirms that it is not one (like the aquarium date in Blue Box).

The point of a date is to try to close the distance little by little by getting to know each other, or at least through how the time is spent together. That is also the problem with this date. Aqua and Kana are not closing any distance.

The point of all this is to show that Aqua does not see it as a date and never considered dating kana at all in this arc.

The only meaningful and open moment he has in this date is triggered by Kana mentioning Akane.

And even then, he makes sure Kana is not part of that moment.

This fandom is full of people who think that they can ignore everything: word choice, OST, filters, lighting, character perspective which is fine but why keep complaining that things don’t make sense….

A note about chapter 83: what Aqua forgets is that even the mere social perception that an idol has a boyfriend can cause a scandal. He never uses the word “boyfriend” there. Instead, he uses the very vulgar and uncommon phrase 男が出来た (otoko ga dekita), meaning “got a man”.

Edit: At least in the manga/light novel, it’s nowhere to be found. And the three terms you will see are 彼氏、恋人、and 付き合い.

No man describes their own relationship like that. This wording has a gossip tone and reflects an outsider’s perspective.

In real life, any unknown man seen near an idol is always automatically assumed to be her boyfriend. No one waits for confirmation or cares about the details. It already ruins the fan illusion that their idol is devoted only to them.

recently they had a real scandal where an idol was fired simply because a man was reflected in her drink in a photo she uploaded.

He was never even confirmed to be her boyfriend. Just a man near her:

Also, the fact that Kana actually has a real scandal and that this is Aqua’s first reaction already makes it clear that he was never obsessed with protecting her.

He was simply afraid of feeling responsible if something happened to her.

He is not involved in the scandal at all so he does not intervene and leaves it to the adults to handle and protect her. No obsession.

It takes Mem guilt-tripping him into accepting responsibility, because he was the one who asked Kana to be an idol, for him to act.

I’ll talk about it more after 108 will be animated.

[yourlocallibrarycat]

Analysis of Aqua's final wishes

I don't think that these panels, Aqua's own final wishes, get talked about enough. There are so many characters who point out towards Aqua liking Kana–Memcho, the director, even Akane herself. But then again, these are their POVs, not Aqua's.

In the given panels, Aqua himself tells his wishes out loud."It might also be a good idea to respond to Arima's feelings."—I believe this picks up from their 'date' in chapter 151 or so, which ends with Kana telling Aqua her dream to be 'his star'. The chapter ends with a... shocked or maybe surprised panel of Aqua. The statement of "might also be a good idea" does not imply any sort of romantic rejection or acceptance. Also, the use of "might also" shows a mere possibility, not certainty.

"I want to build an equal relationship with Akane and repay her for all the kindness she has shown me."—while this statement does not look romantic at first glance, let's consider the way it is phrased. The "equal relationship" part is a direct repetition of what Akane told him in the chapter of their breakup (98-ish). She used these words to refer to their relationship they had built over the year—their relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend. The part of "I want" shows a firm desire; a "Yes, this is what I want."

Something apart from this which caught my eye is how these panels are detailed. The one with Kana and Aqua is light hearted with Kana clinging to him, him looking over his shoulder at her. Their silhouettes are outlined by a soft grey cloud-like design with tiny sparkles. But in the one with Akane and Aqua, Aqua directly faces Akane, with a more... 'set' expression. The scene also has the cloud, but the sparkles themselves are more detailed and not just limited to the background, but rather having a presence in the foreground (overlapping the characters) as well.

All in all, I'd like to believe that in the end what Aqua truly most deeply wanted (obviously after wanting his sister to succeed) was to be in a relationship with Akane once again. To be her boyfriend once again. To have his "carefree days" with her once again.

[keira835]

This all becomes even clearer once we remember the context: Kana has basically confessed to Aqua and explicitly asked him to give her an answer on the day of the concert. We even see a panel of her at the concert looking for Aqua.

Because of this, Aqua is at least obligated to give her some kind of answer. However, his specific word choice in Japanese is even more telling, especially the particular “might” that he chooses to use.

He also adds のも, which means that this is one option he is considering (with the other option clearly rejection). This is layered on top of his already very weak “responding to feelings” which again mean it’s something done for the other person’s sake rather than from his own desire.

This stands in sharp contrast to his clear words toward Akane and the way he sees her through the pentagon filter- symbolize strong clear feelings.

Edit: I am adding another example of the pentagon filter, because I think people are not sure what it is:

Many people argue that when Aqua told Akane “I want to protect you” (which is considered romantic in Japanese) at the start of their real relationship, it sounded like he was acting out of obligation. But what he says to Kana here is actually the clear example of how obligation-driven behavior looks like:

When someone confesses their feelings (especially in Kana’s case where those feelings are very strong- no less then her dream) honoring those feelings and the courage it took means the other person feels compelled to at least consider them.

There is also the contrast with Kana asking him to “only look at me,” while here he is directly looking at Akane. This becomes even more striking when we remember that Aka defines love as trying to bring happiness to the other person:

And when did Akane ever tell Aqua that she was happy? During their relationship that she believed was between equals.

So despite not knowing what Akane wants now, Aqua wants to try to make her happy.

and despite knowing exactly what Kana wants, he cannot give it to her.

So what about chapter 150?

Many people claim that the Kana/Ai parallels disappear at some point, but they actually land very precisely in chapter 150.

Gorou, who only ever had parasocial relationships in his life with his oshis, Serina and Ai, and who understood his feelings toward Ai as romantic, now interprets Aqua’s feelings for Kana as romantic - It is the same kind of feeling Gorou himself had toward Ai.

Gorou’s feeling for Ai were also not feelings that are appropriate for his age (30+, 16) and even the people around him interpret those feeling as romantic… (sounds familiar?)

*In Spica, Gorou’s feelings for Serina are also interpreted by someone else as romantic

So Gorou has never known actual romantic love, let alone been in an age-appropriate romantic relationship.

We then get a direct callback to the oshi panel, the anime panel in which Kana is visually paralleled with Ai.

Gorou states this very clearly: “You always liked her strong straightforward gaze.” I am not sure why anyone tries to argue otherwise, when the panel is literally focused on Kana’s gaze, and the speech bubble on the right ends with a subject marker. The subject of the sentence is explicitly the gaze itself.

Maybe in another manga liking someone’s gaze would automatically be romantic, but in onk we have a character whose most noticeable trait is her eyes, and that character also happens to be Aqua’s mother and Gorou’s oshi.

Aqua’s feelings for Kana are those of an oshi. It is not an equal relationship, and it is not one in which both sides show their true selves and mutually understand and accept each other.

This is not only the opposite of Aqua and Akane, it is also the opposite of Kaguya and Miyuki:

There’s much more to say but I think this is already long enough…

[keira835]

I saw a clip of the アクかな date on YouTube, and literally all the Japanese comments were like “haha aqua acts like a 30 year old doctor” and It reminded me how crazy it is that the English fandom somehow sees the exact opposite. Ever since I’m in this fandom they’ve been insisting that with かな, Aqua can finally act like a normal teenage boy.

Anyway, the most important line from that date is still this one which still wasn’t uploaded to any clip on the official channel:

Though honestly, even if it was, I doubt anyone would comment on it. Like I’ve said elsewhere, It feels like I’m the only one who even caught it even after the anime emphasized it. (It was, of course, mistranslated in MangaPlus, but the official fixed it.)

I wonder if the anime will try to highlight it again in ch83, because poor Aqua keeps getting dragged as a playboy for absolutely no reason.

It’s honestly a bit worrying to see how much less enthusiasm there is for the third season because of the ending… but I guess if Tokyo Revengers is still doing well, Onk should be fine (I know it’s a weird comparison since the manga sales are like 80M vs 20M, but the anime popularity feels pretty similar.)



[keira835]

Well, I read the official English translation of Oshi no ko volume 10, and it’s… interesting.

Let’s start with the only thing I was actually interested in, because I was never quite sure what to make of that ぞ at the end. I saw the original Japanese text about a year and a half ago, and the closest I’ve seen to that was in Blue Box.

They left it kind of the same as the manga plus one:

The reason I think it misses the point is that the reader is just as surprised as Akane when reading the original Japanese. Akane and Aqua are having a pretty mundane phone call (sure there’s emotional weight in the background but on the surface, it’s a casual talk) Akane lightly teases Aqua to give her a small compliment, and then he suddenly drops what’s usually the climax of a very intense confession scene. It’s an unconditional +highly direct + extremely confident love confession. it’s so non standard that I still haven’t seen another confession quite like it… (even in the blue box one it’s not the man who says it and it’s not the first time he said it) and I feel that tone doesn’t really come through in the translation.

But to be honest, I think there’s something even more important here and that’s the use of the word 幸せ (shiawase) which means happiness.

This word isn’t used a lot in manga, and if I counted correctly, it’s only said about ten times in Oshi no ko with four of those times appearing in this volume alone. And for some reason, it never gets translated as “happiness,” which is usually the standard.

There are 2 really annoying ones:

We start here in chapter 95, when Aqua finds out about the loophole. The line is translated as “I finally got to be happy,” which really tones down the original. What he actually says is closer to “normal happiness” (普通の幸せ), which hits differently. It also weakens the connection to chapter 68, where he said that’s basically what he wanted (to live normally and happily).

Now we move to the weirdest one:

Akane literally says, word for word, “I-now -happiness-because” You’d expect that to be translated as something like “because I feel so much happiness right now.” So how did the word “lucky” — which has a totally different connotation, tied to chance — end up in there?

It also kind of ruins the progression of what Akane feels toward Aqua. There’s an emotional buildup: ureshii (嬉しい) → tanoshii (楽しい) → shiawase (幸せ). Just like there’s a love hierarchy in Japanese, there’s a happiness hierarchy too.

And more generally, if both characters are using the same word in the same chapter which you know is rarely used why isn’t it translated the same way? Aqua says happiness too in this scene, so it just ends up feeling like they aren’t expressing the same depth of feeling, even though they clearly are.

I will say that this was a very clever because aqua is considering the time with Akane as something she did for gave him as a favor (his use of くれる). Though I always thought it was standard to translate そばに (soba ni) as “by my/your side,” what they did here was pretty interesting.

If they chose “spend” in Aqua’s line and “stayed” in Akane’s to keep the difference: Akane referring to physical closeness and Aqua to emotional closeness that’s genuinely impressive!

Here is the original, both say そばに but with different kanji: Aqua uses 傍に (emotional closeness), Akane uses 側に (physical closeness)

I don’t want to complain too much, there are definitely good things, but I’m really confused by the free translation approach in parts like Gorou’s lines because it’s never made clear where he was during Aqua’s “freedom” phase and in the translation he was enjoying life... Then suddenly, they take a very literal approach with one of the few lines that actually changes meaning if you translate it directly.

Anyway, my apologies to KyoAni I didn’t understand why they didn’t translate their published light novels into English but ya… doing it properly is extremely difficult…