アイドル or 偶像?

lace, she/her, read viewpoint b. i am no longer asking.

[penguinkyun]

hi! this is a sideblog for oshi no ko and will contain manga spoilers (i use the tag: oshi no ko manga spoilers, so block it if you don't want any). i will go feral over the hoshino family and first gen bkomachi at any given opportunity

[aihoshiino]

“Dream Parade - 3★ Ai Hoshino” 【OSHI NO KO】 Puzzle Star character illustration

[aihoshiino]

What do you think of the comparisons of KamiAi and AquAka? I can see some of it but it bothers me a little when it's painted as a positive thing for AquAka and glossing over the bad things.

I'm about where you are with it. Broadly speaking, I don't think it's an inappropriate comparison in isolation - OnK really wants to equate Aqua and Hikaru and Akane obviously has All That going on with Ai, so the text is absolutely inviting the reader to draw parallels, if nothing else. Akane's talk of "carrying [his] burden" is echoed later when Ai talks about her desire to do the same for Hikaru and just the broad strokes of the "damaged sadboy and his endlessly supportive gf" dynamic is obviously at play with both pairs. And ofc, AquAka and KamiAi are the two 'canon' ships of Oshi no Ko (i.e, the two ships in which the characters actually enter an official, committed relationship) which invites comparisons. So again, I wouldn't say this is an off-base or inappropriate comparison to make, when approached in good faith.

The problem, of course, is that, well... if the text is intentionally equating AquAka and KamiAi, then that's really not a good look for AquAka but that's not a conversation most people making this argument are ready to have!!! KamiAi was a dysfunctional and unhealthy relationship, one in which both parties did genuinely and earnestly love each other and want to be together, but still one that was stifling and codependent and so obviously going in a bad direction that Hoshino Ai, Earth's most autistic and poorly socialized fawning bunny rabbit, got the hell out of there and refused to get back together with the boy she still loved even when he offered. KamiAi is framed as a tragedy of two deeply damaged people who were simply not capable of having a healthy relationship with each other, or possibly anyone, at that stage in their lives. To compare AquAka to this relationship dynamic unavoidably suggests that AquAka shares these same dysfunctions and is on track for a similarly tragic ending... but of course, most people making this comparison do just kind of avoid that anyway lol.

From what I've seen, there's mainly two avenues this takes - one suggests that AquAka is a sort of "redo" of KamiAi, or a "corrected" version of it, where Akane is succeeding where Ai failed or Akane is able to offer Aqua the support Ai wasn't able to offer Hikaru, etc etc. I think this by and large ignores the actual text, which is that Ai was 100% in the right to cut off her relationship with Hikaru and her only failing in this scenario was her inability to properly communicate why she was leaving. To frame her decision to escape a toxic dynamic as some kind of failure of spirit that Akane is 'correcting' just feels kind of gross to me - it feels like it's part of a pattern that a lot of pro-Akane fan discussion falls into, where her tendency towards self-destructive, self-annihilating devotion to Aqua is framed as some kind of admirable virtue (as previously discussed in this post). It can also lead to some really victim-blamey rhetoric towards Ai to suggest that getting yourself out of a dysfunctional relationship with a partner who is making you feel stifled and unhappy is some kind of skill issue that Akane totes would never fall prey to! Akane is simply just built different!

That's the take I see most frequently but the other one, which I see less often but am driven to Lovecraftian madness whenever I am forced to engage with it, is the absolutely unhinged assertion that ackshully, KamiAi was a totes happy and healthy relationship and Ai was 100% happy and thriving in it and everything was perfect and the only reason anything bad happened was because of the breakup. Oh, er, why did Ai break up with him if everything was hunky-dory? Don't worry about it, kitten. You see, the breakup was bad and that's why Hikaru is the way he is so the relationship was actually fine and perfect and thus, any similarities AquAka shares with it are only good things that make AquAka a good, happy and healthy ship. This is obviously a completely insane reading of the text that requires you to fundamentally ignore everything about both characters' motivations and expressed emotions and a frankly weird amount of the plot of the story, but it's out there and it haunts me!!! I have straight up had certain genres of militant AquAka shipper say to me with their whole-ass chests that Hikaru becoming an actual serial killer cult leader off the back of their breakup doesn't indicate that there might've been some problems in paradise before that because he only turned evil after the breakup and if they hadn't broken up he wouldn't have turned evil so ONCE AGAIN THIS IS ALL AI'S FAULT FOR NOT BEING HER HIGH SCHOOL BOYFRIEND'S MOMMY-HE-CAN-FUCK THERAPIST GF FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE OH MY GODDDDDDDDD

coughs. anyway. like I said, I don't think it's an unfitting comparison to make in the context of a wider lens/good faith analysis, but most of the takes I see about it come from, as you said, a place of wanting to gloss over the negative aspects of one or both relationships. It sort of feels like it's coming from the same place as something I discussed in an earlier post, of wanting to borrow the perceived authority of something else in the text to better prop up your preferred ship as the morally/thematically/intellectually/whatever superior one.

[greatwyrmgold]

Framing Aqua/Akane as Kamiki/Ai if Ai wasn't willing to leave could be interesting.

And I don't think it would be hard to justify characterizing Akane that way. Akane faced such intense harassment during the reality show arc that she tried to jump off a bridge. Of course, Ai faced her share of harassment and abuse and bullying, but unlike Akane, she has years of experience adapting to the abuse, while by all accounts Akane has a loving family and a healthy social life. Akane clutches harder to her life raft in the storm because, unlike Ai, she never had to swim.

But of course, most Aqua/Akane shippers don't want to characterize her as a traumatized teenager making bad decisions due to harsh trauma inflicted by a heartless industry and bloodthirsty fandom. They also don't want to characterize Aqua as a traumatized teenager making bad decisions due to harsh trauma inflicted by his dad and a bloodthirsty fan. They want to characterize Aqua and Akane as Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler, specifically from one of the adaptations where Holmes and Adler are a couple and solve mysteries together.

...weird that "AquAka is KamiAi but Aqua is a better BF than Kamiki" isn't a take. Considering that, canonically, Kamiki killed both of the women we know he was intimate with, while Aqua only ever killed his girlfriend's boyfriend.

[gabbyp09]

[kaletalecowboy]

Your idol sign is…!

[kamiai-archive]

art by @DDU_45 on twitter

link to the original post

[aquahater]

can anyone identify this bunny

[irresponsible-sugimoto]

one of the most egregious , transparent attempts at making ruby emulate ai is the re-enactment of ai's death . this panel has always struck me as ghoulish , even if i've struggled to articulate precisely why . in theory , it makes sense - idol about to go perform at the dome but she's tragically cut down , woah . but in practice , it's another moment that doesn't understand what it's imitating .

(panel under a read more to avoid spoiling anime-onlies + CW for violence) .

the decision to call back to this moment gels badly with the wider context on two fronts .

the first being the sheer stupidity of the plan . even if akane was the best fighter in the world , she's still a teenager being put into contact with somebody who has malicious intentions and a weapon . putting aside all the ways this could've gone south , it's putting akane into certain danger . how on earth are you 'not repeating that mistake!' if you're asking akane to confront somebody who's going to attempt murder ? be so serious ! even if akane is willing , the adults in the situation shouldn't put her (or anybody , for that matter!) into danger like this . prepping her with a knifeproof vest says you're expecting something to happen .

it completely undermines its own point in the same chapter .

(( to be quite honest , akane especially should've been told no . it's absolutely in character for her to attempt this sort of thing without any regard for her own well-being , but then it's especially encumbent on the adults to handle it so she doesn't have to . ))

the second being ruby's circumstances vs. ai's , both as a person and the 'murder' .

ruby isn't failed to the extent ai is . ruby has so many things in her life that ai doesn't . ruby has a loving family , supportive friends/co-workers , a CEO mommy , a high school education - most of the problems ai has , ruby doesn't have to quite wrangle with . the closest ruby gets to it is her fight with kana and the subtle drip-feed of mem-cho and kana's growing dissatisfaction with ruby overshadowing them , but b-komachi is able to overcome them because everybody has a support system and somebody they can talk to .

in fact , this actually leads to one of her big realizations about ai - she asks herself 'was mama always crying , too?'

kana having beef with her is a catalyst for ruby's understanding of ai to deepen . but kana is a single person acting out on a single project -- gen 1 b-komachi has spent years letting their discontent simmer . both kyun in viewpoint b and nino in 45510 comment on how impossible it is to know ai , and that she's the source of the quiet tensions within the group . kana and ruby resolve their differences and make up -- only kyun is shown to come to any sort of understanding about ai .

i could go on , but i think the picture makes itself clear . ruby , for the most part , has been protected and loved and helped by the adults in her life (hi , ai . hi , miyako <3) , to say nothing of her greater support system in her friends and family .

this catharsis isn't for her , but for ichigo .

like so many moments in late OnK , you can tell where there's a clear vision but the foundation upon which it rests is super suspect . our vision here is the catharsis of ichigo getting to prevent another death , that ruby goes on to perform at the stage ai never could .

but that misses the point of ai's murder . the tragedy of ai isn't an idol cut down at her zenith , but a mother being struck down in her own home while she comforts her children as she dies . the happiness ai has found in her family and as a mother is so brutally torn from her and the twins . that's the focus of the tragedy , not the idea that she didn't get to do her dome performance .

ai dies to misogyny .

ryosuke murders her because he perceives betrayal . hikaru openly admits to wanting to scare her a little by sending a stalker her way . his despair very much mirrors ryosuke's own - the idea that ai's love was a lie and he was just being strung along , that he's being so callously discarded by the girl he loves more than anything , and more importantly ...

both of them face a refutation from ai herself that this love was a lie . what makes ryosuke flee is when ai begins talking about how he gave her the star sand , when she remembers his name from a meet-and-greet , when ai shows she's never forgotten him . similarly with hikaru - the DVDs are so devastating because it punctures a hole in the idea that ai didn't love him . she very much did , even if she wasn't always sure how to express it . both of them get devastated by the realization of what they've truly destroyed .

which , while a condemnation of misogyny and idol culture , doesn't tie well into the separate thread of adults failing ai .

there's nobody here to blame but ryosuke and hikaru . ichigo warns her against contacting the father , even if it's just to head off a scandal . ai herself only offers this olive branch years after the break-up and after hikaru's had considerable space to digest everything . there's nothing anybody on ai's side could've done differently to avoid this situation - ai's murder is a symptom of a larger problem . as much as there's very valid criticism to be had about the idol industry , that ichigo chooses to market b-komachi as gachikoi idols and groom investment from fans that way , there's also the misogyny and entitlement of fans that make them believe it's acceptable to 'punish' women like this .

even if ai had the best security measures in the world , there's no ultimate defense against men who hate women . all the security and protective measures women have to engage in for their own safety is an indictment against malicious men . you can do everything right and still end up hurt or worse .

there's so many ai hoshinos out there , in both fiction and real life , treated this way . it kind of really does add another layer to 'ai is an ordinary girl' - the systematic nature of her struggles . but running contrary to that ...

nino's motives aren't faceless misogyny . there's thousands of ryosukes and thousands of hikarus , of men who just can't let go of a girl , but nino's motivation is specific to her and her experiences as an idol beneath ai . she's pushed to murder ruby (+ potentially others) because nino can't stand the thought of somebody beating ai . it's easier for nino to accept a loss to ai if ai is simply Unbeatable than for her to face her own insecurities and shortcomings . that's heartrending and good characterization , but it also individualizes her . nino's failures are personal , rather than societal .

i thought my initial discomfort with this scene is how transparently it mines ai's murder for emotional shock , especially since late OnK is pushing really hard on the ruby-ai parallels . i kept thinking 'even if this was ruby , what reason would she have to open that door?' . we know why ai does - in the moment , she jokes she wasn't taught why door locks are there (and in 153 , there's a door lock shown as hikaru laments ai just didn't know how to take care of herself sometimes) . in hindsight , there's the possibility she's half hoping hikaru might show up .

but ruby ? not only does she have others there (aqua and iirc , miyako as well) , but she'd know better . even if it weren't for her mother being murdered by an unexpected visitor , people are constantly stepping in to shield ruby from nefarious intentions and explaining why something that seems innocuous is wrong (kana demanding her phone in tokyo blade and explaining why she shouldn't give away her contact info so readily , melt rescuing her and minami from aggressive come-ons , miyako explaining to her why this or that won't work , etc etc) .

i digress . the emotional shock and drama are the point .

it takes a tragedy of ai's and averts it . this is supposed to be a moment of triumph . ichigo states he won't make this mistake again . this is supposed to be the crowning resolution of the idea that this is everybody's time to do right by ai .

but the tragedy they decide on is a tragedy that can't really be attributed to the everyday little failures of people who stand by . it starts to feel ghoulish because i know the point is this emotional reaction - i'm supposed to feel scared and worried for ruby , and then cheer when the adults protect and defend her (fuck akane , i guess) where they didn't ai .

especially since ai's murder makes a point NOT to exploit violence against a woman for emotional drama , with minimal focus given to the act . there's just something so icky about doing it here with ruby - oh noes , a flower cut down just as it begins to bloom !

everything surrounding this panel just feels so out of touch with the tragedy that ai's death was and i find it tasteless to an extreme .

[penguinkyun]

bloodletting (on ao3)

-

“Oh, I would offer you tea but— the water is still boiling,” Hoshino Ayumi says, soft and quiet and he's jolted out of his thoughts. She settles herself down across from him, her own glass of water left untouched.

Just like his.

“I'm sorry for calling out of the blue,” Aqua says with no real feeling. Standard politeness, really.

“It's no trouble, especially not for—” Ayumi cuts herself off with a cough. Silence falls.

“I just had a few questions,” he says, ignoring the pause. He had already explained about the movie, but repeats the question he was really curious about. “About my mother, Hoshino Ai. Then I won’t trouble you further.” He does not say your daughter.

—

or, exhumation of the past isn't an act done cleanly.

[tetrix-anime]

Oshi no Ko 3rd Season - Blu-ray/DVD Volume 2 Illustration. Release: 24 April 2026

[gabbyp09]

[aihoshiino]

breaking news from the OnK Brainrot discord: me and @penguinkyun realizing in real time we've been gaslighting ourselves into thinking ichigo smokes in the OnK manga for like two fucking years

[penguinkyun]

GREAT NEWS! WE WERE NOT GASLIGHTING OURSELVES!! HE DOES SMOKE!

[aihoshiino]

i have a longer ramble on this i want to work into a proper post at some point but the last ep of season 3 really pulled into focus for me the main issues i have with the flaccid mess that aqua & ruby's relationship becomes at least vis-a-vis the gorosari stuff - i.e, that backfilling more info about that relationship and repeatedly mining sarina's situation for pitybait pathos and drama eventually becomes used as a full-on substitute for actually developing a relationship between aqua and ruby as they exist in the present, to the extent that it often feels like the 16+ years they spent living together as siblings literally didn't happen, because the gorosari drama is treated as being so immediately present and relevant and all-consuming in the present that it may as well have happened yesterday rather than almost 20 years ago.

it also doesn't help that we basically never learn anything new about either character via these flashbacks and they mostly just circle the drain on re-iterating the same handful of ideas and beats without ever meaningfully expanding on them or developing how their present-day selves relate to them, to a degree that i literally have no idea what gorou or aqua actually thinks or feels about sarina -> ruby despite the emotional crux of the ending being aqua's suicidal self-sacrifice in her name. even when i purposely dig at the text to try and uncover something, it just comes down to the mingled compassion and anger any decent person would feel for sarina's situation. that could be interesting if the manga were willing to examine the asymmetry of the intensity of their feelings, but it also wants to pretend that this was an epic wao super amazing profound and deeply meaningful bond on both sides despite never establishing what it is about sarina that compels literally any emotion in gorou that doesn't ultimately route back to her status as Tragically Doomed Sad Cancer Child.

idk. the more time i spend with the text, the more i dislike sarina's backstory and the way her character is handled. despite sarina very explicitly suffering from brain cancer, we never actually see any of the ugly or inconvenient symptoms of her illness, such as vomiting, mood swings or overall cognitive decline. even when she is literally on her deathbed, she's more or less entirely lucid and completely in control of her faculties. she just sort of prettily and tragically withers away like a victorian heroine dying of consumption because she hasn't been to the seaside in a while - pathetic and pitiable, but not actually inconvenient or repulsive. it just feels objectifying in a literal sense - she's an object of pity, an object for other people (both in-story and real life fans) to gasp and weep over. but even when she is carried forward into ruby, it's almost entirely as a source of drama and angst rather than a character with her own interiority and a place in the story beyond her limited existence as Sad Cancer Girl.

this is getting pretty off-topic from my original point lol so i'll just point to a post @lastthroes made about Spica, the spinoff light novel a few years back and this passage in particular that has been really speaking to how i feel about this aspect of the story as of late;

we are also shown nothing about sarina's life before (and outside of) the cancer, supposedly because it didn't exist. she gets no dreams/plans/goals in life, no education, no friends. we cannot even get a glimpse of how her personality changed after the illness. nothing of that matters because the story has decided, as unrealistic as that can be, that sarina's life starts and ends at the hospital almost as if she spawned there one day with her cancer already being terminal

idk. i've said before and i'll say again that everything about aqua and ruby's relationship past the ch100ish mark falls completely flat on its face for me simply because it's so direly underwritten in the preceeding majority of the manga that any attempt to pluck at my heartstrings about it feels so plastic and emotionally manipulative to me that i just feel irritated about it.

[aihoshiino]

Re: not exploring reincarnation in OnK: honestly, I think it's a missed opportunity for Ruby in particular. We've established that Ai is The Idol and Ruby is doing her level best to be The Second Coming Of Idol Jesus, and i think there's something interesting out there where pre-reveal Ruby hits a stumbling block in her career because the template for Ruby's idol persona is Ai, which can be construed as Ruby imitating her by those not in the know. 1/2

Who is Ruby as an idol (as a person) when she's not using Ai as a template? Because the answer can't be Tendouji Sarina. Who is Ruby as a person (as an idol) when she's not falling back on her experience as Tendouji Sarina. There needs to be a secret third thing, and I don't know that Ruby as we know her has one. There's a lot of time in OnK spent on Aqua self-actualizing separate from his past self(ves) and Ruby, i feel, doesn't get much time to even try. 2/2

This this and this, basically. It's really bizarre because the first half of the manga already very openly lays out exactly the idea you're suggesting here - during the Private arc, it's noted that Ruby is not really all that compelling as an idol because of this sense that she's just copying someone - and that someone the reader implicitly knows is Ai.

But then of course, this all comes to nothing because (as I've pointed out before), the manga is so hung up on this idea of having Ruby 'surpass' Ai as an idol but the only metric by which the manga seems to be able to measure and/or demonstrate her success at this is how much Ruby resembles Ai in the process of doing so. She strikes Ai's iconic poses, sings songs that are associated with Ai in the narrative, Mengo gets to a point where she basically draws Ruby as a blonde Ai... and by the end of the series, Ruby barely has her own identity as a character, full stop, let alone an idol. It's incredibly bizarre - but more than anything, it's disappointing.

Some of my pals recently blitzed thru the OnK manga for the first time and one of them had a really fascinating reading/suggested arc for Ruby that I can't stop thinking about... we both 100% acknowledge that this is kind of reading against the intended text but also the intended text makes so little sense that i think we can have a bit of death of the author as a treat.

The real problem is the yawning, gaping void in the center of Hoshino Ruby. She's tried to fill it with so many different things and none of them work so she turns outward and puts her heart into everything she does at 200% to ignore how hollow the organ that pumps blood through her body really is. Even B-Komachi wasn't enough to find the one connection she had that briefly bridged that gaping void. Her wholehearted obsession with revenge was another tenuous straw she used to grasp at Ai yet that gap is forever doomed to widen because she's refusing to see Ai as she was, and so that sense of connection can't even be found in her memories. Aqua at least has a sense of his own identity via denial of it. "Ruby" is a girl that doesn't exist, not even to herself. "Sarina" doesn't either. Ruby is backfilling her with what she and Aqua want out of "Sarina" since that's easier than being "Ruby" at this point.

(lightly shortened and reformatted for readability, thank u lily sorry i gave you and cobalt secondhand brainworms)

I think this an extremely interesting reading of Ruby, not just for self-evident reasons but also because it's something the text itself kind of sets up (only to end up forgetting all about it because of course lmao). But during the private audition, when Ruby thinks about what 'lies' mean to her, she ends up expressing a very similar sentiment - that both "Ruby Hoshino" and "Sarina Tendouji" are roles that she feels it necessary to play in order to contort to other people's expectations but that her 'true self' is something different.

This is a fascinating aspect of Ruby's psychology for many reasons but the manga never really iterates on this idea and never returns to it. This is especially strange given the way the manga will later try to push parallels between Ruby and Ai - contorting the self you present to others for survival and to match their expectations is something that defined Ai's life but the manga never seems to make this very obvious connection. More broadly, we never learn what Ruby's "true self" supposedly is outside of some vague snapshots of her negative feelings and ultimately, as I've said before, we reach a point where the story stops ever entertaining the idea that Ruby might be anything less than Literally Perfect, Flawless and Ontologically Blessed and Inherently Special in every way that matters.

Ultimately I think a lot of this comes down to an issue in OnK's writing that I've mentioned before that Akasaka never seems to have had a super strong grasp on Ruby as a character beyond her surface level behaviour and backstory, which is why we get so many abrupt and seemingly inconsistent takes on her personality and psychology that never resolve into a coherent whole. Her motivations can change at the drop of a hat if it's what the plot demands and even then, the plot never demands very much from her - she's almost always reactive to what is going on around her rather than proactive in her own right. Much of her behaviour and motivations are defined in relation to other characters and while this is not bad in a vacuum, she's never really given the space to define herself and as such, ends the story less defined and less realized than she was when we first met her.

[irresponsible-sugimoto]

one thing that's startling is how unlike ai ruby actually is - the only thing more surprising than that is the consistency of that across the various eras of ruby .

the closest i feel she organically gets to it without C + P ai's visuals is the scene early on where she comforts kana the night before they're due to perform and tells kana it's okay to fail . it's okay if they flop . people just want to see them pour their hearts out and do their best . that sort of iron faith that things can work out is like ai , but it's also very much uniquely ruby - ruby is comfortable with failure and disappointing others in a way ai isn't . it's much easier to see ai sharing kana's anxiety , but difficult to imagine ai either a) having this sort of rapport with a co-worker or b) sharing ruby's 'it's okay if i fuck up or flop' mentality . ruby very much shares ai's resilience , but it isn't expressed the exact same way .

but across her different eras , ruby just doesn't have much in common with ai . this post has already pointed out the various ways early era ruby is decidedly unlike ai (argumentative , willing to seek support from others , etc) , but i'd like to point out how dark ruby and movie arc ruby are also unlike ai , especially because this is where ruby's lack of cohesion as a character begins to really show .

the manipulative , evil ai allegations are 100% false . ai couldn't manipulate a wet paper bag . so much of her story revolves around how people feel intensely about and over her (ruby included!) , but how those same people often fail to see her . the powerlessness she feels on her pedestal is so core to her as a character - which fundamentally puts her at odds with dark ruby , who not just possesses the cunning but forcefully goes after what she wants without a single care for who she steps on to get there .

movie arc is most interesting because while it tries its absolute hardest to force ai parallels (as the linked post + OP both discuss) , it inadvertently ends up writing ruby as much more like hikaru .

it's difficult to imagine ai treating somebody as ruby does gorou - she's hesitant to press her presence where she feels it might not be wanted . but the intensity of hikaru's feelings suffocating ai and leaving her uncomfortable (as aqua often seems during these scenes) parallels ruby fairly strongly . divesting so much energy into somebody being your light in the dark is textbook hikaru , not ai . and if you back-track to early era ruby for a moment , the hikaru parallels are still fairly strong there too .

both of them often talk to ai . we get quite a few scenes of ruby visiting her grave or addressing her thoughts to mama , but i'm hard-pressed to recall if we get anything equivalent for aqua . both hikaru and ruby want to honor ai's legacy and keep her memory alive , but they have fundamentally different approaches to it - hikaru is destroying any talent that threatens it , while ruby wants to honor her by following in her footsteps . more to the point , both of them are missing a rather large piece about that : that ai DGAF about being the ultimate idol .

ai didn't dream of the dome . ai doesn't care about fame the way both hikaru and ruby think she does . ruby and hikaru's ideas of keeping her legacy + memory alive are transparently self-serving and blind to ai , even as they both love her deeply .

and the comment that spurs ai into contacting hikaru comes from ruby - ruby says the twins must be a virgin conception . it's meant to be humorous , but ai's concern is very real . we know that in ruby's case , it very much comes from a place of love . she rails against misogyny and purity culture on ai's behalf on twitter - the issue isn't with idols dating . it's with the idea her ai , specifically , would have dated . pre-dark ruby , she thought about her father as often as he thought about her - which is to say , only when other people poked .

she evinces no curiosity or desire about who ai would've even dated . she's not interested in filling in that blank . as far as she's concerned , it may as well have been a virgin conception . some of that can be written off as returning the investment - no point in wasting energy on a deadbeat . if he wants to be here , he would be . but that begs the question of if ruby would even want to share - she's more territorial over ai's time and energy than aqua is .

either way , the point is that ruby doesn't quite see ai for reasons quite similar to hikaru . and it feels like early on , she was meant to have an arc in tandem with aqua's - as he pursues revenge , ruby has to learn who her mother really is .

some of that gets brought back for the movie arc's penultimate conclusion that ai was just an ordinary girl , but it's a journey she should've been having much earlier and one she's denied . the moment aqua starts living his best life , dark ruby is ushered in to substitute for him . much of early ONK focuses on how much of a grind success can be , even when things are lined up well for you - and it feels like akasaka hit the fast-forward button on b-komachi's success so ruby would be in a good position to do what aqua currently can't . the text prioritizes the progression of the revenge plot over ruby's personal arc .

from there , once aqua re-enters the chat , akasaka's attempts to do something with her end up relying on mining the imagery and dynamics of previous characters - ai and sarina .

it feels like the start to giving ruby her own identity would be to acknowledge she isn't ai . as i said earlier , it's amazing that what endures through every era of ruby is how unlike ai she truly is . and that's a good thing ! she shouldn't be ai 2.0 .

as much as i hate to rescue the slop , it feels like there's actually a character here that , against all odds , prevails through the bad writing . she's just buried . but akasaka isn't interested in exploring that . actually exploring ruby's hikaru tendencies means examining how destructive they become if left unchecked , to both idol and fan . it also means possibly destroying his intended ending for ruby - if ruby realizes ai never dreamed of the dome , how does she square that with her own motivations for becoming an idol ? what does honoring ai actually look like , then ?

but we never get an answer to any of that because ruby was drawn into the revenge plot as needed , but then hastily spat back out .

[otakunews01]

"OSHI NO KO" ongoing TV Anime Season 3 color page in Weekly Young Jump issue 16/2026

Final episode 11 (#34 saga) will be a 1-hour special episode scheduled for March 25

[gabbyp09]

[penguinkyun]

the flowers at his feet and on the cliffs are red spider lilies. he's near the sea. he's the deadest kid in the world