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

[aquahater]

Magazine

[penguinkyun]

And without words, you'll embrace the sea that sings.

-

song is wiege (alien stage)!

[aihoshiino]

one of those days where I'm thinking with awe about the whole AquRuby truther movement from when the manga was running again. no matter how long it's been, remembering that there was a period of time when the unironic position held by some of the loudest people in the fandom was "this extremely mainstream manga is definitely going to end with the protagonist hooking up with his blood related twin sister as epic destined soulmates" and they were so confident in this prediction that they gave you the exact chapter they thought it would happen and the exact sequence of events it would follow and when you asked for evidence they would give you a list of things that weren't actually in the manga and call you a slur hits like a truck

gaylor for straight people with an incest kink. flat earth for weebs who haven't stopped jorking to little sister hentai since 2013

[greatwyrmgold]

500¥ says that part of why they were so confident Canon Incest was Endgame, is the common perception that Japan is an exotic/degenerate land of perverts. That anime and manga are innately more perverse/taboo-pushing/whatever than Western animation and comics.

Japanese media is full of pedophilia and rape and incest and even gay people, so they say. So anything is possible. Discard your civilized European notions of what is permissible in mainstream pop culture, and assume you already know what's permissible to barbaric Asians.

[jcogginsa]

I never much interacted with the Oshi No Ko shipping community, so I can't speak to how things went there. But the idea that a manga being mainstream precludes it from doing an incest pairing doesn't really hold water.

Just a couple months ago Street fighter 6 six, the latest installment of a culturally ubiqutous franchise, which is currently doing phenomenally well, added a character whose story mode was about his romance with his adopted sister/Cousin.

And just a decade-ish ago Game of thrones was culturally ubiquitous in America, with an incestuous couple core to the narrative from the start, and a second one being added late in the game.

[aihoshiino]

I'm going to be blunt without wanting to be unkind or pick a fight: not only are these just kind of bad comparisons to make but more broadly, this post is a gold star example of exactly what GWG outlined in her post - using niche and/or subculture-targeted media as a frame of reference to paint Japanese culture as a whole as being especially permissive or even celebratory of taboo subject matter - in this case, incest. It's true that Japan has different standards for what counts as incest and differing laws and standards with regards to it, but it is not an uncontroversially celebrated aspect of daily life or even mainstream pop culture.

[jcogginsa]

I deliberately included American Made Media in order to avoid that issue.

[aihoshiino]

Okay, well. This is a discussion specifically about orientalism in fandom and xenophobic assumptions people make about Japan as a result of their shallow, surface level engagement with niche pop culture. So I'm not sure what you imagine you're contributing here.

[jcogginsa]

I'm pointing out that your argument is rooted in a fallacy.

You're presenting it as a given that a mainstream peice of media would never go choose to have an incestuous romance. And that the only reason to consider that it might happen is xenophobic atitudes towards Japan.

[penguinkyun]

That's because it is mostly a given that a mainstream piece of media, especially one that exploded in popularity to the level Oshi no Ko did wouldn't choose to have actual requited twincest in its official run. Both of the examples you have given were infact deeply controversial (Both Game of Thrones and House of Dragons faced scrutiny for it) with the game's director for Street Fighter 6 also actually issuing an apology!

And apart from that, incest very much is still a cultural taboo in Japan— the point Claire was making is that the very assumption that OnK would absolutely no doubt about it have an incest pairing and that somehow it's position as an insanely popular property in Japan would have no bearing on what sort of romance AkaMengo decide to include is part of the general western/specifically weeb assumption of anime as "a perverted media from a land of perverts" as a whole thats deeply pervasive when discussing the orientalism that very much exists in Western spheres.

[jcogginsa]

If it were Taboo in enough that having a Twincest ending was never in the cards, then it would taboo enough that they wouldn't be willing to tease a Twincest ending in the first place.

That's not the case. Ruby was unknowingly crushing on her brother for a while, and learning that her crush was her brother didn't stop her. Once that haooens, then it's entirely valid to think that it might actually happen. Because if their were no chance of it happening, the Manga put the chance there in the first place.

[penguinkyun]

It's....kind of not though? I'm saying this as someone who was reading the manga from Dig Deep arc onwards and was present for literally every community shipping drama and update. Oshi no Ko never once hinted towards going in an incestuous direction before the 20-something nothingburger chapters Akasaka baits the shippers with them and while you can argue discussion of it was inevitable due to the nature of reincarnation and Sarina's crush coming into play, the writing itself was devolving into character assassination and incredibly plot holey at the time.

Especially since actual textual evidence for it being reciprocated was zero. Aqua was uncomfortable and never once showed any interest in Ruby and Ruby herself was treated like a joke. Again, thats the point Claire was making— the writing was utterly nonsensical and borderline a joke and any evidence was completely made up from official arts that was unrelated, not to mention the sheer amount of misinformation that AqRb shippers kept spreading such as purposely mistranslating the actual japanese text and not listening to the real translators who said otherwise, making up things about Shinto mythology and in general also throwing slurs around.

So to believe that OnK would actually possibly commit to it especially when the anime property is very very popular in Japan and risking losing all that goodwill is actually weird and nonsensical.

[aihoshiino]

one of those days where I'm thinking with awe about the whole AquRuby truther movement from when the manga was running again. no matter how long it's been, remembering that there was a period of time when the unironic position held by some of the loudest people in the fandom was "this extremely mainstream manga is definitely going to end with the protagonist hooking up with his blood related twin sister as epic destined soulmates" and they were so confident in this prediction that they gave you the exact chapter they thought it would happen and the exact sequence of events it would follow and when you asked for evidence they would give you a list of things that weren't actually in the manga and call you a slur hits like a truck

gaylor for straight people with an incest kink. flat earth for weebs who haven't stopped jorking to little sister hentai since 2013

[greatwyrmgold]

500¥ says that part of why they were so confident Canon Incest was Endgame, is the common perception that Japan is an exotic/degenerate land of perverts. That anime and manga are innately more perverse/taboo-pushing/whatever than Western animation and comics.

Japanese media is full of pedophilia and rape and incest and even gay people, so they say. So anything is possible. Discard your civilized European notions of what is permissible in mainstream pop culture, and assume you already know what's permissible to barbaric Asians.

[jcogginsa]

I never much interacted with the Oshi No Ko shipping community, so I can't speak to how things went there. But the idea that a manga being mainstream precludes it from doing an incest pairing doesn't really hold water.

Just a couple months ago Street fighter 6 six, the latest installment of a culturally ubiqutous franchise, which is currently doing phenomenally well, added a character whose story mode was about his romance with his adopted sister/Cousin.

And just a decade-ish ago Game of thrones was culturally ubiquitous in America, with an incestuous couple core to the narrative from the start, and a second one being added late in the game.

[aihoshiino]

I'm going to be blunt without wanting to be unkind or pick a fight: not only are these just kind of bad comparisons to make but more broadly, this post is a gold star example of exactly what GWG outlined in her post - using niche and/or subculture-targeted media as a frame of reference to paint Japanese culture as a whole as being especially permissive or even celebratory of taboo subject matter - in this case, incest. It's true that Japan has different standards for what counts as incest and differing laws and standards with regards to it, but it is not an uncontroversially celebrated aspect of daily life or even mainstream pop culture.

[jcogginsa]

I deliberately included American Made Media in order to avoid that issue.

[aihoshiino]

Okay, well. This is a discussion specifically about orientalism in fandom and xenophobic assumptions people make about Japan as a result of their shallow, surface level engagement with niche pop culture. So I'm not sure what you imagine you're contributing here.

[jcogginsa]

I'm pointing out that your argument is rooted in a fallacy.

You're presenting it as a given that a mainstream peice of media would never go choose to have an incestuous romance. And that the only reason to consider that it might happen is xenophobic atitudes towards Japan.

[penguinkyun]

That's because it is mostly a given that a mainstream piece of media, especially one that exploded in popularity to the level Oshi no Ko did wouldn't choose to have actual requited twincest in its official run. Both of the examples you have given were infact deeply controversial (Both Game of Thrones and House of Dragons faced scrutiny for it) with the game's director for Street Fighter 6 also actually issuing an apology!

And apart from that, incest very much is still a cultural taboo in Japan— the point Claire was making is that the very assumption that OnK would absolutely no doubt about it have an incest pairing and that somehow it's position as an insanely popular property in Japan would have no bearing on what sort of romance AkaMengo decide to include is part of the general western/specifically weeb assumption of anime as "a perverted media from a land of perverts" as a whole thats deeply pervasive when discussing the orientalism that very much exists in Western spheres.

[penguinkyun]

hop, hop, little bunny

where are you going? into the forest?

—

song taken from candy scar by vivinos and qmeng!

[aihoshiino]

if big oshi no ko won't give me hot bunnygirl ai then i supposed i have no choice but to take matters into my own hands

[pixelartpeach]

Reblog to give a trans person a fresh and perfectly ripe mango wait huh

It's the wikipedia image??? How big could it be

What

Huh???

[bonesbeetle]

can see the pores on that thang

[crow-with-a-pencil]

Reblog to give a trans person a shockingly high resolution mango

[tayonohikari]

Я закончила! (⁠ﾉ⁠≧⁠∇⁠≦⁠)⁠ﾉ⁠ ⁠ﾐ⁠ ⁠┻⁠━⁠┻

Божечки это так прекрасно 🥹❤️

Это единственный проект который я закончила до конца горжусь собой... я смогла! (⁠｡⁠•̀⁠ᴗ⁠-⁠)⁠✧

Oh my god, this is so beautiful 🥹❤️

I finished it! (⁠ﾉ⁠≧⁠∇⁠⁠)⁠ﾉ⁠ ⁠ﾐ⁠ ⁠┻⁠━⁠┻

This is the only project I've ever finished. I'm proud of myself... I did it! (⁠｡⁠•̀⁠ᴗ⁠-⁠)⁠✧

Да качество говно но что есть то есть¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Yes, the quality is crap, but what is, is¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

[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.