Wow, | miss this page. | thought it would be long gone, haha. So we were this close in the beginning…
We're pretty stiff around each other now, right?
Well… | do think it’s my fault. | feel really bad about this. It’s my responsibility and I…
I’m telling the truth here, you know?
With everything going on lately, | can’t ask you to believe me, but | really want to be friends with everyone, and that feeling has never changed. | haven’t been able to express it properly, but these are my honest feelings.
You might hate me now, but | never…
If possible, can we go back to before?
You can tease me whenever you want.
Scold me like you used to.
| don’t want you to be intimidated by me.
Tell me whatever's on your mind.
If any of you come back to this account for nostalgia, let me know the next time you see me, okay?
Tell me I’m a useless idiot. And then I'll apologize for being the idiot | am.
| want to make it up to you. I've been meaning to tell you guys some things, with everyone—"
Why people don't discuss 45510 novel more, it's so interesting and it gives a lot of insight on what Ai really wanted, I wonder how would old B-Komachii members react to the movie that shows the real Ai. Would they finally confront the truth? Will we ever find out what Ai wanted to say?
Oshi no Ko: Lies & Love. Aromantic Coded Narratives
I'm going to edit this more, but I'm pushing it out to feel better.
This post is an incredibly cut down and curated version of a longer academic style paper on this topic. If there are any confusing bits or inaccuracies, let me know. A lot of this is rewritten for a more digestible format.
This post is going to talk about spoilers for a majority of the Oshi no Ko manga,the short story, "45510" and the song it inspired "Idol" by Yoasobi. I will also discuss relationships with power imbalances and the sexual relationships between two minors, as Ai Hoshino was 16 when she had children. There will not be explicit detail but it is important to keep in mind the conditions of Ai's relationships.
There will be major spoilers so if you are waiting for Season 2 of the anime, don't read on. I highly encourage everyone to read the manga if you can. If you haven't started it and have just found it through this post, start by watching the anime if it is available, it is excellently produced.
Some Background:
Oshi no Ko was written by Aka Akasaka, known author of Kaguya-Sama Love is War & Renai Daikou. A lot of his work is introspective on the nature of relationships and love, Oshi no Ko being no different.
Oshi no Ko follows the story of two twin siblings, Aqua and Ruby Hoshino reincarnated fans of their new mother, Ai Hoshino. Ai Hoshino was the famous main idol of the idol group B-Komachi. The two of them previously new eachother as a doctor and patient before the latter passed away from Anaplastic astrocytoma, a form of brain cancer, and the other stabbed by Ai's stalker.
The two of them live a regular life as Ai's children until she is murdered by the same stalker that killed Aqua in his past life. After her passing they follow in the footsteps of their mother and enter the world of Japanese Entertainment in pursuit of getting revenge on their unknown father who they blame everything on.
Both of them have a very pragmatic view of the world, but they aren't the focus. Lets talk about Ai.
Ai Hoshino, 45510 & Idol:
The main point of this post is to argue that Ai lies somewhere on the Aromantic spectrum. There are some light pieces of evidence for her also being asexual, but not nearly as defintive as her aro-ness.
Ai Hoshino is the driving force of the narrative despite her story only making up around 10% of the manga. The main reason I want to talk about her is how she is displayed in Idol and "45510". For this I'll be using a fan translation by u/64990022 on Reddit the link for which can be found here.
The short story follows another member of B-Komachi looking back on Ai's popularity with jealousy.
In this we get to see an old interview of Ai's which holds her perspective on love: "I think affection comes from trust. What was it, payback? Like, to return affection with affection. But I'm a coward. I can’t believe in the words “like,” “love,” or “affection” very much. I don’t know, I’ve never really fallen in love with someone before.” This is the core of Ai's identity as an idol and how she performs. She doesn't understand love and how to be affectionate towards other people. Additionally, she doesn't seem to understand the point of marriage: “I can’t imagine it at all. Marriage? Me? Even if you say you want to marry me, how much of that is true? I can understand when people want to be with someone they like, but why marriage? Is it an expression of love? To prove that you would stay forever with that person? If that’s it then maybe I understand a little.”
Personally, I think that this rings true as an aro perspective on love and affection, not understanding the conventions of love and instead coming up with her own. Without being told that its normal to not have the ability to fall in love, Ai has given her feelings its own definition in an objective sense.
She reached the conclusion that lying was the greatest form of love, all stemming from her experience as an idol and observing the world of fans. To her, idols expressed their love to their fans all the time in their words, but none of them truly meant their words. While this is most likely true, we can see how this came to a head in the construction of the stage persona of Ai in the lyrics of "Idol" by Yoasobi;
"
That "I love you" again
Now, everybody is lured and captivated by you
The pupil that you got
The words you vocalize
Even when untrue, it's your perfected Ai
"
Every expression of love is a lie to captivate the audience, but to Ai, even if its untrue, its an expression of care and appreciation.
"
So strong, it's you, unrivalled idol
There cannot be weaknesses to find
The brightest star is residing in you
The gaps and shortcomings, don't show 'em
Dammit, dammit
Parts nobody wants to know should remain hidden
One and only
If it's different, no way, no way
Such a true love, it's the realest Ai
"
Despite not knowing how to love, Ai believe she'd give her fans the most appreciation she could by lying to them. Things like this aren't uncommon in the lives of young aros, claiming to have a crush or to love someone to fit in with the expectations people have for them. Despite all of this, she did hope that one day she would feel a 'true' love towards someone, which ended up being her children right before her death.
The Father
This is where the spoilers actually begin. Despite Ai being in a relationship with someone, there isn't much proof that this relationship was anything within the realm of healthy if not completely manipulative.
The twins' father and Ai's ex-boyfriend was Hikaru Kamiki. He was a child actor the same age as Ai, 15, and shortly after the two of them meet Ai becomes pregnant and gives birth at the age of 16. At this point Hikaru Kamiki has had multiple of these relationships and, to the reader, is known to be a serial killer of women in the entertainment industry, luring them in before killing them. He is suspected to, if not almost fully confirmed to have leaked the address of Ai to her stalker as well as which hospital she was staying in.
Needless to say, their relationship is incredibly brief and ends as soon as Ai becomes pregnant and is forced into hiding. The entirety of their relationship is shown as being based around meeting up around hotels and lacks an air of romance commonly seen in teen romances. He most likely manipulated Ai into a relationship with the intent of murdering her but there is some evidence to him actually being in love with her as he brings flowers to her grave on the anniversary of her death.
At time of posting, we don't know enough about him or their relationship to draw many conclusions but as he is the only partner Ai has every had, omitting their relationship felt disingenuous.
TLDR;
Ai's treatment of love as a whole relates greatly to an aro lens of love and the institutions of love in society. Lying about love is not uncommon among aro experiences. Idol is a bop no matter the language and its a really good aro song.
45510 Original text by Aka Akasaka TL by aihoshiino A treasure trove of texts, images, and videos spanning the past few decades lie archiv
Hello again! After translating Viewpoint B, I decided I would do my own translation of 45510 as a sort of personal project to keep myself occupied. There was already a translation floating around so I didn't originally plan to release mine publicly – but as I worked on my own TL, I was really shocked to see just how much of the original story was missing from the one floating around, including an important paragraph of text that was completely absent, and I decided that it could only help to have an updated TL available to the fandom.
My usual disclaimer – this translation is a combination of MTL, various dictionaries such as jisho.org, my own comprehension and occasionally going to my friends who are smarter than me and saying "yo what the HELL does this kanji mean". There will undoubtedly be things I will probably smack my head over and fix in like a month's time but for now I'm pretty confident in saying it's as good as it could be!
My TL notes are available in the document itself but I'll copy them here for ease of access too.
Like Viewpoint B, the 45510 narrator is unnamed and never identifies herself - she simply refers to herself as 「私」(watashi, occasionally wrapped in quote brackets) in Japanese.
If a few lines here and there ping you as seeming familiar, you’re correct! The first verse of IDOL by YOASOBI (the anime’s first opening song) pulls its lyrics from this exchange in particular and the song in general is largely based on this short story.
"Developmental disabilities" – "発達障害'' literally ‘developmental disorder/disability’. As in English, this term is used in Japanese to refer to neurodivergencies such as autism, ADHD, Tourette Syndrome and various other learning disabilities.
"Recipricity…?" – Not a typo, I promise! Ai says へんぽーせー (henpose) in Japanese here which is her misremembering the phrase 返報性の原理 (henpo-sei no genri), the Japanese term for "the norm of reciprocity". To emulate that, I had her mispronounce ‘reciprocity’.
Interesting note: even in Japanese, ‘Nino’ is only one of the three that Ai refers to with an honorific here.
On one hand, it's an interesting creative decision that 45510 and Viewpoint B seem to deliberately avoid naming any idols other than Ai. Viewpoint B mentions Meimei once, and that's it. Other than that, it's all vague. It's me, myself, and Ai.
Ai is the only idol most B-Komachi fans care about, and for the most part, she's the only original B-Komachi member who matters to the story. The others are allowed to fade into the background of their own story, putting Ai front and center.
While I respect it as a creative choice, it is incredibly annoying that one of the few sources of canon information about these characters does not identify who it's talking about.
For instance, 45510 has a neat little anecdote about how one of the idols (who's always playing video games) said Ai saw herself as the hero of an RPG and the rest of the world as NPCs. That's an interesting piece of characterization! Who does it belong to?
