Oshi no Ko Season 3

Episode 5

We can no longer avoid discussing the most sordid part of Oshi no Ko: that its premise relies on at least one instance of child rape. It was always a given that Ai got pregnant when she was underage, and we never found out if the tryst that led to it was her choice. Now, for all of the puzzle pieces to fit together, and they do seem to, we have to accept that Hikaru Kamiki was eleven years old when his first (?) child was born. It's sick but plausible, and the abuse of the young and innocent is emphasized even further through Kana's subsequent story beat. But following hot on the heels of the lurid details of Aqua and Ruby's birth, Kana's misadventure parses more like an After School Special depicting the “dark side of the entertainment industry” as nothing more than an edgy plot device. Despite its inconsistencies, the episode portrays its characters with a beauty I'll never get used to and a fast-paced plot that keeps me wondering what's going to happen next.

I'm always going to be a sucker for a Kana episode. She's my favorite character in spite of or perhaps because of her underdog role. Right now she can only get gigs as a package deal with B-Komachi, and she'd do anything to change that. “Anything?” the universe suddenly seems to reply, foisting a horndog director (a recurring theme this season!) right in Kana's lap. You can see the alarm bells going off in Kana's head throughout this episode, and yet she continues to make bad decision after bad decision in the desperate hopes of just one thing: a film role. It's cartoonishly foolish following the all-but-fourth-wall-breaking conversation back at Strawberry Productions that was designed to telegraph to us, the audience, how strictly agencies control their talents' every move—and that goes doubly for idols. Just by giving her contact info to the sleazy director, Kana is skating on thin ice. It was only a matter of time before her boundaries got crossed.

It's funny to see where Kana's disastrous night winds up taking her: taking shots of Coke as if its whisky while ranting spectacularly about her stupid crush on stupid Aqua. But the way we got to that point felt rather out of character. “Doing this is bad,” Kana thinks, while continuing to do this. “It'd be even worse if I did this, too,” Kana says, while doing this, too. Her longstanding crush on Aqua aside, Kana has demonstrated good judgment in the past and just recently starred in a stage play, so would she really be desperate enough to consider trading favors for parts? And when she really does get into a sticky situation, there's only one solitary beat of uncertainty before she bursts into tears; otherwise the director's predilections and Kana's practical defense mechanisms (“I'm on my period!”) are played for laughs. Her role here feels less like a character study and more as a way to surface this particularly gross casting practice for the viewer than anything else. (An older, married director who considers an underage teenage actress as a potential affair partner is decidedly not unrealistic, unfortunately.) I'm sure the situation with Kana's frenemy Mako will be equally convoluted.

Kana stole the show this week, but let's rewind for a minute to Akane's discovery and decision. As great as Kana is, I don't think anyone understands Aqua better than Akane. Last season, she made it clear she was willing to help Aqua bury a body, if that was the direction he ended up choosing. Now, she's even more resolute. She's certain Hikaru Kamiki is Aqua's dad and the mastermind of Ai's murder, swallowing the unsavory implications with ease. Her verdict: to deal with the whole thing herself all the while never letting Aqua and Hikaru meet. She's sure that since Hikaru was a minor at the time he would never face justice (if you say so, I don't know enough about the Japanese justice system), so Aqua would inevitably resort to murder. I think this is plausible, too—Aqua's obsession has been singular and all-consuming for most of his second life. There's something to be said about the cycle of violence here: Hikaru is raped as a child, reacts to his own hurt by (maybe) orchestrating Ai's murder, and now Aqua might murder him if he ever finds out. Whether anything can disrupt this chain reaction remains to be seen.

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Oshi no Ko Season 3 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll and HIDIVE.

Lauren is a freelance journalist with a focus on anime fandom.