Oshi no Ko is what Kaguya-sama: Love is War's author Aka Akasaka did next, this time delegating artistic duties to Scum's Wish creator Mengo Yokoyari. Those expecting another light-hearted romcom are likely to be surprised: this is a dark, haunting revenge tale with a side order of unsettling insights into the murkier side of the Japanese entertainment industry. It's a story best known for its bold beginning, and less-well-received (by manga readers at least) ending. What of its middle chapters, though?

When adapted into anime form in 2023, studio Dōga Kōbō took the inspired step of adapting the entire first volume, which serves as an extremely compelling, self-contained prologue, into a single movie-length episode. The tonal disconnect that followed from the second episode onwards rattled viewers, but manga readers already knew what they were getting into with this series and its deliciously messy premise and resulting drama. Reading from the second volume onwards, once our main characters have grown past early childhood, endured the traumatic murder of their beloved mother, and entered high school, in many ways it feels like a second beginning, a different story altogether. Yet the events of the first volume haunt both Ruby and Aqua, though, at least initially, it seems like Aqua is by far the most emotionally damaged of the two siblings.

Yokoyari uses a recurrent stars-in-their-eyes motif to depict which characters exude almost inhuman charisma, a simple identification of their “star factor.” Ai, when she was alive, had stars in both eyes, burning brightly as she sang and danced for her audience of adoring fans, soothing them with the lies she felt were akin to love. A troubled woman, in life, she was unsure herself what love was and what was a lie; it was only as she lay bleeding and dying, cradling a frantic Aqua, that she was able to tell her children she loved them for the first and only time. Now her children have inherited one star each from her – one in Aqua's right eye, one in Ruby's left. It's telling that Ruby's star is bright and sparkling, while Aqua's looks like an entrance to the black abyss.

Although within him, Aqua harbors the soul of a thirty-something obstetrician murdered by the same obsessed fan who would later murder Ai, he's still very much a broken little boy, traumatized and desperate for revenge. He's emotionally cold, calculating, and tends to unsettle adults and other adolescents alike. Yet behind his icy exterior, he has the same feelings as any other boy his age, including a vulnerability towards the women in his life. Towards Ruby, he's pathologically protective, even going as far as to sabotage his sister's nascent career to keep her within his sphere of influence. We understand why he does these things, yet with his sneaky manipulations, he crosses the line, even if events seemingly work out well in the end.

As far as Aqua's concerned, he's conducting a covert criminal investigation, tracking down witnesses, striking deals for information, and surreptitiously testing every male colleague he meets with a DNA test. Performing in TV dramas, reality shows, and even a 2.5D stage play are all calculated steps to maneuver him closer to his eventual target. Although he's an excellent actor with a flair for “lies” (which is one of the story's major themes), he can't bring himself to enjoy any of his work, as to do so forces him to confront the emotions he's spent over a decade cramming down into the deepest pits of his heart.

As far as the reader is concerned, though, there's a lot more to Oshi no Ko than a mere murder mystery/revenge story, and that's what often made it frustrating to read in weekly chunks during initial serialization. Writer Akasaka conducted a great deal of research into the functioning of various aspects of the entertainment industry, and apparently, some of the characters are based on people he knows and their experiences. This means that for long periods of time, Aqua's murder investigation takes a back seat to each story arc's theme, especially the longest arc here, the Tokyo Blade theatre adaptation, which comprises twenty-six chapters (over two and a half volumes). In weekly terms, that's around half a year. Yet in volume format, the story is structured perfectly and paced very well. Akasaka was clearly writing with an eye to volume readers rather than weekly readers. This also provides the anime with easy breakpoints for its adaptation, with season one covering the first four volumes, and season two covering up to the end of volume eight.

Akasaka uses Oshi no Ko to delve deep into the culture surrounding idol singers, especially the unrealistic expectations thrust upon them by entitled fans. Aqua believes his mother's death was due to a fan discovering she wasn't “pure” because she had sex and conceived children (information presumably leaked to the murderer by the mastermind). Therefore, he's terrified of something similar happening to his sister, or to fellow actor Kana Arima, with whom he shares more than a little romantic tension. Other themes include the difficulties and compromises that inevitably arise when adapting one medium into another (in this case, manga to TV drama, and manga to stage play), plus the pressures placed upon young actors by the social media mob, leading to a particularly upsetting suicide attempt by one of the supporting characters. Oshi no Ko doesn't sugar-coat these issues, and deliberately calls out shitty adults who either intentionally exploit their young charges or, at best, fail to safeguard them.

Aqua's sister Ruby doesn't receive anywhere near as much characterization, though we're aware she's still haunted by her past as a child dying of brain cancer. Superficially, it seems she's been able to move on with her life much easier than her brother, and she's mostly depicted as something of an airhead, a (relatively) normal girl whose main ambition is to become an idol singer. For the moment, this makes her much less interesting, though that's more than made up for by the other girls she regularly interacts with: the other two members of the reconstituted idol group B Komachi.

Bob-cut and beret-wearing Kana Arima is by far my favorite character, and I feel somewhat uncomfortably called out by the story's insistence on lamp-shading her as “a likely hit with the otaku demographic”. Kana is a joy. She's cute, foul-mouthed, bad-tempered, yet also caring and easily led. A former child actor with an abandonment complex, her initial jealousy of Aqua's seemingly effortless acting skills soon blossoms into infatuation. Poor Kana – she rarely catches a break. I love the various scenes between her and Aqua, where he completely fails to pick up on her incredibly obvious hints, and yet he still manages to capture her heart further by inadvertently doing something to make her swoon.

Devilish Mem-cho (mainly because she wears a horned hairband, not because she's evil) is a delightful character, one of the most grounded of them all. Well, about as grounded as one can be as a twenty-five-year-old YouTuber who pretends to be an eighteen-year-old schoolgirl. She's the glue that holds B Komachi together, the peacemaker, and the cheerleader. I really feel for her when she's stuck in the middle between Aqua's two main love interests, Kana and Akane.

Akane is a bit of a wild card, as her relationship with Aqua is complicated and unpredictable. She's an accomplished actress, and she agrees to start dating Aqua as a means to advance both of their careers. She's terrifyingly intelligent (possibly even more so than Aqua himself), and over time, falls in love with him for real, willingly supporting him even in his darkest impulses. She's the only one Aqua confides even part of his troubles in, yet it never feels he's able to open his own heart fully to her. There's something about her that reminds him of Ai, so there's a weird, almost Oedipal undercurrent to the way Aqua interacts with her and the women in his life. I mean, that's a given, considering he was an obsessed fan before dying and then being reincarnated as his idol's child. Then there's the fact that his now-biological sister was previously a 12-year-old girl who pledged undying love to his adult doctor self before she died. At present, neither of the twins is aware of the identities of their previous lives… but this could get extremely messy later on.

Mengo Yokoyari is no stranger to messily emotional narratives, considering her work on Scum's Wish, which is something of a guilty favorite of mine. She brings her keen eye for flowing character design and subtle expression to Oshi no Ko, which I think suits the series much better than Akasaka's comparatively stiffer art style would have. Ai Hoshino and Kana Arima are particularly iconic, their charisma practically leaping off the page. Now and then, she draws some incredibly realistic imagery that's breathtaking in its detail and composition, in between the looser, more comedic scenes she also excels at. I especially like her use of shadow when it encroaches around Aqua when he spirals further into darkness.

The final chapters of volume 8 delve a bit further into the supernatural, which shouldn't be that surprising when we remember this is a manga about obsessive fans reincarnated as their idol's kids. Despite this, adding in a young-looking yet godlike character with a seemingly omniscient viewpoint is certainly a choice, considering the relatively grounded story arcs preceding it. It remains to be seen how relevant the “god of entertainment” will be for the rest of the plot.

Lest anyone forget, this story is essentially a Greek Tragedy brought screaming into the modern, social media-obsessed age, we can't expect this to have a happy ending. Even though in the course of these volumes, Aqua believes he's solved the identity of his mother's killer, as readers, we're made privy to information that proves his assumption wrong. We get a glimpse of an Aqua that could have been, one not beholden to an obsession for revenge, a normal teenage boy who thinks it might be ok for him to have a normal relationship with a pretty girlfriend, one who doesn't need to drive himself to an early grave from overwork. Yet we know that this Aqua cannot last, for we're only halfway through the series. Until he returns, at least his sister has now inherited the starry-abyss eyes, which will hopefully make her a far more compelling character in volumes to come…

I have thoroughly enjoyed returning to Oshi no Ko's manga after I finished reading the weekly releases back in 2024. When read in a multi-volume binge, it's a masterfully constructed story with discrete story arcs that each flow intelligently into the next, as the meta-plot gradually builds in the background. With wonderfully-realized characters and fascinating drama, it's well-worth picking up again, even for readers who endured the initial frustrating weekly release schedule. And that ending everyone complained about? The threads leading towards it are all here, plain as day for anyone to see. I wonder how it might be re-evaluated in the years to come.