[Oshi No Ko] Season 3

bacd1990★ 2

Episodes 1-10 of this anime were really executed fantastically. Top notch art style quality, really good acting, and the anime even outshined its original manga source material. Song animations are especially the best aspect of this anime. Ranking the 10 episodes alone of the season I would probably give it a score of 8-9. However this is where the good part ends, and we enter episode 11 that undermines the entire massage of how bad the idol industry is in Japan, and transforms it into a meme with forbitten sister brother relations plotline. I was hoping that anime adaptation would avoid this plotline, and changeit into more anime original one, but it looks like they are going to stick faithfully to the manga version that was really controversial in the fandom.

Marinate1016★ 5

Objectively, Oshi no Ko season 3 is the best the show has ever been narratively. Subjectively, this is by far the worst season of the show for anyone who likes Akane. Doga Kobo consistently disrespected she and her fans by butchering and reshuffling her big moments, not drawing her with the level of attention and detail other characters(Kana) get and even the way the social media team handled this season showed an utter lack of respect for a huge portion of the fanbase. More on that later. If you are one of those weirdos who are somehow not invested in any of the girls, don’tcare for stan wars or just want to watch the story play out, well congratulations, you’re in for a treat. The stakes, drama and tension are at an all time high in this season and that magic from season 1 that made the series so popular has returned. Doga Kobo do put in some of their best work ever in this season in the terms of direction and storyboarding. I just personally cannot overlook how one of my favorite characters of all time was done. Your mileage may vary. What made Oshi no Ko so special in the first place was 1: Aqua’s revenge plot and quest for Ai’s killer. 2: The critical examination of the Japanese entrainment industry. This season nails both of those. Whether it’s showing how directors take advantage of up and coming idols, idols covering up relationships and hickeys, etc., I think this season hit a lot of this stuff on the head. It’s so messed up how constrained Japanese entertainers have to live. The idea of living purely to please others while you’re deeply unhappy and suffering on the inside is horrible. There’s so many toxic and unhealthy practices normalized within this industry and even though it’s an anime, Oshi no Ko does a halfway decent job shedding light on them. Is it going to change anytime soon? No, it’s an industry that thrives on parasocial behavior and the same sort of toxicity that hurts idols, keeps them employed. It’s a brutal cycle that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Compound that with the fact that most of these idols haven’t even finished high school and are pretty ignorant of the real world and you have a recipe for disaster as we see during Kana’s arc in the first half of the show. Aqua is such a difficult character to talk about because on the one hand, he’s an incredibly talented actor and supremely intelligent.. on the other hand he’s a manipulative egotistical emo dweeb who makes awful decisions because of his guilt. If you’re a fan of his, you’ll love what he gets up to this season, pulling strings from the shadows, trying to keep his family from falling apart, etc. If you didn’t like him from the first two seasons, well, he’s not gonna do many favors here. He’s a particular flavor of character that’s not for everyone. My personal thoughts on him this season are.. well, I stand with Ruby. I just cannot stand Aqua as a character. His obsession with revenge has blinded him to so much around him, including best girl who was literally willing to die for him? Not to mention betraying his sister’s trust in a huge way this season. Watching him is like watching someone slowly descending into madness and you know there’s only one way it could ever end. Again, if you like that, more power to you. This season is basically season 1 aqua on steroids. As a loyal Akane fan from day 1, this season hurts. Aka’s writing sucks, but for the studio to deliberately butcher her big moments and show so much bias towards Kana is just crazy to me. I don’t think I have ever seen a studio be more shameless about something like this? We have all joked before about studios preferring certain characters in shows, but it was usually over minor stuff and us just joking around. In Oshi no Ko, Doga kobo decided to change chapters around which lessened the impact of Akane’s big moments, they cut certain scenes and then when they did partially adapt stuff, the way they animated Akane took away all her ferocity and personality that make her unique as a character. If you want objective proof of this bias, simply take a look at the Oshi no Ko social media pages that immediately posted Kana’s big moments the day of or the day after at the latest, while Akane’s scenes were posted a week later if ever. Multiple staff members are on record saying they prefer Kana and I don’t mind that, but it shouldn’t come through so blatantly in your work. It’s a disservice to the story and to fans of a character. I know this isn’t a big deal to a lot of people, but again, I’m a huge Akane stan and she’s already been shafted so many times by the author himself, so I wanted to at least see her get the respect she deserved in the adaptation.. that didn’t even happen. Gross. This is without a doubt some of the best direction Doga Kobo have done. I think Ruby and Aqua’s been bust up after the events of the Kana arc is one of the best scenes in the entire series. Akane and Aqua’s bridge conversation and the hour long finale.. all incredibly cinematic moments that ooze quality. There’s no doubt this staff are supremely talented, it’s just an issue of what they choose to spend that talent on that doesn’t sit right with me. Alright, I yapped way more than I intended to on this season. I really only reviewed this because I felt this season was an injustice and disrespectful to longtime fans and needed to vent on it. Casuals will love it, people with no skin in the best girl war will love it and fair play to them, I wish I could go through shows and not get attached to characters. Sadly, I’m a romantic and can’t help but fall in love with characters as I watch shows. A blessing and a curse. Oshi no Ko season 3 gets 5 stars out of 10.