Make Believe Mailer 72: Love Lies!
"Oshi No Ko" Episode 1 — "Mother And Children"
Note: Major Spoilers For The First Episode Of Oshi No Ko
It doesn’t take long watching the first episode of Oshi No Ko to start thinking about Perfect Blue. Satoshi Kon’s 1997 directorial debut used the world of idols and Japanese entertainment to craft a psychological thriller set between the real and unreal — a fitting backdrop for a film poking at ideas of identity, both personal and performed. It’s familiar, but still surreal. The anime adaptation of Aka Akasaka’s manga exists in the same spaces, centered around an idol and, early on, seemingly building towards a similar albeit wackier sense of warped reality via two super fans of our central performer being reborn as her twin children.
The two works feature plenty of similarities — down to having nearly the same run time — but also one critical difference. Perfect Blue is ultimately more interested in questions of reality and self, set against the lecherous side of entertainment. It’s heady. “Mother And Children” is anything but. The show — the central performer, the celestial-eyed Ai Hoshino, at that — points at the idol industry and declares it fake, before digging into what that all means.
Which is anything but blurred reality…that’s accepted truth.
The groups are not just selling music, they are selling a fantasy narrative. It’s one that everyone knows is fake, which is why it is imperative that fans’ suspension of disbelief be maintained at all costs — with severe punishments for those who step out of line.
Ian Martin writing on the Minami Minegishi hair-shaving scandal of 2013 in The Japan Times, which wasn’t exactly breaking news at the time
In the same way Bocchi The Rock!! navigated Tokyo’s livehouse ecosystem in all its intricacies, “Mother And Children” spends plenty of time snapshotting how Japanese entertainment functions, sometimes from a critical (or at least conflicted) place but often just directly. In under 90 minutes, viewers learn about the economic realities of idol-dom, the general ground-down indifference to music those deep in the industry have as displayed through a Music Station like show, and the worthlessness of the Oricon Charts1. Personally, it reached a geeky zenith by offering a sober and detailed intro to booking Tokyo Dome — details, sweet sweet details!
Yet these don’t exist to just placate a different kind of nerd. They underline how important all these fantasies and fictions around idols— around entertainment— really are. It isn’t a personal journey between fan and performer, but an entire industry propped up on lies. Oshi No Ko certainly isn’t afraid to let the ugly side come through, but part of what makes it work is providing nuance, while also showing the power of the allure.
The official trailer, which…good misdirect
“Mother And Children” is one of the best stand-alone episodes of TV so far in the 2020s. I never read Oshi No Ko the manga, and knew very little outside of what the marketing department pushed in front of collective eyes leading up to the anime’s debut. I actually had the narrative-setting twist present in this episode spoiled days earlier — thanks to a “Mr. Incredible slowly losing his soul” meme (non-anime example for those out of the loop) popping up in the recommended video lane — yet it still hit just as hard thanks to the 75-ish minutes before, coupled with a clever and disturbing visual touch.
I’m sticking with Oshi No Ko, and the second episode generally hit on what I liked with the super-sized first offering, hinting at a continued plunge into the entertainment industry alongside its central quest-for-revenge plot. The parts set in a high school have me a little worried, because this backdrop always tends to be the least interesting part of any anime2 (see also: Bocchi, which shines when they venture into Tokyo’s live music world), but hey I’m open minded.
Yet I’m also not sure anything can match “Mother And Children,” a tight and compelling character study coupled with one of the more nuanced examinations of entertainment I’ve ever seen. It’s the type of thing that should get prestige TV obsessives geeked (it’s like if the first season of Game Of Thrones was condensed into 80 minutes), though it does require taking a huge leap of faith in the central magical narrative device — that a 20-somethings OBGYN and a cancer-stricken teenage girl, both massive fans of Hoshino, reincarnate as the idol’s secret twin children Aquamarine and Ruby — and also making peace that, yes, their is a breastfeeding joke built off this premise.
A little goofy, but vital as their pint-sized perspective coupled with their obsessive fan past helps fully tell the story of Hoshino.3 She's the star of "Mother And Children," and also the character through which we wrestle with the tensions of idol life and entertainment at large. I probably should do actual research on this, but she seems at least partially based off of Kanna Hashimoto, from now defunct Fukuoka outfit Rev.from DVL, who was hailed as being a "once-in-a-thousand-year idol" thanks to a fan-uploaded photo of her, before leaving said group and expanding into acting — like Hoshino. And like Hashimoto, she’s also presented as more than just an idol, but rather the ideal version of an idol. "Lies are the ultimate form of love," she says early on, and through her arc we see what that means.
I don’t really interpret it as a particularly harsh criticism of Hoshino's industry, though. I’ve come across a few reviews and YouTube videos leaning big into presenting this as a subversion, a critique or an expose on J-pop idols. Ignoring that what does makes the critical instances of “Mother And Children” click is how universal they are in global 21st century entertainment and lolz plenty of people in Japan have already wrangled with all of this stuff an anime isn’t blowing the lid off of it, I don’t think “Mother And Children” is that simplistic. Oshi No Ko is just highlighting the realities of it, good and bad.
The episode touches on low pay, maintaining images and obsessive fans turned stalkers yet we also get a more nuanced read of the Japanese idol world4. Women actually participate as supporters — they show up at live shows and have space to exist here.5 One of them is Sarina, the young cancer patient who spends her short life mesmerized by Hoshino via DVDs and photos before being reincarnated as her daughter. She’s sold a fantasy, sure…but, like, it’s clearly better than her reality.
It also seems pretty clear in “Mother And Children” that Hoshino herself, despite stating multiple times that what she does is provide lies for a living, enjoys what she does. Cynically that’s kind of because her idol career turns into a springboard for acting, advertisements and modeling — she makes bank as the episode plays out — but there’s also never any moment where she’s presented as dumb or naive or calculating about this. Idols are human, after all, and as complex as anyone.
When we reach the climatic twist and a deranged fan stabs Hoshino to death, she realizes she truly does love her twins before the stars in her eyes fade away. But also…she reveals to her attacker that she remembers him, and does have an appreciation for the fans who made her who she is. Fantasy can have traces of reality.6
Her death stings because, for the hour-plus before it, the viewer developed their own bond with Hoshino. Her story starts at a low — 16, pregnant, father kept secret, idol career on hiatus and technically in danger — but then gains momentum. Her group returns, she performs on a music show, she has her Hashimoto-moment by going viral online via a photo, she enters acting, she kills it, she thrives and finally she reaches the zenith — a Tokyo Dome concert.
“Mother And Children” is the idol journey in miniature. It ends tragically right before what would have been the most dizzying high, but the path Hoshino takes us — the viewer on — is a familiar one. Even when offering a truths of this world, Oshi No Ko shows how emotionally exhilarating those lies can be.
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
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The funniest “joke that isn’t actually a joke unless you are broken looking at J-pop charts” being the idols wondering why they aren’t more popular despite climbing as high as number three on Oricon. Hate to break it to you, but that often means you sold like 3000 copies of something.
*whispering* this is one reason I’ve never really been in a rush to watch K-On! despite feeling like I probably should…
Also important to the Oedipal energy of doctor-turned-boy Aquamarine, which feels like it will be an important (and, uhhh, intriguing) part of the story moving forward.
Also kind of vital…within the first five minutes, we have a skeptical nurse character ask our OBGYN idol wota if he’s actually just a lolicon, which pretty quickly establishes this won’t be totally sympathetic to dudes obsessed with young women.
The real issue is men just tend to have more space and resources to get into idols, which can leave women feeling on the outside. But they still enjoy this world.
I’d go as far as to say that, while idols and entertainment get dinged quite a bit, the harshest criticism comes at general media and society in general. After Hoshino’s murder, we get a scene from Aquamarine focused on the aftermath. As he puts it, everyone cared for three days, and then they moved on to another story and she was forgotten. Idol fans might be obsessive and obsessed with an exaggerated presentation, but they do at least see the performers as people. The media and world at large just don’t care about them at all.