[Oshi No Ko] Season 2

This is what happens when an artist self-inserts about being an artist. Even worse this is a self-fellationary product placement ad for a Japanese theater. The writing tells the audience what to think about everything through braindead dialogue: "This is cool" "This acting is amazing" "this person is the greatest star ever" it will spend every moment dialogue-dumping exposition for the audience to tell you their feelings and motivations, and literally narrating what is being shown, on top of telling you what to think about everything. It is shamefully braindead. Rather than actually make a good show it just has characters tell you "this is thebest thing ever" about a play that is the most boring unoriginal shonen-action slop ever. The play also doubles as boring self-inserts for each character, adding another layer of uninspired artistic self-fellation to rehash the same braindead artistic melodrama as s1 ("I need to deliberately act poorly to make the performance better just like last season, believe it! I said it so it's true!") The new characters are dumb and further bloat an already bloated cast in a meandering 1-note story. Unsurprisingly the author shows the play script get shat out overnight just like how it's by an artist who shits out weekly manga slop prioritizing quantity over quality, but this is good because they said so. They go into detail expositing all about how important it is to properly adapt a work by taking advantage of the different medium and do an entire scene about removing all the dumb exposition dialogue in favor of conveying information through subtle scene writing, while ironically doing nothing of the sort to fix the show itself. The entire play is braindead. The source material writer character explains that nothing about the adaptation's script matters aside from that her precious OC characters have the same personality as the source material. The adaptor explains that the generic shonen slop needs to be even more dumbed down to spoonfeed to the audience... Braindead. Story: almost the entire season was wasted on a pointless theater arc that never mattered before finishing with pointless sidetracking with braindead reasoning. Characters: these aren't even characters anymore, they're just whiney exposition machines the author shoves around to do whatever as needed for the plot/filler melodrama. The author frequently self inserts to tell you that good characters/acting is the opposite of real people and dumbed down spectacle garbage is the best, among many other misguided notions about art. Art/direction: high budget, however it was almost entirely superficial spectacle adding nothing beyond jingling keys over a baby. 1/10 (where 5/10 is average)

Oshi no Ko season 2 might have started a little slow, but once it got going, we got episodes that were on par with if not better than anything in season 1. The Tokyo Blade Arc in the manga wasn’t my fave, but the love and attention to detail including anime original scenes that Doga Kobo added in the anime took it to a whole other level and over season 1’s story arc. It’s in this second season, which really feels more like a second cour of one continuous season, that we truly see the story of Oshi no Ko take shape. While the toxicityof the entertainment industry is certainly part of Oshi no Ko, it’s ultimately a revenge story and this season sees things begin to fall into place on that front. It’s a different experience from season 1 since it focuses on the play, characters’ internal struggles and it starts slow, but I promise you if you stick around this season you will be very satisfied with where things go. So I said it before, but it’s really important to emphasise that this season of Oshi no Ko is a different sort of story from the first. I don’t want people to come into this blind and then the first couple episodes are a little annoying with the director drama and you give up watching it. Yes, she’s annoying, and yes, it gets better. It’s a lot slower at the start than last season was. No 1 hour film-like premiere, no suicide attempts etc. Instead, a lot of the conflict in this season is internal. Akane dealing with her insecurities and achieving her acting goals, Kana dealing with her feelings for Aqua and reconciling with her past, etc., the play is used as a conduit through which a lot of this happens. The characters that the cast portray in the play have many similarities and so they’re able to express themselves through those characters in ways they normally wouldn’t be able to. ESPECIALLY Aqua and Akane who get a ton of development in this season. Aqua can kind of come off as edgy and one dimensional at times, but this season shows there’s a lot more to him. For me, the slow build up to the play was entirely worth it just for the 3-4 episodes that we got of it. Doga Kobo really absorbed me into the story as if I were on the stage during the play. Let’s face it, ship wars are a big reason for Oshi no Ko’s popularity and anime onlies could be forgiven for being a little confused on why the debate is so strong. Season 1 had Kana firmly in the lead, but this season is where the real best girl, Akane gets some of her big moments and really introduces herself as the best character in this series. This was a massive part of my enjoyment for the season because I am unapologetically a huge Akane stan and my girl delivered this season. So many memorable moments, face serves, you name it she was great. It also helps that Akane is so supportive of Aqua and is the driving force behind a lot of important plot moments. If you weren’t sure why the debates were so heated and passionate before, well you’ll know after this. Even with the staff’s obvious Kana bias, Akane was able to really shine through both in her role as Sayahime in the play and her everyday life. Production wise Doga Kobo did an even better job in this cour than season 1 in my opinion. The Tokyo Blade play looked incredible with some episodes surpassing season 1’s B Komachi concert debut. “Magical” is the best way I could describe it. But there’s also more subtle improvements that I enjoyed a lot too such as the way episodes bleed into the ED so well. I’m a huge fan of shows ending with a scene that merges into the ED because it preserves a sort of “continuity”. Speaking of which, Burning is an incredible track, as is the OP, Fatal. They might not have the radio power of Mephisto and Idol from last season, but they’re still two very good tracks. Touched on this earlier as well, but it bears repeating. The anime original scenes that DG added really took some parts of the season to another level. They really understand the story and characters so well and know exactly when to interject a new scene to connect things. Oshi no Ko season 2 is really where things start getting going and where a lot of the hype that you’ve indubitably seen online for this series comes from. It’s a different sort of story from season 1 and takes a minute to get going, but when it does the character development and emotional moments are top tier. If you like Oshi no Ko it’s a no brainer to keep up with s2 and for those potential newcomers, I really encourage you to go in with an open mind and don’t let the ship stuff on social media act as a deterrent. There’s some great stuff in this series and there’s a reason it’s so big. Oshi no Ko season 2 gets 10 stars, out of 10.

I think this season was much better. The first few episodes were great; the setting of the entertainment industry was explored very well, besides a few oversimplifications, and I could really grasp the potential of Oshi no Ko. The pacing was good for the most part, and the production was decent. Also some of the drama was great. That being said, the dialogue and most of the characters are not great. I think Akane is the only character of the main cast that I find believable and enjoyable to watch; the others are too cartoonish and annoying. The plot isn't great neither, it is frequently dumb. Inparticular, I dislike how the characters act so competitive towards each other during the play, I don't think it's believable, nor does it make a good story. It appears like the show is trying to appeal to teenagers with cheap emotional bits, meanwhile throwing logic out of the window. Overall, a good season from a mediocre series.

Note - This review does not contain spoilers of this season, but does contain spoilers of the previous one! I love Oshi no Ko, but I feel like this season is a bit of a letdown compared to the last. What makes Oshi no Ko so different than the typical idol / showbiz anime is that it's anything but lighthearted. It has a strong dark side, about murder and vengeance. The first season ended with Aqua joining a stage play for the sole purpose of identifying his father, who is presumably the person behind the killing of his mother Ai, as well as himself in his pastlife. This season picks up from there. The main issue with this season is that the vast majority of it is the preparation for the stage play and the play itself, which really feels like an average showbiz anime, one of those that you've seen one you've seen them all. The season only picks up around the 9th episode, and only then it becomes as enjoyable as the first season. I understand that they probably wanted to stick to the source material as much as possible, which I generally consider a good thing - I don't like it when anime cuts a lot of things, but I still wander whether arc that doesn't seem very important had to take two thirds of the season. Anyway, a 3rd season has already been announced, and at the very least the last five episodes of this season are very much worth watching and will definitely be needed to understand it. Go ahead and watch, but keep in mind that the first eight episodes might feel somewhat boring.