Oshi No Ko (My Star;【推しの子) is a manga collaboration between Aka Akasaka, the creator of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, and Mengo Yokoyari, the creator of Scum’s Wish. It is getting an anime adaptation and is set to release in April 2023.
The story begins with Ai Hoshino, an incredibly talented and beautiful sixteen-year-old idol adored by her fans. Gorou Amemiya, a gynecologist in a remote rural countryside hospital, is a huge idol fan, especially Ai Hoshino.
Gorou became a fan during his residency four years before the story was set. His twelve-year-old terminally ill patient, Sarina Tendouji, shares his obsession and adoration over idols, and she also wishes to be one.
Being a devoted fan, it comes as a huge surprise to him when Ai suddenly announces that she is going on a hiatus, but that is not even the most shocking part. Ai Hoshino shows up at the hospital and reveals the reason for the hiatus. The sixteen-year-old is twenty weeks pregnant and secretly wants to give birth to her child away from the brutal idol world.
No one knows the bizarre and downright supernatural bond that will be formed between the three of them as both lives are born and taken. Oshi No Ko is, bluntly speaking, a manga that defies every cliche trope and common sense.
Here are some facts about the manga :
1. The Manga Is Insanely Popular
Oshi No Ko manga won first place in the seventh “Next Manga Awards,” also known as the Tsugi ni Kuru Manga Taisho in 2021. The manga also ranked 11th on the Top 20 list for male readers in 2021 and 7th in 2022 in Takarajimasha’s Kono Manga Ga Sugoi!
Oshi no Ko won the 46th annual Kodansha Manga Award in the Best General Manga Category in 2022. It got nominated for the 14th and 15th Manga Taisho Awards. The series was also, in fact, nominated for the 26th Annual Tezuka Osamu Culture Prize in the same year. On top of this, the manga had over one million copies in circulation by April 2021, and by October 2022, there were over three million copies in circulation.
2. The Story Is Not Sunshine And Rainbows
Oshi No Ko, despite being a story about idols and reincarnation, is far from how you would think it would go. Going off the synopsis, Oshi No Ko seems like a manga about how a young gynecologist helps his favorite idol through her pregnancy. Still, it is anything but as the gynecologist is absent during the delivery.
He is not there because he is dead, just like his twelve-year-old terminally ill patient who got him into idol culture in the first place.
Oshi No Ko’s plot has its light-hearted, funny moments, but it often delves into the dark side of show business. All the characters have their own stories and depth to their personality, and almost everyone is there to serve a purpose. Mysteries, scheming, manipulation, betrayal, and murder are not the tropes you would expect from the cutesy display of the manga, but it is what it is.
3. Aquamarine And Ruby Are Reincarnations
On the night of Ai Hoshino’s delivery, the moment Ai goes into labor, Gorou is confronted by a mysterious, obsessive fan of Ai and is murdered by him. In his dying moments, Gorou’s thoughts go to his twelve-year-old terminally ill patient, Sarina Tendouji, who died of brain cancer.
Sarina is the one who introduced Gorou to the world of idols. She has talked about her wish to be an idol and even talked about what it would be like to be a child of a famous idol.
Gorou is haunted by this even years later, which is also what he thinks about in his last moments. This foreshadows because the next time Gorou opens his eyes, it is Aquamarine Hoshino, Ai’s twin baby boy. His fraternal twin, Ruby Hoshino, is also a reincarnation, but she refuses to admit her real identity.
4. The Mental Age Of Reincarnated Twins And Ruby’s Identity
Aquamarine “Aqua” Hoshino, Ai’s son, is the reincarnation of Gorou Amemiya, who, on rebirth, retains all of his previous memories, which makes the mental age of the baby equal to Gorou’s right before his death. He has all of his intellect, knowledge, and language skills and must ensure he does not use them in front of other people.
Ruby, who never reveals her identity before her reincarnation, but who eventually becomes obvious is Sarina’s reincarnation, also has a mental age much higher than what it is supposed to be. When the twins, Aqua and Ruby, go to one of their mother’s concerts, they perform a choreographed light stick performance in perfect sync, which is impossible for babies.
5. Ai Hoshino Was Brutally Murdered
Ai Hoshino gives birth to the twins and is trying to enter the acting world four years later. Aqua and Ruby help their mother rise as an acting star when the same obsessive fan who murdered Gorou shows up at their doorstep. He finds out that Ai secretly had children, and instead of accepting it like Gorou did before he died, he takes it as a personal betrayal.
The hysterical and manic fan stabs Ai in the stomach, with Aqua behind her. The fact that an obsessive fan murders Ai does not come as a surprise because in the entertainment industry, idols as marketed as objects belonging to their fans who cannot have lives of their own, especially cannot have a love life or a family.
6. The Real Identity Of The Killer
Ai’s murder leaves Aqua and Ruby in shambles, but both Aqua and Ruby have distinctly opposite reaction to her death in the long term. Ruby decides to follow in her mother’s footsteps and chooses to become an idol, which is something Aqua vehemently . Despite the murderer committing suicide right after killing Ai and being found and pronounced dead, justice is not given to Ai.
Aqua realizes that the killer could not have done this alone, and someone must have leaked the details to him for this plan to work out so effectively. He pieces together all of this information and concludes that their father must be behind this.
Twelve years later, Aqua enters the acting world to find and kill his father. During a TV shoot, Kana and Ruby, while walking around, stumble across Gorou’s corpse. Ruby also has a strange kid telling her that she and Aqua’s father are behind both Ai and Gorou’s murders.
7. Aqua Almost Gives Up On His Revenge
Twelve years after Ai’s murder, Aqua became a part of the acting business, and he joined multiple productions in search of his father. He collects various DNA samples from people in the entertainment industry so he can test them and find out if they match them with his DNA. This eventually leads him to find his half-brother, Uehara Taiki.
Akane Kurokawa, Aqua’s girlfriend at the time, discovers that Aqua and Ruby’s actual father, Hikaru Kamakiri, is alive. Ruby and Kana end up across Gorou’s corpse, and it is finally found, thanks to Akane. Aqua decides this is as far as his revenge goes, but Akane is attacked, and Aqua cuts ties with her in order to keep her safe. Now more determined than ever, he decides to go through with his revenge.
8. Ai’s Secret Is Revealed
Kana decides to explore her acting career outside of B-Komachi and goes to meet up with an influential director outside his apartment. Still, they are spotted, and pictures are secretly taken of their little meet-up. A reporter ambushes Kana and starts bombarding her with questions about her relationship with the director.
In hopes of saving Kana from this scandalous controversy, Aqua meets the magazine publisher right before the article is supposed to be published. He tries to negotiate with the reporter, but he is not successful. At last, he bargains with a better story or actually worse, in hindsight. Aqua chooses to reveals the reason behind Ai Hoshino’s death, the murder committed by a crazed fan and his and Ruby’s identity as her children, which ruins the twins’ relationship.
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