Oshi no Ko vol. 12
Aqua Hoshino has a plan to get revenge upon his dad who caused the death of his mother, Ai. It’s a movie about her life called “The 15 Year Lie” and it has a script, as well as a good director attached to it. What it doesn’t have is a distributor, and even if they find one they’re going to have to deal with the dreaded Production Committee system which involves getting the approval of every member on every major decision. Especially the decision on who’s going to play Ai in this film. Members of the committee want either the popular Frill Shiranui or the talented Akane Kurokawa to play the doomed idol. Director Gotanda has another candidate in mind: Ruby Hoshino. Whether or not Ruby even wants to play this role is unclear, so maybe a little friendly competition between fellow actresses will be able to sort things out.
While I’ve been cool on much of “Oshi no Ko’s” look behind the scenes regarding most of Japan’s popular media, I will admit that I’ve always had a soft spot when it comes to stories about movies getting made. So seeing the efforts that the creatives in this story go through to recognize their ambitions was more interesting than what we’ve usually seen in this series. It’s no “Concrete: Fragile Creature,” but it’s good stuff and that’s even before we get to the real drama of this volume.
I’m not talking about the three-way competition between Ruby, Akane, and Frill; though, that is handled pretty well here. What I mean is the struggle Ruby goes through towards the end of the volume when she has to come to a painful realization about her mother. This being the mother from her previous life who has just reappeared and made Aqua’s acquaintance in this one while giving every indication that she’s a Real Piece of Work. Marina Tendouji threatens to set a new standard for villainy in this series simply by reputation alone, or maybe this is a genuine attempt at misdirection on writer Aka Akasaka’s part. Either way, I’m genuinely interested in finding out what the case is next time.