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「初めて」 (Hajimete)
“First Time”
Sorry, this is going to be a harsher impression this week as Oshi no Ko returns to resolve its Love Now arc by wrapping things up with a tight bow. But while Aqua wraps up on his on-screen relationship with the new Akane, he’s presented with more new opportunities to seek out his father.
LIFE AFTER REALITY
The contract being written in a way that allowed for Aqua to post the flattering video of Akane feels asymptomatic of the show’s unwillingness to linger any further into this arc. After all, if the whole show dealt with the aftermath of the show, then their lives will be forever painted by their involvement in this. Aqua, Akane, and the rest of the cast get to be their own stars now that they’re done, but for Terrace House stars, many of them aren’t able to live down their involvement in the show.
The show almost understands this when the guy who fed Akane bum-information offers inside baseball on how dating shows can be used to have a chance at love without being skewered online by tabloids. It’s one of the only spaces where you can watch media personalities fall in love without it being on a candid photo in the newspaper. You don’t GET a normal career after a reality show. This is also true for American reality TV where you have to be an American Idol contestant or The Miz to avoid having to market your talents as “From the hit reality program, ________”.
It’s a reality that the anime dances around as the only holdover from Love Now is whether to commit to your television romance after the fact. Yuki winds up falling in love with Nobu, and is very privy on gaming the system, so they’re looking to make sure that all eyes are on them. The same thought has to cross Akane and Aqua’s minds since they have a chance at letting their relationship flame out to go back to pursuing their own personal interests.
Akane can already tell that Aqua doesn’t see her as anything more than a good actress, so they both agree to have him and Akane pretend to be together. Again, in a real world setting, it would be hard for either of the two to live down their TV romance, especially considering how Terrace House fans reacted when their true pairings split up.
But the show sees this as something that doesn’t take away their legitimacy as entertainers so that they can still be prominent characters on a show and take part in projects that will get Aqua closer to finding his father. Actual commentary on the entertainment industry is merely a passenger for the over encompassing investigation that Aqua is on.
ACTING LIKE YOUR MOM WAS EASY
The less said about Kana the better since she’s currently being written like a girl character in a Tsugumi Ohba story. Overwhelmed by her vindictive possessiveness of Aqua, she spends most of the episode sulking about how the media didn’t do its job in getting Akane out of the picture. She’s not only driven to disgust and resentment with Aqua and Akane’s on-screen relationship in Love Now, but is willing to cut class in her grief, and becomes immediately possessive of Aqua the moment he hangs out with her. Right to the very end, she mutters to herself that Akane should drop dead.
It doesn’t fare any better for Akane considering how she’s merely being seen as Ai’s ghost. Even with all of the research Akane does for her roles, she’s treated as an asset with an inhuman relationship with her subject, Ai. Aqua sees her as merely someone to use to find out more about his mom, given how quickly she was able to peg Ai.
Speaking of, it’s also an indictment of Ai’s purpose and Aqua’s intelligence that Akane could read a few articles and easily understand almost everything about her before Aqua could even come to comprehend his own feelings. Likewise, Aqua’s incestuous infatuation with his mother is unintentionally put to task once you realize that everything that made Ai special to him could simply be mimicked by any actress worth their salt.
On an interesting note, I’m curious if they’ll be kinder to MEM since she was more of the voice of reason during the Love Now arc. She has a fun comradery with Aqua that doesn’t make him feel like he needs to Light Yagami her into any situation beyond offering her a spot in his sister’s idol group. Hopefully, the show gives her more agency to be herself and not be entirely roped into Aqua’s revenge plot as a pawn like the other girls.
You misread the Kana situation. For one thing, she’s saying that Aqua should drop dead, not Akane. From her perspective, he lied right to her face when he said he wasn’t romantically pursuing any of the girls on the show. She wouldn’t have watched the final episode had she known. She also does not sulk about the media failing to get rid of Akane. She simply sulks about watching the guy she likes flirt with another girl. That’s all. Finally, she wasn’t going to cut class out of grief. She wasn’t going to cut class at all. Not until Aqua invited her to do so.
Yeah. I do feel like the reviewer is bit unjustifiably harsh. They are misreading some thing that felt quite obvious when I was watching it. This is speaking from an anime-only
I am surprised by how easy it is for Akane to recover from the mental breakdown caused by harassment over social media. When Aqua mentions building a persona for the public, Akane immediately goes to work without hesitation, and this moment disconnected me from Akane and how she survived the attack on Social Media. Am I wrong to feel this way?
I’m afraid of what Akane uncovers when she continues her research of Hoshino Ai to build upon her persona. Will Akane discover that 1) Saito Miyako is not his biological mother? 2) Aqua and Ruby both witnessed Ai getting murdered at their home. 3) The one who killed Ai was one of her fans that has a parasocial relationship with Ai.
Aqua should treat Kana better.