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aihoshiino · 1 month

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chapter 146 thoughts

This chapter (and thus this chapter review) contains discussion of abuse, suicidal ideation and CSA, so if you're not in the headspace for that, skip this one and I'll see you next time.

we are so oshi no back

After last chapter left me fighting for my life to come up with literally anything to say about it, this was one of those chapters where I ended up having more and more to say about it the more I turned it over in my head. It still feels a bit disjointed and has that same issue of ripping through the events of the movie way too fucking fast that the arc as a whole has been having lately but this chapter was such a breath of fresh air I can't bring myself to care.

The chapter itself is more or less split in two, with one half dedicated to 15 Year Lie's in-universe events and the other focusing a bit on Aqua and Kana for, tbh, the first time in way too long. Admittedly, my enthusiasm for 15YL has waned given the reveal of just how much of it is completely made up but like. I'm still gonna over analyze this stuff. Sunk cost fallacy, don't fail me now!!!!

I joke, but the 15YL section of this chapter was legitimately bone chilling. That barrage of cuts following Uehara's attack on Airi…. fuuuuuuuck, man.

Airi herself is pure fucking poison this chapter too and I mean it in the best way. I continue to be incredibly impressed with how OnK understands the motivations of a person like Airi what her abuse of Hikaru is really about. When discussing this in 141, Miyako points out just how often victims of abuse can themselves go on to perpetuate their own pain out of a need to try and regain their dignity, but I think what Airi seeks in her abuse of Hikaru is control. We see how often she wields her power over him while pretending that he has as much agency as she does in their """relationship""" and it's repeated here, too; she throws the results of her own sexual abuse of him in his face as a way of permanently chaining the two of them together, all while tearing down his worth as a person as if to 'prove' he deserves to be trapped in her grasp. I've said before that Akasaka is unsettlingly good at writing toxic mothers but I think Airi has made it pretty clear that Akasaka understands and is thus excellent at writing abuse and abusers in general, and for someone like me who counts that as one of their favourite Themes (tm) in fiction, I feel quite well fed.

The abuse Airi hurls at him is also interesting from a perspective of paralleling Hikaru even further with Ai. We saw snippets of this in 140, of Hikaru characterizing himself as someone desperately trying to construct a version of himself that can be loved by others the same way Ai creates 'Ai of B-Komachi', a version of herself who can give and receive love in the way she thinks her authentic self is unable to. Airi puts this into more explicit words; Hikaru must construct this fake version of himself because there is no 'real' him and thus, he is inherently unlovable. Jesus Christ.

Knowing those words were swimming around in his head, it makes the HKAI scene that follows even more of a gutpunch than it already is. It's the most wonderful kind of miscommunication tragedy - with their respective traumas, there is basically no other way a talk like that could have gone and yet it's agonizing to see it play out. Ai's innocent cruelty in the face of Hikaru's pain and her suffocating smile… the worst part is, while I completely understand why this was so shattering for Hikaru, it's impossible to miss that this was, in a way, an expression of love from Ai; it was honesty, an admission of vulnerability. She herself even says she doesn't want to lie to him. But to Hikaru, what else could that have sounded like but a confirmation of his most godawful fear?

that said. the timeline here is very confusing. this seems to imply hkai were still dating all the way up to the murder-suicide, which seemed to be just before the dome concert but did the breakup really seem that recent during their phone call?? this whole timeline is penised beyond repair.

The art in this chapter in general is incredibly good but something in particular I want to highlight is how much and how often Aqua-as-Hikaru looks like Ai in these panels. I can't put my finger on what it is, but that similarity always makes me feel so warm and sad whenever I see it. For as much as he struggles with his relationship to her, Aqua really is his mother's son through and through.

and. man. what even is there to say about that scene in the rain and everything that follows. I was't sure if the murder/suicide was going to be featured in the movie but even the brief snippet of it that we got and that barrage of scene titles and Kamiki's silent scream… whoof. shit like this makes me really hope we get to see mengo illustrate a horror manga someday because i think she would absolutely kill it.

We cut back to reality to see Aqua reading the script and in perhaps the most interesting swerve in this chapter, we see that he has once again reverted to his double black hoshigans. And uh, am I going to sound like a terrible person if I say I'm really glad for this? LOL.

Obviously I would rather Aqua not be experiencing Suicidal Ideation (Bass Boosted) 24/7, but it's kind of a relief to see that one single conversation wasn't enough to totally shake Aqua out of that headspace. I've talked a lot about how frustrating I find it that 'Ruby finds out Aqua is Gorou' is treated as the finale to her black hoshigan arc and every ongoing thread, internal and external, attached to it was dropped like a rock with no further interrogation. It robbed Ruby of the opportunity for some really important growth and, imo, was just shitty for Kana and Memcho who were treated extremely poorly by her and got no apology for it. I was really worried this would be the case for Aqua as well and that his own dip into that rancid headspace would end on a wet fart which would really sting given just how little insight we've gotten into him this arc. But this chapter makes it clear that while some cracks have started to form in his armor, he's not in the clear just yet.

i mean, even if he was permanently back to one white star, aqua is such a little freak regardless………………………….

What this means in the long term is a little hard to pin down, both because we've had so little insight into Aqua's headspace this arc and because the exact nature of black hoshigan as a symbol has always been a little Calvinballed, but in this context and for Aqua specifically, I think we can read this as his conviction in the messy endgame of his revenge play being shaken up. I, personally, have been reading the black hoshigan as of late as an expression of the sort of futureless despair that can become suicidal ideation, at least for Aqua; since immediately after Ai's death, we have gotten incredibly strong hints that Aqua is suicidal, his guilt-fueled desire to die and his desperate want to experience a happy future at war within him. He more or less explicitly says as such in 106, expressing that this break in their relationship is necessary for Ruby to be able to live on 'after he's gone' - which strongly implies that Aqua's revenge play is intended to end with his death.

Knowing that Ruby is Sarina wasn't quite enough to shake his conviction, but their talk in 143 was. I do think Ruby just giving him some straightforward affirmation was a good starting point but I also can't help but wonder, with the context that his white stars were not indicative of a permanent change, if hearing just how deeply Ruby still relies on 'Gorou's' presence in her life struck a nerve for him. Paraphrasing her from 143, she straight up says Gorou is the one who gives her life meaning. And if that's how it is, what exactly will happen if he's gone again..?

Obviously this is all still speculation because even when I am begging on hand and knee Akasaka is refusing to give us Aqua introspection but at this point I have to make a guess at SOMETHING if i am going to say anything remotely coherent about aqua in this arc, so

ANYWAY!! AQUA AND KANA HAVING A NORMAL ASS CONVERSATION FOR THE FIRST TIME IN GOD KNOWS HOW LONG!!! Ngl, it did give me a bit of a chuckle to see Kana voice the question of whether Aqua was getting too immersed in his role, given that people were accusing her of that back during the first round of the RBKN conflict.

I was also really surprised to see Aqua just outright say that yeah, he is at least flirting with suicidal ideation. Like - that's the first time he's said that out loud, to anybody??? In 143 he voices the less damning but still not great sentiment that he feels guilty for being alive but this is to my knowledge the first time Aqua has expressed his suicidal ideation out loud, let alone to anyone else. And… fuck, man! That's an absolutely terrifying thing to hear a friend say. No wonder Kana reacts like she does.

Because of my powers of Claire-voyance (read: basic pattern recognition and being in fandoms for 15+ years), I'm pretty sure people are going to be Very Mean to Kana about the way she chooses to respond to Aqua here but honestly? Not only did this tough love response feel very IC for her, but the clumsiness of it felt very honest to me. I think a lot of people in fandom lately just want characters to talk like fucking therapists all the time and have the Correct And Unproblematic Response to… well, situations like this. But Kana is an 18 year old girl who has her own share of issues and her friend she knows is dealing with his own huge amount of baggage just casually dropped an "i wanna kms" on her. All things considered, I think she handles it surprisingly well.

Because like… look at what Kana really says to Aqua here. She gives him some of their usual banter to diffuse the tension but then makes herself very clear: she does not want Aqua to hurt himself and makes him promise that he won't. It's clumsy and rough in the way Kana often is, but I think the important part - her sincere care for Aqua as her friend - really does shine through.

also cute that other people caught: Kana squishing Aqua's face seems to be an intentional callback to one of their on-stage interactions in Tokyo Blade, right down to Aqua making a identical scrunchyface to Kana. Extremely cute. I love it when Aqua is cute <3

Kana also being a person able to shake Aqua out of his black hoshigans also leans into something I've been hoping is going to pay off for a while now; the idea that Aqua's salvation is not going to come from any one, singular character but from the many different people who Aqua has built relationships with coming together when he needs them to support him. One of the things OnK has continually highlighted is the way isolation and lacking support systems warp and damage people's mental health and I think it would play excellently into that theme to have Aqua's support net, so to speak, to be wide enough to catch him no matter where he falls.

the product placement was very stupid but i did laugh pretty hard at it and then immediately go buy myself some potato chips so i guess it worked. genius mangaka aka akasaka.

All jokes aside, the note their talk ended off on was so lovely too. Aqua being honest enough to admit that being with Kana is fun and Kana getting all dokidoki and then quietly admitting she feels the same when she's alone… cute! But more than that, it highlights something about the AQKN dynamic I think is really important, regardless of whether their relationship is romantic, platonic, in laws, mlm/wlw hostility or whatever else; Kana is his friend and he can just be a normal boy and have normal fun with her without any ulterior motives. It's something Aqua doesn't really have in any of his other relationships so getting a reminder of that and what it means to Aqua was really good.

honestly i think i am just so starved of nice things happening to my son that seeing him opening up to one of his friends and admitting he has fun (HIS LAUGH!!!!!!) was like a shot of heavenly ambrosia for me. please can hoshino aqua have just one nice day.

OR UH… BASED ON THAT LAST PAGE…. PROBABLY NOT ANYTIME SOON….!!!

this is what i mean about this chapter giving me 5000000 things to talk about. kamiki is TALKING TO RUBY IN THE FLESH FOR THE FIRST TIME and i almost completely forgor.

why is he dressed like a dad about to take her out on a fishing trip, though

Ruby looks unusually solemn while she's praying, which is interesting. She's been pretty bright and high energy since 141ish so I'm curious what has her looking so comparatively dour. She's praying at a shrine, too, which means there's probably something on her mind. Nik (@akane-kurokawa) theorized that she's anxious about the upcoming scenes in the movie (LIKE, YOU KNOW, HER MOM'S DEATH) and until we get further insight on that, that's what I'm gonna assume too.

putting aside how Shrimptresting it is that Kamiki turned up out of nowhere like that, I can't help but note a certain horrible parallel between Uehara meeting young Hikaru in the rain with a black umbrella and Kamiki doing the same for his daughter…

cannot wait for that entire talk to get offscreened. lol.

break next week……………………………

#oshi no ko #oshi no posting #onk spoilers #chapter reviews #csa mention

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