Oshi no Ko S2 has had to navigate tricky waters to be able to animate a stage play with the type of authenticity that the source material didn’t quite venture into. This has reinforced the message in favor of medium specificity and shared its contagious passion for different art forms, while also giving more power to the moments of emotional intensity abstracted into inventive animation.
The second season of Oshi no Ko starts with a single, perfectly static shot that plays for 3 minutes. Your average anime cut lasts around 3 seconds, and while that is a very situational characteristic, you will hardly ever see it reach even a fraction of that length. Different directorial approaches, content that benefits from specific cutting, and even technological choices can swing the needle, but that’s all in a ballpark that this initial shot unceremoniously barrels through. Within anime’s traditional paradigm, an extraordinarily long cut with constant motion can become a nightmarish proposition for the production team; and if you hold a shot for a still, quiet sequence instead, you will also run the risk of disengaging the audience. Which is to say: if you choose this approach, it’s because you really mean to make a statement with it.
As it turns out, that is exactly the type of long-winded content that Oshi no Ko S2 opens up with, as well as the intent behind it. The returning audience is greeted not with an immediately exciting hook, nor with a chronological sequence of events for that matter. Instead, the show forces its viewers to sit among the audience in a theater, slowly unfolding the 2.5D stage play that the cast is currently rehearsing for as if you were there. For an animated adaptation that once started with an exceptional 90-minute behemoth episode to maximize its emotional punch, investing in such a dry, original introduction to the sequel feels bold from an entirely different vector. And yet, it’s just as easy to understand: to reinforce this season’s themes, the team saw it fit to get the audience more deeply acquainted, and if possible invested, in the artistic medium that will challenge its cast.
At its core, Oshi no Ko is a juicy soap opera intersecting with a story about the complicated dynamics of commercial art production as seen from within, and this particular arc features the latter side at its sharpest. Not content with a direct enactment of the already solid source material, though, this adaptation attempts to embody the message it preaches through its craft. It does so in a nuanced, complex way that dodges industry dogmatisms and extends beyond merely playing to the strengths of animation and sound—which it also does, spectacularly so in bursts. All that the original manga can evoke and get you curious about, the anime wants you to experience more directly.
Mind you, the commentary in Oshi no Ko’s source material is already sustained by a healthy mix of research and personal experience, which has earned it a positive reputation among professionals involved in similar circles. However, being backed by knowledge about an art form doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll convey its appeal in an emotionally compelling, contagious way; by listening to the characters talk about these performances in the manga, you can logically understand why they would enjoy them, but it’s the anime that takes the next step to make you feel that you might love them too. The series always did a good job at incorporating information about entertainment industries into a larger tale that explores jobs like acting from a more conceptual perspective, and this adaptation’s interesting spin from a more material angle becomes the perfect connective tissue between those sides.
This aspect of the series isn’t necessarily dictated by priorities or skill; just as Oshi no Ko predicates, the characteristics of each format are an important factor too. By simply having more real estate at its disposal than the shorter manga chapters, as well as a toolset more compatible with theater, an animated adaptation—at least one that is this committed to the themes of the work—has an easier time helping the audience grasp the appeal of this 2.5D stage play. In the same way that Akane dragged Aqua to a performance that embodied the potential of these productions, Oshi no Ko’s team immediately forces the viewers to sit in the actual theater to get them acclimated, and then proceeds to portray both the medium’s intricacies and the play itself with much more detail.
At the same time, though, this increase in focus on one of the aspects of this arc demanded to be handled with care. In an interview for issue 2407 of anan magazine, series directorSeries Director: (監督, kantoku): The person in charge of the entire production, both as a creative decision-maker and final supervisor. They outrank the rest of the staff and ultimately have the last word. Series with different levels of directors do exist however – Chief Director, Assistant Director, Series Episode Director, all sorts of non-standard roles. The hierarchy in those instances is a case by case scenario. Daisuke Hiramaki alluded to the inherent qualities of anime that invited them to explore the Tokyo Blade play (and thus theater altogether) in a much deeper way than the source material, but also warned about the dangers of going too far with it; focus on that too much, and at some point it would simply become an animated stage play that might lose the series’ other points of appeal.
Oshi no Ko succeeds as a quick page-turner because its various threads—suspense, romcom, industry commentary, thematic statements—don’t get in the way of each other too much. At its best, they feed into each other beautifully; look no further than this arc’s ability to derive its stance on different art forms from its observations about real-life industry dynamics, or how its character beats go hand in hand with the grounded story about acting. To avoid destabilizing the formula that originally worked, the solution presented itself as clear as it is tricky to pull off: to foster that type of synergy that already exists within this arc. Which is to say, that they’d attempt to match the feelings of the actors and the characters they play to a greater extent than the source material did, as that would immediately justify focusing more on the play. If your intricate portrayal of a specific brand of theater reinforces your themes and can turn into a crutch for the character writing, spending energy there won’t dilute any other appeal of the series. That’s the mindset that prompted this team’s approach and a big reason behind their success.
Although this piece is mainly focused on the episodes that cover the play itself, many creative choices taken there are better understood with the context of the production as a whole. And in that regard, an important idea to grasp beforehand is that Oshi no Ko was designed to be a megahit, but not really granted the circumstances that would lead to that somewhat smoothly. Sure, it accomplished its lofty goal immediately upon arrival, but that was all thanks to the punch of the source material, smart planning specifically on the creator’s side, and a collection of individuals who allowed it to punch way above its weight. Ever since then, Oshi no Ko has continued to grow, and the situation at the studio has conversely gotten even tighter. For as much as there is to love about a lot of people working at studio Dogakobo, as a company they’ve systematically failed to capitalize on their established brand and the massive popularity of some of their works; had they managed that properly, they might not have been acquired by Kadokawa recently, and more importantly, they wouldn’t have become a ruthlessly paced assembly line.
While their 3-5 major projects a year don’t look as scary of a workload as the most infamous sweatshops in the anime industry, Dogakobo is relatively small compared to those. Especially in recent years, their production lines have concentrated as well, meaning that certain teams are stuck in an endless cycle of tight deadlines. That much is true for the team behind Oshi no Ko, who aren’t only booked with this popular series for the foreseeable future, but also heavily overlap with other titles. The most evident instance in this very season is Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian, also known as Roshidere. That adaptation, also led by Oshi no Ko’s producer Ryo Kobayashi, shares a sizable part of its team with its neighboring projects; much of its directorial staff hails from the first season of Oshi no Ko, and in some instances, people on those roles had to juggle both projects for the sequel. Key individuals in both creative and management roles were put in similar situations, and the whole studio was strained.
Although they weren’t meant to overlap in their broadcast, Roshidere hit a completely unsurprising bump on the road given this reckless planning, and thus was delayed for 3 months—meaning that it just so happens to air back to back with Oshi no Ko right now. That is, on its own, a mere piece of trivia; if anything, people in the team are amused by the fact that they’re broadcast on the same TV station one after the other, having dubbed it Super Dogakobo Time. The sequential broadcast of the third episodes in both shows sharing the same storyboarder and director (aided by similar people in important animation duties too) is technically a coincidence, but the fact is that the two projects were recklessly slated with very little time in between them. As one began stumbling, their two timelines lined up more and more, thus endangering Oshi no Ko as well.
The ability of certain production assistants to juggle episodes from both shows at the same time is indeed worthy of praise, but that doesn’t mean they should be tested to such a stressful extent; frankly, the production of the sixth episode of your high-profile series should never be heavily overlapping with the eighth one for a series that should have already been fully broadcast by then. What’s this you say, an episode delay for Oshi no Ko too? Who could have expected this?
Roshidere’s opening has the highest concentration of Oshi no Ko staff, and it’s admittedly excellent.
Given these less-than-ideal circumstances and the adaptation’s desire to be transformative regardless, the team behind the anime has had to rely on their old tricks. The first one of them, and arguably the most important, might as well be a cheat code—one you may know as kappe, which is to say character designer and animation leader Kanna Hirayama. When reminiscing about her work in the first season for the aforementioned issue of anan, kappe admitted that she wasn’t doing what is expected of her role; after all, an animation designer is meant to simplify the concepts so that the whole team has an easier time, providing forms that are better suited to move for starters. While kappe’s consciousness as an animator helped her accomplish that latter part, she also squarely refused to drop the level of detail seen in the original work. If anything, her artwork packs more calories than the work of Mengo Yokoyari which she so admires.
Why do that, then? If you ask her—and I say so because people have done it—she will say with a smile that it’s because she’s a nerd, so she wants to preserve the appeal of the source material as is. In less comedic terms, that means that her artwork is meant to imbue the characters with the visual charisma that gifted entertainers are meant to have. As fans very well know, Oshi no Ko has mechanisms to indicate that unique presence, most notoriously the star eyes that particularly special individuals are granted. While those have to be carefully deployed, however, kappe’s approach gives a baseline of visual punch to the whole cast. And, whenever the need comes, she can raise that bar to astonishing, frankly overwhelming levels of detail; directly echoing the series’ idea that some stars shine too bright to stare at.
This is all easier said than done, of course. If “just draw more detailed artwork” was really a viable solution, modern anime productions wouldn’t regularly strangle themselves over misguided ambition that they can’t withstand. Even though kappe’s mindfulness of their moving parts means that Oshi no Ko’s characters can indeed move, which you can’t take for granted with overly detailed designs, there is still the pretty big issue of having to draw them. Fortunately, here is where kappe’s truly exceptional skills get to show off, as arguably the fastest supervisor among TV anime’s upper echelon.
As far as she’s concerned, it’s her duty to have a hand in every shot for her shows, something that she continues to accomplish despite her packed schedule. In Oshi no Ko’s case, that means that whenever she’s not acting as the hands-on animation director or as their chief, she switches to a character supervision role above them—something that still involves thorough redraws. And, when it comes to commanding the animation, her fastidiousness doesn’t end there either. A central aspect in the making of Kiyotaka Oshiyama’s adaptation of Look Back was his dissatisfaction over the treatment of the lines drawn by key animators within anime’s current pipelines. Rather than formulating an alternative way of creating anime, similarly discontent artists like kappe opt to bulldoze through the problems; if the nuance of her lines is lost during the tracing and in-betweening process, then she will do that herself, as she indeed does in important moments for this series. Given her complete lack of restraint, I wouldn’t be too surprised if she started painting them too.
Though kappe’s extraordinary presence hasn’t faded one bit from the first season, the increasingly more troubled production schedule has required a few adjustments. This time around, they’ve opted for a more focused line-up of chief animation directors to accompany her; while others have contributed to the role here and there, it has been Satomi Watanabe and Honoka Yokoyama who have handled most of the show alongside kappe, especially anytime something of importance happened. Despite the obvious risk of concentrating the workload in fewer hands, entrusting it to individuals who have proved to be especially compatible with kappe’s intricate style has paid off.
That’s a success not only in execution but in pinpointing them for starters. Watanabe is the most veteran among them, a character designer in her own right with a distinct style that any Aikatsu fan would be able to pick up with their eyes closed. Although she’s a rising talent, Yokoyama already stood out as perhaps the most interesting artist in the tail end of Kaguya-sama’s production; a particularly soft touch and a deftness that leads to her being entrusted with all sorts of miscellaneous animation tasks, whenever projects that she’s involved with require an alternative artstyle. And yet, despite these two having distinct voices that didn’t particularly resemble kappe’s, they have morphed into her best allies.
In that regard, it has also helped that she has had a frankly shocking impact on Dogakobo’s youth. The studio has had a remarkable history when it comes to bouncy, fun character animation, which has perdured even as the most recognizable individuals embodying that approach have left the company. The style permeated into the studio’s bones and endures even in places you wouldn’t expect—Roshidere’s animation puts on an MTK anime cosplay regularly for a reason—thanks to mechanisms like their cross-project animation training team. However, it’s a freelancer like kappe whom their up-and-coming animators look up to the most right now, the artist they mold their style after in obvious ways. While there is risk in looking up to an individual whose style is only achievable thanks to her unmatched speed, it certainly helps to have a growing army of followers developing in between seasons of Oshi no Ko.
Thanks to all this, the adaptation is able to maintain a consistently impressive look despite its need to be economical when it comes to the animation itself. This inherent visual impact is further reinforced by the usage of color, which was also highlighted by the leaders of this production as a key aspect. Oshi no Ko’s original illustrations carefully mix colors you wouldn’t necessarily see together in a way that forces you to look in their direction, with the likes of Ai and Ruby being neon signs demanding the world’s attention. Although the anime’s need to depict a larger world demands more cohesion, they didn’t want to lose that aspect—much as conventional wisdom told them to.
As a means to get away with the eccentric colors needed to depict their stars, and also to reinforce the direction, the team built their storytelling around the unorthodox (though increasingly less so) role of the color scripts. By entrusting these early depictions of pivotal moments in every single episode to their most evocative directors, they were able to preserve the visual impact of the source material without shattering the illusion of its world. On its surface, Oshi no Ko is a perfectly ordinary commercial anime hit, but series directorSeries Director: (監督, kantoku): The person in charge of the entire production, both as a creative decision-maker and final supervisor. They outrank the rest of the staff and ultimately have the last word. Series with different levels of directors do exist however – Chief Director, Assistant Director, Series Episode Director, all sorts of non-standard roles. The hierarchy in those instances is a case by case scenario. Hiramaki often talks about avoiding the pitfalls of common sense. The series’ palette may look bizarre and overly cumbersome in a vacuum sometimes, but they made the pieces fit together rather seamlessly. Designs as dense as kappe’s would make most productions crash and come at the cost of reduced movement, but they have the tools to make it work here, and it directly addresses the need to have the stars shine. It’s all about finding the solution that fits your work’s themes and takes your specific limitations into account, and that’s what this team did.
That interesting wrestling with the limitations of the project can be appreciated since the first episode of season 2. Oshi no Ko #12 doesn’t flaunt the same type of extravagant animation that was sprinkled all over the series’ colossal first episode. It doesn’t feature the type of affecting scene that would allow an attempt to match the emotive shots of that first climax either. It does, however, still come across as impressively put together on the basis of being entirely supervised by kappe—technically the first full episode where that has happened, though that’s more of an amusing coincidence for such a workaholic. That said, its real star is director, storyboarder, and part color script artist Kuniyasu Nishina, who has also been promoted to the role of assistant series directorSeries Director: (監督, kantoku): The person in charge of the entire production, both as a creative decision-maker and final supervisor. They outrank the rest of the staff and ultimately have the last word. Series with different levels of directors do exist however – Chief Director, Assistant Director, Series Episode Director, all sorts of non-standard roles. The hierarchy in those instances is a case by case scenario. for this season.
Nishina’s ascent had been heavily foreshadowed, as essentially the only episode director in the first season who was allowed to intrude into those ever-so-important color duties; a job that was otherwise under the control of the series directorSeries Director: (監督, kantoku): The person in charge of the entire production, both as a creative decision-maker and final supervisor. They outrank the rest of the staff and ultimately have the last word. Series with different levels of directors do exist however – Chief Director, Assistant Director, Series Episode Director, all sorts of non-standard roles. The hierarchy in those instances is a case by case scenario., and especially of another figure we ought to talk about later. That was a role Nishina juggled with regular direction, most notoriously by leaving a strong impression with the thorny sixth episode. That keen eye for color was complemented with qualities he’d honed under one Toshimasa Ishii back in 86, one of his earliest directorial gigs and the first one where he was entrusted with multiple episodes. One of Ishii’s greatest abilities is to marry the mechanics of storytelling with themes, narrative, and emotional beats, most clearly through his masterful transitions. That’s something he imbued into Nishina’s episodes, and it’s fair to say that thus far it has stuck with him. Though it’s early to say whether he’ll match Ishii’s ability to build entire stories around these techniques, the way Nishina can use electrifying match cuts to shake the audience shows that he has mastered it on a micro level.
And do you know what would be an excellent scenario to apply that transition game and refined color sense? For example, when depicting actors rehearsing for a play the series directorSeries Director: (監督, kantoku): The person in charge of the entire production, both as a creative decision-maker and final supervisor. They outrank the rest of the staff and ultimately have the last word. Series with different levels of directors do exist however – Chief Director, Assistant Director, Series Episode Director, all sorts of non-standard roles. The hierarchy in those instances is a case by case scenario. wants to show more intricately, while also underlying the link between performers and characters more than the original did. One could even use the addition of color to externalize their feelings towards acting, if you were in charge of an adaptation that is also making an effort to show contagious passion towards other art forms. This is all to say that, for as good as it is, the highlight scene in the first episode of Oshi no Ko S2 is delightfully predictable.
The competitive environment that spurs actors to do their best is textually alluded to in the manga, but much more compellingly conveyed through the exact type of trick you’d expect from Nishina; splashes of paint that not only provoke others to retaliate but also gradually paint the picture of the fiction they want to bring to life, as actors and characters assume the same stances. In its own way, it’s also a summary of the approach this season has found to be the answer to its limitations: stunning artwork that makes you not sweat the still shots, especially with a directing style built on editing and color that don’t demand quite as much animation.
For the following 3 episodes, Oshi no Ko S2 shows its most economical side. Although there are occasional highlights, like the beautiful outcome of a friendly fight between mangaka, it’s that strong baseline supervision and effective directorial precepts that maintain the respectable floor that this stretch rests on. Across this energy preservation stage, these episodes get to carefully expose the series’ philosophy when it comes to adaptations. Ever since the start, Oshi no Ko clearly points its finger at miscommunication as the clear culprit behind most failures in such projects. While the first season had shown an example of a cynical effort, the truth is that creative industries are—at least in their trenches—full of professionals whose missteps aren’t usually caused by malice or even by lack of skill, but rather by more insidious, systemic types of negligence. Even in the worst cases imaginable, it’s the lack of truthful, eye-to-eye communication that has sparked tragedies.
In the face of such shoddy, hurtful projects, and also the combined effect of social media toxicity and cowardly producers, the climate has shifted to demanding thoughtless faithfulness out of adaptations. Oshi no Ko argues otherwise, convinced that different takes on the same material ought to lean on the strengths inherent to their canvas and those added by their respective creative teams. The mere idea of faithfulness is questioned: to authors like in-universe mangaka Abiko Samejima, the true essence of her work may have little to do with the events it depicts, but rather on the nature of its characters—so by attempting to replicate the story as exactly as possible through shaving that character texture, you’d be betraying what the author values most. By giving Samejima a taste of what this form of theater is like (just like the anime has been doing to its audience) and then rebuilding the bridges of conversation that the project had failed to maintain, a proper adaptation is finally born.
The turning point for the show is episode #16, which is a bit of an exception to Oshi no Ko S2’s rules thus far. There are two main reasons behind this shift, starting with the person in charge of the storyboardStoryboard (絵コンテ, ekonte): The blueprints of animation. A series of usually simple drawings serving as anime’s visual script, drawn on special sheets with fields for the animation cut number, notes for the staff and the matching lines of dialogue.. Yasuhiro Irie is a renowned director who had already proven his compatibility with Oshi no Ko’s world in the first season, but it’s his arrival in the sequel that stands out more through a contrast to the series’ more limited aspects. While the show as a whole is more limited in its acting due to the strict priorities of its animation, Irie drafted an episode with playful additions, with sequences that go out of their way to humanize the cast through their posing in a way you won’t find elsewhere in the season. Besides his proven ability, the other major reason why they were able to pull off this type of insidiously costly animation in this specific episode is that its animation was outsourced to Production I.G; not only a high profile studio, but one of the few ones with a genuine acting tradition. When your project faces limitations, the ability to reach out to outside talent to circumvent those is quite important.
Despite being an outsourced episode, #16 is also a wake-up call for the in-house talent. The final stages of rehearsals are introduced through a stunning sequence that visualizes the crew’s competitive acting instincts from a different angle than Nishina’s direction had done so before. This sequence had its animation thoroughly corrected by action animation supervisor amoji, who is in charge of any such scenes in the whole show. You may have encountered his animation before under the names Shun Takeda, Shun Tachibana, Troublesome, or An Oblique Reference To A Poor Translation In A Marvel Movie That Became A Meme; and, more importantly, you have definitely seen his powerful abstraction of feelings ever since the first episode of Oshi no Ko. His arrival here also signals that it’s time for season 2 to begin in earnest.
Episodes #17-19 are effectively a movie within Oshi no Ko S2; a relay with nothing but the series directors in charge, the most trustworthy supervisors, and certain core animators being assigned to all of them as if they were a singular, very long episode. By treating the play as something worth portraying in its own right, it almost becomes a distinct production within the overall project—one that they had been saving their energy for. Now in the present, the show returns to that lengthy stage introduction that opened up the season. Let’s see what Tokyo Blade is all about, then.
The first director to take control is the final member of the kantoku trio, and by no means a lesser one among them. If anything, Chao Nekotomi is the individual in that series direction echelon we’ve celebrated the most, as her boundless imagination and refined aesthetic sensibilities are behind the most memorable moments in this series. Whenever we talk about Nekotomi, one aspect keeps popping up: she comes up with so many interesting visual concepts for her works that, if anything, she’s forced to cull them and leave fascinating little nuggets on the cutting floor every time. Although the acclaim she receives may seem disproportionate given how few episodes she has been in charge of, that too is a consequence of Nekotomi’s brilliance; her unorthodox ambition pushes her to pursue forms of expression that are more complicated, time-consuming, and expensive than the norm, but the studio values her contributions so much that they let her get away with it. As important as it is to have efficient directors in such a cut-throat industry, you also want to have difference-makers who have those intangibles you can’t teach.
In an attempt to channel that special energy more regularly, Oshi no Ko has entrusted Nekotomi with the color scripts for most episodes, then allowed her to focus on the storyboards and direction for a select few. And so, despite being an assistant series directorSeries Director: (監督, kantoku): The person in charge of the entire production, both as a creative decision-maker and final supervisor. They outrank the rest of the staff and ultimately have the last word. Series with different levels of directors do exist however – Chief Director, Assistant Director, Series Episode Director, all sorts of non-standard roles. The hierarchy in those instances is a case by case scenario. within a production where those are very active, it takes a whole 6 episodes of the sequel for her to fully seize control again. Fortunately, the second she does it, the show reaches a new level.
Under her direction, Oshi no Ko—or rather, Tokyo Blade—proves that animation can evoke the reality of theater in a very dynamic fashion through its camerawork. That movement makes the setpieces exciting, but it is still punctuated with shots from the audience’s perspective, illuminated with diegetic lightwork, and keeping the visible wires and mics that highlight the farcical nature of the performance. Many visual and sound effects lean into this authentic nature, which doesn’t just exude that love for the art form that the team sought to add to this season, but also sets you up for a beautiful betrayal of expectations. By getting the audience used to this somewhat realistic approach, a more abstract turn ought to hit harder. And that’s exactly what happens when Nekotomi has to explore the feelings of characters and performers.
Melt is perhaps the most surprising recurring character in this arc. Once an uncaring mediocre actor, his eyes were forcefully opened by the combined acting punch of Kana and Aqua back in the first season. As it turns out, he has ever since then attempted to grow into a genuine performer, though now he finds himself vastly outclassed by a group of professionals who had always given their all to this career. Immediately bringing himself to their level is absolutely out of the question. But by channeling his frustration and audacity that matches the character he plays, and combining it with Aqua’s daring advice, he too can give a memorable performance. The hand that represents his powerlessness leads us to the success of the character he plays in the fiction of Tokyo Blade, showing all the effort he put through its now tattered state.
The highlight of the episode comes in Nekotomi’s collaboration with amoji; two radical artists with an abundance of brilliant ideas, and the means to mix different styles and even analog materials into their eclectic work. Melt’s initially superficial pursuit of a career in showbiz is conveyed through cartoony adoration by fans and his own pastiche of Hollywood-esque fantasy. All of that crumbles when he’s exposed to real acting talent; represented through stars, like the ones in the eyes of the protagonists in the series. He desperately gives chase but can’t ever reach it, much as he practices and builds a new self along the way. But ultimately, that frustration and longing, genuine passion in the end, allows him to be reborn into the character he’s playing now. This is the reason why someone like Nekotomi can’t be constantly churning out episodes, but also why the studio couldn’t care less. Special talent should be treasured.
After such an outrageous flex, many directors might opt to avoid a head-on challenge, but Nishina admitted that the two assistants attempted to best each other. His episode makes great use of all the qualities he’d exhibited before, once again with those impactful snapshots (and moments where removing color is what becomes more effective) and Ishii-like, masterful editing. No one else manages to connect the storyline on the stage and behind it in the way Nishina does, an efficiency in storytelling that isn’t at odds with creativity in the delivery. In a similar vein, it’s perfectly compatible with the economy that the tight production demands; it doesn’t matter that this incredible crescendo leads to a perfectly still shot, because it’s delivered with such precision that it hits like a hammer regardless. Akane’s stern demand that Kana returns to her origins as a selfish, overpowering star is delivered with a force that carries over to the next episode—which believe it or not, also opens up with 10 minutes directed and storyboarded by Nishina.
Episode #19 is a celebration of every aspect we’ve praised so far. It starts with a view of stardom that has become entwined with kappe’s intricate artwork; more detailed than ever once Kana is forced to embrace her fate under the spotlight, echoing Aqua’s feelings that she’s too dazzling to even look at. As the first director in an episode where the leading trio all had a hand, Nishina’s evocative storyboarding leans back on his own visual motifs. Those help him expose Aqua’s relationship with acting, as well as the situation that is about to push him to a bitter extreme. But before his time comes, Nekotomi takes over to bring a stunning closure to Kana’s arc—again, with the help of amoji, as there is no one better in the team to bring to life her materially diverse vision. And, for the last 6 minutes, it’s series directorSeries Director: (監督, kantoku): The person in charge of the entire production, both as a creative decision-maker and final supervisor. They outrank the rest of the staff and ultimately have the last word. Series with different levels of directors do exist however – Chief Director, Assistant Director, Series Episode Director, all sorts of non-standard roles. The hierarchy in those instances is a case by case scenario. Hiramaki who is entrusted with Aqua tapping into his darkest memories to wring out emotive acting in the most self-harming way. A tour de force of an episode that wouldn’t have been possible without the economical trickery in the early stages of this season.
After that, everything winds down in episode #20… after the impactful ending to the play, directed by Hiramaki again. Aqua’s rabid rampage on stage is fueled by the regret and fury about Ai’s death that are deeply embedded in his being; yet another instance where depicting the play to a greater extent pays off, as it’s easier to appreciate just how much his feelings overlap with those of the character. Dogakobo’s secret weapon Danny Cho had been the one to depict Ai’s murder in the first episode of Oshi no Ko, which means that there’s no one better to animate the deus ex machina turn to bring Aqua’s dearest person back to life—though tragically for him, that only happens within Tokyo Blade. By building bridges between his situation and that of the characters, Aqua is able to conjure some truly emotive acting to bring this play to an end. In a way, that is just like the anime staff using those similarities to pack this season with respect for the artform they depicted, without neglecting the emotional storytelling in the process.
By lovingly depicting this specific type of stage within the fiction, Oshi no Ko S2 embodies the original work’s message in favor of medium specificity; after all, that stance must be born out of respect for the intricacies, virtues, and even shortcomings of all sorts of art forms. By abstracting the feelings of the characters standing on that stage in very calculated, but also tremendously imaginative ways that play to the strengths of its animated canvas, the adaptation is metatextually acting upon those beliefs too. Oshi no Ko may not be able to constantly fire on all cylinders like some other high-profile projects do, but this season has found ways to hold itself together when preserving energy, exploiting the innate charisma of the leaders of the production team. When it came time to take a swing, neither those limitations nor the industry’s common sense have been able to get in their way. And you know what? That’s pretty damn cool.
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