Oshi no Ko (2021)

[推しの子]

Volume 5

Author: Aka Akasaka
Artist: Mengo Yokoyari
Publisher: Young Jump Comics

Synopsis:
Aqua, Kana and Akane join the stage production of a popular manga that becomes a battleground of professional rivalry.

Story/Characters:
We open with Ruby giving a recap as she pays a visit to Ai's grave before joining Aqua and Kana for the first meeting of the cast of the Tokyo Blade stage production. Kana isn't happy to see Melt, her former castmate from KyouAma, but he demonstrates a little self-awareness about his poor acting ability and insists that he's been working on it. Introductions are exchanged and particular attention is paid to the award-winning actor Taiki Himekawa. Kana gets put in a foul mood the moment Aqua and Akane start talking. The fact that the characters they play are engaged surely doesn't help. The cast then starts to practice and when Himekawa joins in, he immediately jumps into the role and proves to be the caliber of actor that Kana can really go all-out with and their intense performance manages to stun both Aqua and Akane, but for different reasons. For Akane, despite her own talent as an actress, she's reminded of how much Kana is on a different level. For Aqua, as someone who's been indifferent to acting, it's got him thinking about what it really means to perform.

Akane puts her analytical skills to use in a bid to get an edge with her performance, but the drastic changes made to the script compared to the source material is seriously gumming up the works. This provides a segue to the mangaka behind Tokyo Blade, Abiko Samejima, who is having a drink with the mangaka she formerly worked as an assistant, Yoriko Kichijouji of KyouAma fame. This setup affords us a nice throughline from the KyouAma arc. You see, GOA the playwright has a lot of confidence in the script he wrote and defends the changes he's made when asked about it by Akane. However, when Samejima and Kichijouji visit to see the rehearsal, Samejima is not at all pleased with what's been done to her story and overcomes her usual social phobia to firmly demand a total rewrite and chews out GOA for what he's done to her characters in spite of his protestations of respecting the source material. Kichijouji holds back her former pupil from going further, but later, when talking with the director, Samejima threatens to pull her approval for the production if the changes she demands aren't made, and that includes giving GOA the boot. The director tries to salvage the situation, but GOA is prepared to drop out, though in an unguarded private moment, it's clear that he doesn't take his total rejection by Samejima well.

With the future of the production in doubt, we get some time for Akane to introduce Aqua to 2.5D theater, which he isn't familiar with. Seeing a 2.5D production that was written by GOA, he gets a better understanding of what GOA was going for with his script treatment, which prompts him to approach Kichijouji in a bid to reconcile Samejima with the production. Some of the castmembers meet at her place and learn more about Samejima. Kichijouji has been through a disastrous adaptation of her work, so she understands how Samejima feels and doesn't intend to push her, but Aqua simply asks her to give her tickets to the show he saw. Kichijouji drops in on Samejima, who is facing crunch time without any assistants as she keeps on letting them go for failing to meet her exacting standards. Kichijouji steps in to help and as they work through the night, they have a rather heated exchange that clears the air with a lot of baggage they've both been carrying around, things like Kichijouji's inferiority complex over Samejima's natural talent and Samejima's frustration at the KyouAma adaptation, etc. Once they've gone through all that, gotten the manuscript sent off to the publisher and taken a much-needed nap, it's off to the theater. The experience brings Samejima to Raita the director and this is his opportunity to make his case to her. Now that she's seen what GOA's work can accomplish, she agrees to speak with him and after a good bit of talking, they actually hit it off and get in a nice groove reworking the script. It's really nice to see, but all these changes to the script with the opening of the play closing in gives poor Raita ulcers.

With a functional script, the cast is able to get back to rehearsing, but with the high caliber of actors present, Aqua is struggling to deliver the emotional beats effectively. When he asks Kana how she can switch gears so easily, she gives him some examples. For instance, to get him sad, she suggest imagining his mother dying (obviously unaware that he doesn't have to imagine that) and on the other hand, she tells him to draw on happy memories for the other end of the spectrum. Gloomy as he is, Aqua actually does have quite a few happy memories to draw upon, but it doesn't last long when his former self appears to him and upbraids him for having the temerity to be happy when that isn't his purpose in life. His brain is flooded with the memory of Ai's death, causing him to collapse.

Art:
We get some nice visual moments. I particularly like seeing Himekawa and Kana acting their socks off, pouty Akane, Kichijouji being ice-cold to Melt, and Kichijouji and Samejima's big blowout. Doc showing up to redeliver the trauma has quite a bit of punch and makes for a powerful cliffhanger.

Other:
We get a bonus illustration of the four main girls alternating between white-frilled and black-frilled costumes, then Yokoyari drawing some of the major characters with her off-hand. For the sake of her professional life, I hope she never breaks her wrist in a rollerskating accident or anything.

Conclusion:
The Tokyo Blade stage play provides a lot of opportunities for interesting character interactions. I also like exploring the issues of adaptation, particularly the challenges of cross-media adaptations, the principle of faithfulness to the source material, etc. The cliffhanger with Aqua's Doc persona basically being the devil on his shoulder will be interesting for the future of his character. Plenty of good stuff to be had and more than enough reason to add it to your collection.

Rating:
Own It