braindumprants

[braindumprants]

What happened to Oshi No Ko is just depressing

Never did I expect what would happen to this series. It’s so laughable how I watched it go from this unknown manga no one knew about to a worldwide well know anime series that was beloved and fell from grace. All in like 4 years too, absolutely crazy. One second it was the show everyone was hyped about and giving it praise. It was the height of Ai Hoshino cosplays, and then people were turning on it, calling it overrated and they lost interest. Watching that rise and fall in real time is insane ngl. One of my favourite series ever now gives me the ick every time it’s mentioned because it was overhyped in the wrong way and the story completely fell off.

I remember a few months after the pandemic started, a YouTuber I used to watch did a review on this new manga called Oshi no Ko. Obviously I never heard of it, but the first thing I noticed was the cover the manga. The art style was just so pretty and it intrigued me. Back then, I think the manga only had like 20-something chapters out, maybe even less. So I looked it up on some website and I started scrolling. Man I was hooked. It’s been a good while since a story pulled me in like that because I was just super burnt out from all the isekais. Same tropes, same power fantasies, just copy-paste and repeat it was just plain boring and overhyped. This manga was also a victim of the same formula, just differently. It had amazing art and a pretty female protagonist, but teen pregnancy? That’s not something you see every day in manga let alone anime. It’s usually one of those topics that’s kind of glossed over, super idealized or super sexualized. A protagisnt who on the outside seems to be beautiful and perfect but had a one-night stand and got pregnant at sixteen. That’s not your typical manga, especially in a world where so many stories just rely on stereotypes or surface-level drama. Too many Mary Sue type characters it just felt like they have perfect flaws and here’s Ai struggling because she’s an average kid turned idol who needs to keep her pregnancy a secret or else she looses her career. I know Oshi no Ko might not have tackled the teen pregnancy topic perfectly, but as a woman it just hit different. Most manga love to make the idol life look all sparkly with cute outfits and that’s fine, but with Ai it wasn’t just drama for the sake of being dramatic, it was real world problems. A child giving birth and taking care of children without having a partner to support or parent the child with her? It just felt so human. Ai was so fucking messy and her life was just wild.

The twins Aqua and Ruby are technically the main characters of the story, but the character I was most interested in was Ai Hoshino. She is the face of the story and seeing her on the cover with those star eyes was what made me interested and gave poor me the impression she was the main character of the story. Even though she dies in Chapter 9, she still is the main character. You know she is the center of the series which is what makes it so brilliant. Why did it blow up so fast? Ai. She carried the first episode and people were hooked not because of the twins (no offense), but because of her. Even after shes long dead she’s still everywhere. Her death started everything. The whole story basically talks about what she did, what she lied about and everything she left behind. Aqua’s revenge and Ruby trying to be an idol is all because of her. Even when she’s not on-screen she’s in the background of everything.

I remember going to my little sister and telling her about this amazing manga I found. I said this is the kind of manga that actually deserves an anime, not another recycled isekai with the same boring ass tropes. It’s a story that stayed with you I guess and we used to speculate who the father was and followed niche theory pages. I also remember where I was when the anime got announced. I was scrolling on TikTok and I saw the first poster. Then the teaser dropped a little while after and that was one of the best moments ever. It actually looked good, they did amazing with the first episode I was so hyped!

The beginning was so strong with Ai’s whole arc, the lies and the mystery factor that was just so impossible to top. Episode 1 by itself was like the perfect movie with a killer opening song, and when season 1 started after she died, it felt like nothing topped that same energy.

Then the story kind of shifted. It started going more into the entertainment industry, which was fine and interesting but after a while it just lost me. The pacing got weird with some arcs dragging on and the others just being rushed and confusing. I expected the father to be someone we had seen in the background or someone who was hinted at but oh new character we never heard of. And the characters that people were attached to in the beginning (Ai especially) just didn’t hit the same.

Let’s be real, the hype was massive. Unnecessarily too massive which felt unreal and I did not expect at all. I was happy it was getting the attention it deserved until I realized it was turing into a hot mess. When something blows up that big and skyrockets so fast, the second it faces controversy due to the storytelling will make people call it mid or overrated. The fall off wasn’t just about the story, it was about the insane level of pressure and expectation people gave it.

I ended up getting frustrated and bored because of the story but when the whole Ruby/Doctor/Incest thing became real I just stopped reading. Then I revisited the story when it ended and yeah, it kinda flopped. It felt like it promised so much and then just… didn’t deliver. That Volume 1 cover will always be so peak tho and the fanart that came from this anime is just amazing.

[braindumprants]

Conan IQ 400???

Yes it’s just an anime. Yes it’s not that deep but let me rant.

I know detective Conan is obviously not based in reality. He’s been shot, poisoned, nearly drowned and buried under rubble and he is still kicking.

Most anime isn’t, but can we agree his intelligence is borderline insane? I was rewatching a few episodes (London arc) to which Conan helps Minerva Glass by deciphering a message in braille. How the hell does he know braille????

Now I understand Shinichi might have spent a few hours learning braille as a side hobby. But what about when he’s driven a car, flown multiple aircrafts (not just one, we’re talking different models of planes and helicopters), and even drove boats in high-pressure situations like he’s been working as a coast guard for the last ten years.

And then I remember there were a few episodes where he deciphers ancient scripts, cracks codes like a machine and pulls random historical or scientific facts out of the air like he’s got Google implanted in his brain. The man is seventeen and he’s basically a walking encyclopedia with access to archives people don’t even know exist. Remembers entire conversations, house layouts, witness statements, books, the guy even quotes Sherlock Holmes and knows from what specific page and book.

It’s just supernatural at this point. I understand Conan is meant to be this OP, genius prodigy, mystery-solving icon. But at a some point it’s just so ridiculous and not fun anymore. It gets boring. Oh look another wildly specific skill he just happens to know. At some point it stops being impressive and starts feeling like a plot convenience vending machine.

If he pulls up and says he knows ASL, Morse code and ancient Sumeria I won’t even doubt him.

Did he learn all this in Hawaii???? Was he just bored one summer????