there are two kind of people who watch oshi no ko

I just want 2 things from the show...

To know more about the inside stuff of the industry...

& to know more about Ai...

She is such a wasted character the more this show keeps on going...

People who understand what Oshi no Ko is about and people who somehow got lost here.

Sure reincarnation and revenge plot are PART of the show. But people who think two seasons worth of a show are fillers, only like the first episode and wished the show would go straight to the goal with no journey, have no business calling themselves fans of Oshi no Ko.

Just read the manga, realize the murder plot is not nearly interesting as you thought so that you can be disappointed early and drop this show. Keeping such false expectations isn't good for you.

No, the real meat of the show is the entertainment business (both the infodump and the "dark side"), the psychology of characters and how they fall into despair and deal with trauma, the mastermind and psychological manipulator Aqua. THAT's the show.

You want a murder plot? I can write you a fan fiction. Aqua made a DNA test with producer A, it was not his father. Aqua made a DNA test producer B it was not his father. Aqua made a DNA test with producer C. It's his father! Aqua takes a knife and kills C. What a very interesting story. 10/10 so much better than watching boring fights between manga authors or Aqua manipulating people around like pawns or watch the hoshino family deal with trauma. I would hate watching that...

@sharydow That's kinda weak point, because gaslighting people into believing that revenge plot is boring because you oversimplified the premise and deliberately made it dull is textbook bad faith.
I can do the same about the industry aspect no problem:
"Aqua acts in a movie A,, some social commentary and industry trivia happens, then he is in play B and some social commentary and industry trivia happens, then in another movie C, same thing, rinse and repeat. 10/10 very interesting."

If you really gonna argue, that whole revenge plot is borderline irrelevant and dull then it would make the legendary episode 1 and even Aki's entire character and the premise they've set irrelevant and dull as a result as well,.

@Piromysl It’s important to set a motive and stakes. But the investigation, by itself, is boring and dull. Not just because I simplified it, it really is boring. It’s not the plot, it’s the MacGuffin.

It’s boring for multiple reasons, first because it’s not, nearly as complex as it would need to be to get 150+ chapters out of it. It is absolutely basic. The father want to kill his GF, use someone else as proxy, right after finding out her address, we have a very convenient list of suspects and a very convenient DNA subject to compare. That’s it. That’s the mystery. Please, an anime-only filler episode of Detective Conan with the Detective Boys looking for a lost puppy or something is more complex than this. If you want a long running mystery show you need something more complex, more people involved, more suspects, more unknown elements.

But secondly and most importantly because it is already solved in episode 1. Modus operandi is known, the culprit is known by everything but by name and it’s not just the viewers, Aqua knows it too. The motive is a bit more vague ok, but we know basically everything by the end of episode 1. That’s a pretty nice plot, enough to fill one movie-episode, but certainly not 150 chapters/4-5 seasons.

The brain part, the putting the puzzle pieces together, the strike of genius à-là Akane deducing that Aqua’s mom is Ai, the satisfying revelation speech from Conan when he resolve a case is behind us. That was the scene where Aqua had the black star for the first time. That was the mystery being solved right there. Now what is left is the boring part. The part where Conan ask everyone to empty their pockets. Or in this case, Aqua going on his list of name and DNA testing the suspects one by one. This is not a plot, this is a motive for Aqua, a MacGuffin, there is no meat to it, nothing interesting to develop around this.

In the entire manga, there are like 2-3 plot twists at best. That’s it for 150+ chapters, there is nothing more to develop. I can only think of 4 possibles plot twists with this premise and the manga does almost all of them so, I’ll put it behind a spoiler:



That’s it, that’s basically all the plot twists possible, other than that it’s Aqua getting close to person A then do a DNA test, then get close to person B. There is nothing else you can do with this "plot". It’s a dead end from the start. They revealed too much right away in episode 1 to make it a true mystery.

If you really wanted a mystery, you can drop the show right here right now. I can guarantee you that you will be SEVERELY disappointed. And this series never ever pretended to be a mystery. The show starts with an entire monologue about lies, the entertainment world and this being a "work of fiction". 2 openings and 2 endings none of them put any focus on the identity of the father. The synopsis doesn’t make any mention of the murder. 15+ volumes of the manga and "mystery figure with hidden face" isn’t the cover of any of them. The genre is "Drama" not "Thriller" or "Mystery", if I wanted to add one more tag it would be "Psychological", but certainly not mystery. I literally do not understand how some people persuaded themselves that this would be a mystery anime. It never claimed to be. There is literally nothing mystery-coded in this anime and manga.

@sharydow
The stakes are here and entire motivation behind Aqua's investigation is his devotion and obsession with Ai, which drives him forward and consequences of not succeeding will be his deteriorating mental health. Literally his whole characterisation and development comes from it. Saying that there are no stakes is objectively not true.
And here you get fundamental misunderstanding what the whole revenge plot is about. You seem to think that there is nothing to it but Aqua wanting to avenge Ai, which is why you simplified it, but it's pretty obvious, that Aqua wants to have answers as to why he did that and we as an audience want to as well and we as an audience anticipate that confrontation.
And that's the part where you are literally 180* wrong.
NOTHING is known at the end of episode one. That's the entire point. We don't know who the father is, why and how he did it. The whole point of established premise is build up for the eventual confrontation between Aqua and his father at some point, but all those idol and acting arcs are basically an equivalent or Pod Racing scene from Star Wars and plot is on complete standstill. Assuming that everything is solved because Aqua deduces that culprit might be his father and that's it is so outlandishly stupid, I don't think I even need to explain it. It means that he has a lead and a point where he could start at most. You are seriously trying to imply that Ali's character is completely irrelevant post episode 1 despite being poster child and literally the titular character. There is a reason why first episode was 90 minutes, ended where it ended and was so well received.

If you like the second option I recommend you to read Act age, is soooo good.
Also watch Skip Beat and Glass mask 😊