Rating: A-
The first episode of Oshi no Ko is rightfully famous for its numerous big twists, but since then its episode-ending cliffhangers have mostly followed an expected flow of events. (The sole exception to this might be Akane successfully imitating Ai at the end of episode 7, which was rightfully one of the feature scenes of all of 2023.) However, the final scene of this episode is a legitimate bombshell, one which I did not anticipate in the slightest and could see having significant repercussions down the road. It’s big enough that it almost outshines all of the other neat content of this finale for the Tokyo Blade arc.
But not quite, because this episode did a lot of other excellent things, too. Chief among these is the scene that the episode is named for (“Dream”). Just as Aqua drew on the rage from Ai’s death for Toki’s battle against Blade, so, too, did he draw on the long-time dream he’d had that Ai had somehow miraculously survived just as Akane’s character does in the play. Knowing that this was just Aqua’s fanciful yearning doesn’t change one bit how much of an emotional impact seeing Ai back alive again had. It’s a great scene in isolation, but is made even greater by how it signifies that Aqua succeeded in conveying the emotion he wanted in his last scene in the play and why the director recognized that accomplishment.
Another point is the resolution (for now) of the Akane/Kana acting spat. Though they did not admit it to each other, both were ready to acknowledge defeat to the other after being dazzled by the acting performance of the other: Kana respected the subtlety of Akane’s performance, while Akane could not get over how brightly Kana shone. Neither seemed to fully accept how amazing they had been themselves, and in both cases that felt more like self-deprecation than humility. They weren’t the only ones, either, as Kaburagi reaffirms that he was floored by what Kana can really do. As keen as he is on the show business front, he seems to have deeply underestimated her for quite some time and completely missed that it was her conflict with Akane (which he specifically engineered) which drew out her best more so than her idol experience.
We can’t forget some other smaller but still impactful details, such as how slick the action sequence was in the fight between Toki and Blade. There was a sense earlier in the season that the series may have been conserving its animation budget a bit, and damned if it hasn’t shown off what it was saving up for over the last few episodes. The industry angle this time comes from the way Kaburagi philosophizes about where “extremely cute” comes from and the private bar where fringe actresses work to make ends meet. Kana also reminds us that she can be gold on the comedy front, too. Her briefly-flashed expression when she sees Aqua carrying Akane at the end of the play is classic, and the episode certainly went all-in on the gag about how Kana was acting drunk at the dinner party despite her drink being labeled on-screen as ginger ale.
But none of that stacks up to the stunner the episode drops at its end. In pressing Kindaichi for Lala Lai backstories, he and Taiki catch wind of mention about something concerning the workshops the troupe once did being a mistake Kindaichi didn’t care to repeat – a salient revelation, since those workshops were how Ai got involved with the troupe. That this somehow involves Ai seems likely. But there’s a much more interesting piece to the puzzle afoot here, and it unexpectedly involves Taiki: he’s likely Aqua and Ruby’s biological half-brother. In retrospect, the only clue which even faintly hints at that is Kindaichi’s drunken comment only moments before about how Aqua and Taiki have similar acting approaches, but there was zero reason at the time to suspect that was implying that they were related by blood. Given Taiki’s comment about having spent time at a children’s home, I doubt Aqua is going to get anything significant from Taiki about their father, but that’s still one hell of a cliffhanger for the series to drop.
Sadly, it’s going to be two weeks before we see the follow-up, as an announcement about an upcoming stage play about the 2.5D stage play (nope, no irony there!) has clarified that September 4th’s episode will be an arc recap. Because of that, there will only be a review next week if the recap proves worthy of independent commentary.
USA Anime 