Oshi no Ko episode 23

Rating: A-

Oshi no Ko can be brutally harsh at times, but rarely is it outright mean. The cliffhanger ending of this episode is one of those exceptions. Unlike the stunning ending of episode 20, this twist was easy to see coming, but its implications are going to hit harder and, for one character in particular, especially deep. In all, it makes for one hell of a lead-in to next episode’s season finale.

The episode begins innocuously enough, with the group heading out to Miyazaki after MEM-cho introduces video director Anemone and Kana being predictably put off by Akane’s presence. In retrospect, foreshadowing of future developments is present even early on. There’s a very brief shot of Ruby around the 6:15 mark which shows not her feet, but the bare feet and sweatpants of her former life as Sarina. That sets a sobering tone which underlies the rest of the episode, even when the characters are being frivolous. The mention of Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto early on also seems casual, but it takes on a special new significance when one sees how the episode ends; the parallel between that famous myth and the way current life is playing out for Ruby is devastating.

How loaded with memories Miyazaki is for both Ruby and Aqua is also a recurring element throughout the episode, starting with the opening scene of Goro hot-wheeling Sarina around on the hospital’s roof. Naturally, Aqua would check to see what the hospital knew about Goro, and the scene in the middle where he transposes himself (as Goro) looking after a very pregnant Ai with himself looking at Akane as Aqua carries weight on its own. I actually thought for a moment that going to the precipice where Goro fell from might lead to an early discovery, but no, that would be giving the original writer and director too little credit for dramatic effect. This was not the right timing for that discovery, Aqua was not the right person, and it would have left unexplained why Goro’s body wasn’t found. But his visit to Goro’s former home, and his explanation to Akane about Goro’s past, explains a lot about how Goro was as an adult, and his being at Sarina’s bedside when she died. . . well, that’s just heartbreaking.

Even the lighter stuff about the music video production (which also provides the requisite dose of insider info for the episode) isn’t devoid of the heavier elements. Akane tweaking Kana’s cutesy idol outfit was a classic light moment, but that’s more than balanced out by Aqua chillingly imagining Kana in Ai’s place after Akane’s warning about not going out with her publicly once she becomes more well-known. Even if he’s starting to step beyond his revenge scenario, he’s still haunted by Ai’s death, and the darkness is still there. But hey, on a lighter note, I have a sneaking suspicion that Anemone is plenty aware of MEM-cho’s real age.

But even those scattered heavier elements are only set-up for the episode’s powerhouse final sequence. A thieving crow leads Ruby and Akane on a path into the woods to recover a stolen hotel key, and the conversation the two have is quite interesting. We’ve known (or at least suspected) for quite a while now that Sarina was in love with Goro, and much more recently Ruby’s made it clear that she became an idol partly in the hopes of getting Goro’s attention, and she spills enough of that to Akane here that the latter is going to soon realize that some details don’t add up to Ruby’s current life. Ruby’s dream sequences here are, of course, unrealistic because there’s no way that Goro should have know that Ruby is Sarina reborn, but such practicalities don’t matter in expressions of young love. And besides, by this point it should be plain to anyone where this – or, more precisely, Ruby – is going.

I had always wondered why Goro’s body was never found, since his fall seemed to happen in a location that wouldn’t be too hard to spot. However, in looking back at his death scene in episode 1, there’s a very hard-to-see indicator that the killer came down to where Goro’s body was as he died. That the killer would have looked for someplace to hide the body is entirely realistic, and a hard-to-see hole in a cave whose entrance is blocked by a shrine would certainly be a place where a body could lay, undiscovered, for many years if the area wasn’t carefully combed for a missing person. Given the crow appearance present throughout both this episode and the end of the previous one, Ruby being led to this discovery by a crow may not be a coincidence, especially with the mysterious girl talking like she knows the full truth about Ruby and Aqua. Regardless of the truth of that, I cannot imagine a harder blow being dealt to Ruby than finding what are incontrovertibly Goro’s remains, and the star in her eye dimming is evidence of that. “Reunion” (the episode title), indeed.

In one of the episode’s neater points, that brings the Ame-no-Uzume allusion full circle. Ruby is Ame-no-Uzume, performing in the hopes of drawing her sun, her Amaterasu, out of hiding, with the irony being that she never knew he was secluded in a cave all this time. But unless the finale follows up on this allusion, this one isn’t going to see as bright a resolution.

The greater consequences of Aqua discovering that Taiki is his half-brother are actually relatively small, beyond resulting in a false lead suggesting his true father is dead. The consequences of this, however, can’t be contained. Ruby’s situation aside, this is a Major Event that could rock the surrounding area, and there’s still the mysterious girl to consider, too. It’s going to be a hard wait for the next episode to come up and show how this all plays out.

As a final note, I strongly encourage anyone reading this to watch the ED for this episode if they normally don’t. this episode adds a certain extra meaning to the way the visuals feature Ruby, but more importantly, you can now see what the crow at the very end of it is picking up – and once you see what it is, why it was never shown before now is obvious. It’s a neat touch.