Oshi no Ko episode 24 (season finale)

Rating: A

The titles for episodes of this series are always carefully-chosen single words which pack layered meaning and significance, and the second season’s finale is no exception. “Wish” is, indeed, an apt summary of the episode, as the particular scene it references starkly shows the devastating transformation of the episode’s focal point character.

Coming out of last episode, the big question was about what impact the discovery of Goro’s remains would have on the two protagonists. For Aqua, it’s a sense of closure. As he later (mostly) puts into words, he was ambivalent about whether he wanted his former life’s remains found or not. But was he really consciously trying to guide Akane towards that discovery, as he later claims? If so, then it’s ironic that Akane succeeded anyway even after he gave up on the idea last episode. And it’s doubly ironic that Ruby, the person he least wanted involved in all of this, became the most deeply involved. In that sense, Aqua’s worst concerns came true. Although he doesn’t deserve the blame for this, he failed her far, far worse than Akane.

Of the twins, Ruby has always been the happier and better-adjusted one, even if she’s hardly stepped away from her connection to Ai. Part of what kept her afloat, though, was her (wholly irrational) desire to meet Goro again. With the certainty that he’s long dead, coupled with the reveal to her that he was Ai’s attending physician and was murdered by the same boy who later killed Ai, she can’t help but fall to the dark side even as Aqua is coming out of it. The first shot of her with the black star that has long been Aqua’s was emotionally crushing, but no less so is the later music video reveal, where the viewer can vividly tell which clips were filmed before and after that descent. It turns what should be a cute, peppy pop song into a practically gut-wrenching view. Getting the final clue from Akane that the thing that she always believed Aqua had been keeping from her is that he’s long been on the trail of their mother’s killer (even if Akane was trying to be dodgy about it) was the final pointer in the direction of her abysmally dark wish.

They weren’t the only ones having interesting scenes, though. Although she’s not entirely aware of it, Akane is caught in the middle of what’s going on with the twins. She’s now gotten plenty of details from both that don’t add up, and in her hot springs scene she gets tantalizingly close to realizing that it all only make sense if one particular thread links them all. Too bad for her – but fortunate for Aqua and Ruby! – that Aqua deciding to make their relationship for real and Kana’s envious praise for Akane’s upcoming movie role unwittingly threw Akane off that track. Kana, meanwhile, gets the episode’s main attempt at levity in her account of previous out-of-season filming experiences, and it’s entirely probable that wasn’t random; there’s a sense that she felt how somber the mood was and tried to lighten things up in the van, although her reaction in the stream felt much more genuine. The cloth falling off her head in the bath after hearing Akane utter the implication that her and Aqua’s dating wasn’t fake anymore was also a nice touch. For director Anemone, she clearly recognized the change in Ruby’s demeanor and clearly became interested by it. Have to wonder if that won’t have some consequences down the road.

Then there’s the mystery girl, who’s identified in this post as Tsukuyomi. I’ve seen some speculation based on her appearances last episode that she might be a local god, and nothing about her suspiciously-conveniently-timed conversation with Ruby contradicts that she’s either that or an emissary of one. Clearly she knows what’s really going on and seems to want Ruby to discover the whole truth, though the question about why she has this motive definitely lingers. The reveal that Aqua and Ruby’s father may have only been college student-aged also puts an interesting twist, since it suggests that the culprit Aqua was looking for is younger than he might have been aiming for.

And this being Oshi no Ko, it can’t end simply. The story advances a few months, past the successful release of the music video and to the beginning of the next year, but not without making a couple more meaningful tweaks to the closer. (The addition of artifacts in the part where Ruby is running, to suggest that the existing truth is now flawed, is the more obvious change, but there’s also a visual tweak immediately after the shot of Ruby in the wheelchair. Watch the colors there closely.) More than ever, that closer carries deeper and harsher meaning. Then there’s the final scene of Aqua and Ruby’s father standing over an unidentified dying girl, apparently in or near in the same area where Goro fell and died, with the implication that had had a hand in that, too. She also had stars in her eyes, so how does she fit into it all? Though not exactly a cliffhanger, that’s still a pretty big mystery to end on.

But it’s a mystery which may get answered in animation sooner rather than later, because a third season of Oshi no Ko has, to probably no one’s surprise, been greenlit. No date was given, so that probably means we’re looking at late 2025 or early 2026 at the earliest. For now, though, the series wraps up a second season strong enough to merit at least a Top 10 placement for 2024, with at least a shot at a top 5.