Oshi no Ko (推しの子) the second season was the 12 episode continuation of the first season, based on the manga of the same name by Akasaka Aka and Yokoyaki Mengo. The anime originally aired during the Summer of 2024.
Aqua joins that cast of a 2.5 D stage play due to the primary casting company, Lala Lai, being tied to the mystery of his mothers murder. He uncovered that Ai had been associated with them at one point in her career and suspects that the person who got her pregnant might still be a part of the company. The stage play is adapting a popular shonen manga called Tokyo Blade and tells a super natural tale of two factions vying for control of Japan through the use of legendary swords. Aqua's fake girlfriend, Kurokawa Akane and his frenemy/B-Komachi member Arima Kana. Before the actors can dig into rehearsal the manga's author changes her mind about approving the script and fights to rewrite it herself.
Once the scripting drama sorts its self out its time for knuckle down and rehearse as much as possible, in order to be ready for the first performance in a month. The actors continue to clash with each other due to their larger than life personalities. During rehearsal of a pivotal scene Aqua suffers a catastrophic panic attack, vividly remembering the moment his mother was murdered. Aqua retreats to The Directors apartment, Akane tagging along, and begins to open up to her about his goals. Telling her that there is someone high up in show business that he intends to murder, without getting into any specific details. Akane tells him that she is willing to be a part of whatever he needs to do, regardless of the legality of it. Opening night proves to be a battle ground as the actors attempt to outshine each other, with Akane trying to force Kana to return to her earlier acting prowess. Aqua digs into his past trauma and uses it a motivation to enhance his acting and survives the performance. Once the play ends its run, B-Komachi plans to take a trip to rural Japan to film a video to help promote their YouTube channel. The location, the area where Ai gave birth to the twins and Aqua's past self was murdered. Aqua decides to join the trip as well. The results of a genetics test help him learn who his father was, but the answers he seeks don't exactly fit into the path he has crafted for himself. With his plans in disarray he questions whether he should continue the fake relationship with Akane.
This season put the core narration of the story on the back burner and focused on the industry of stage adaptations. In a weird twist, this arc in the story is getting its own stage production...weird. A lot of attention was given to the large casts personality quirks, the production teams drama and the whole blow up with the original authors freak out over the script at the 11th hour. When it digs into the plot of Aqua continuing his investigation into his mothers murder it was only given passing interest. The result of learning who is father was shakes everything about what makes Aqua himself and now the narration will need to shift focus to how he will choose to live a life he was planning on throwing away. I understand that his drive to solve the mystery of his birth and his mothers betrayal is core to the series, but ignoring everything dealing with Ruby until the end of he season felt like a disservice to the story over all. They could have easily peppered in plot lines that didn't revolve around the Tokyo Blade production in between all of the repetitive back and forth monologuing of the self centered actors.
This season was less enjoyable than the first but I have hopes the next season will be able to return the story to a more enjoyable trajectory. Someone on social media had made an amusing observation, one I can't verify given my choice in viewing. The statement was, Oshi no Ko did a story Demon slayer tried to tell, better, as a side note to the real plot. Ouch. Back on point. This season seemed like Akasaka fell down a rabbit hole and really got interested in talking about 2.5 D plays instead of focusing on the actual story of Oshi no Ko. It was interesting to an extent, but the process of converting a manga into a stage play isn't the most mysterious of processes in general. What made it even more of a chore, I switch it over to the English dub for the back half of the story and really regretted that choice. The English dub seemed...less than quality. I don't think it's a mystery that we will get another season of this anime and I deeply hope it rights its self back onto the track it should be on instead of getting distracted with something that caught the authors eye. This season just felt like 8 episodes of meandering and distraction and 4 episodes of well delivered story progress.
The anime aired on HiDive and is available in both subtitled and English dub.
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