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Hey everyone! Here it is - my reaction to ep 8 of season 2 of Oshi no Ko! OMG!! This was such a huge ep for both Kana and Aqua!! We get even more of Kana's backstory and just how her motivations in acting took shape all those years ago. For the first time, she can be motivated by something other than doing it for others! Aqua literally laid out her moment to shine and it was amazing!! And then we get the secret to how Aqua is doing emotional acting....instead of tapping into the love/fun of acting, he's tapping into the pain, suffering and rage :( It's so hard to watch him put himself through that, but what can I say, it got results....!!! I just hope it doesn't take a toll on him! Great ep! Enjoy! ~ MH

Google Drive Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RCKuhNkiXb6BLxYAZPz6A9lUdsgrX4yf/view?usp=sharing

Comments

Manny

Both very painful circumstances. It must be hard finding enjoyment in something you like when there’s a dark past attached to it. But hopefully attacking it head-on will be beneficial. I hope it’s focused in the right places otherwise it can be harmful.

kamenriderhime

I know!! There's just so much pain and trauma there. I hope so too!!! But yeah, it can be dangerous like you said!

Leonie2003

Hey Melissa, Kana's backstory was a sad tale. Her early success in her acting career not only delighted Kana herself, but also her doting mother. Things were as perfect as it could be with everyone happy, but when Kana's career started to slow down a lot, it got pretty depressing. Her mother would lash out in desperation of finding more work, then sometime using her anger at Kana herself. Not only that, but her own father cheated on his wife, which only added more misery and pain on all of them. Knowing all of this makes it easier to understand Kana's position of being the "coordinator", where she would match the tempo of the other actors, but would make sure to stay away from taking the centre stage herself. It makes me more thankful that Aqua was able to put that centre of the limelight onto her thanks to his ad-lib in a crucial part of the play. It finally opened a much needed path for Kana to traverse down upon and take that limelight with everything she's got. This made for such a stellar part of the episode for me. =) While Kana has finally reclaimed her past form, Aqua was heading down the complete opposite direction with his style of acting. Gotanda's advice was incredibly effective as Aqua has embraced the emotional acting and using the trauma of losing Ai to unleash his potential, which was matched by how good the visuals were from Doga Kobo. I assume that the play itself is getting closer towards its end, so I highly look forward to seeing how the play will wrap things up.

kamenriderhime

Hey Leonie! Wasn't it so sad?! The treatment from her mom, her dad cheating/leaving...the whole thing is just heartbreaking and definitely sheds more light on why she's come into the role of "coordinator" for sure. Aqua did such a good job here! And I couldn't agree more that these scenes were so well done! I know, Aqua's path is much different. The way the scene was done was so good and so intense. I can't wait either to see how things wrap up!!!

Tyler Stobbe

I’m glad you remembered to check the opening lyrics, unfortunately by the time the ending showed up it appeared you were to uh… sideswiped by the episode to check out that lyrical translation? Guess it’ll have to be week after next then? :) One interesting thing about the opening lyric is that one phrase refers verbatim to a “lack of Ai,” - for context, it seems that “Ai” itself is also a Japanese term for “love.” So that has multiple contexts that can be applied. The opening scene puts another highlight on the rivalry going on with Sakuya and Melt - the former has conceded he’s gotten better moving but he’s still nowhere near in the same acting class - a fact that Melt agrees with, but is determined not to lose a battle of emotion - this is an interesting precursor based on everything waiting at the climax of this episode. Mana has pretty much accepted her role as a “coordinator” at this point, even though she looks back at Akane as she descends the proverbial stage steps with a bit of envy. You can tell there’s a part of her that wants to match up but her priority senses are all telling her to do what’s best for the overall show. Himekawa, who’s playing Blade has taken note of Kana’s lack of energy and also that Akane is basically chewing up the scenery and spitting it out around them, for lack of a better term. Kana notices he’s doing something weird and finds out he’s trying to read the script through sir glasses because he’s afraid of contacts. She’s got an interesting line about the different quirks upper class people have regarding this. Hes not worried about seeing other actor’s expressions as he can read their movements - it’s not like the people in the back row can see well either. He’s planning to ad lib a few scenes to get their duo back and it doesn’t take too much convincing for Kana to be on board. Aqua has to face Himekawa on stage but has no intention of acting on his level - instead he’s letting the lead play the role and acting emotionless - and that’s actually being enhanced. It’s kind of a reverse psychology - by being “unimpressed,” your character role is actually drawing more attention than if you tried to match his intensity. Then Kana comes back on stage and immediately finds out that not only is Himekawa ad-libbing, but Aqua’s also carrying out Akane’s plan to get Jana back out of her shell. Aqua gets surprisingly forward with Kana, while staying in his role - which does two things - it starts to draw out her actual feelings in her character while she’s also getting lured into the center of focus on stage. Kana’s backstory isn’t a happy one, but it’s unfortunately, way too commonly heard about. Parents reap all the glory because their kid makes it big - so much so, that they forget about the child’s well being. Basically everything was going well and fine until it wasn’t - and then her mom fell apart, which could also explain part of her early behavior. Either way it seems this particular director, Gotanda, is like every one of these kids’ wise old sage isn’t he? Upon Kana’s case he pretty much told her, if you don’t stop treating others like scum you’ll have no place to go in this industry. Something she acknowledges, actually saved her from bottoming out. She’s fine taking a back seat until she realizes Aqua’s painted her into a corner where she’s going to have to respond or she’s going to make the play worse. So she finally gets her chance to show up, and… safe to say nobody’s disappointed in what she draws out of the well. This actually takes some of the audience members including her producer back, realizing she still had the talent, but was just suppressing it, but it’s not lost. She’s still capable of carrying a show. Meanwhile her rival is just fangirling because that’s the level she wants to beat. This dynamic Akane is presenting to Kana, regardless of whose side you’re on here, I think the fact that Akane wanted to draw out the best performance in her rival and not just win half heartedly makes their head to head competition that much more interesting. Their overall rivalry is a lot more interesting now that we know it’s not born out of pure malice toward each other but rather to challenge their own ceiling. We don’t get time to enjoy her showing off for long though, because we’ve finally gotten to THAT scene. Akane’s character jumps in front of Aqua’s and takes a lethal blow. This is what Aqua’s been having to save up for. His first lines are cold and emotionless, but the lines from Himekawa seem to open a trigger - he knows he has to respond because of the script, but it also has a “trigger” on his actual emotional responses. Akane is actually the first person to figure out what Aqua’s issue is: he’s got a panic disorder. So she’s isolated what the problem is, but not the cause. Gotanda steps in and points out he can’t enjoy a ring because he has too much guilt over AI’s death - keep in mind it isn’t just childhood trauma, he was also a long obsessed fan and he had no way to save her despite everything he carried from the previous life. So the director is hitting the nail squarely on the head but he has no idea how deep that scar is. He’s also figured out Aqua’s motivation for staying in the business - but since enjoying the role like the others he’s working with will only cause a mental breakdown, he’s got to focus solely on the negative emotion. He’s gotta feed like a Grimm, in other words, to make this work. It’s kind of sad when he says “my sole purpose for living is to avenge Ai.” You got nothing else? You have quite a bit going for you if you actually looked around, you know. But tunnel vision is a thing. Either way, he’s taking the spotlight now, and all of his co-actors have become obstacles to his goal - obstacles he might rip apart if he has to, because he has to see this through. He may not be enjoying this like the others are, but you can’t say that he hasn’t gotten the audience’s attention. He’s almost gone feral, it looks like he even bit Himekawa, was that in the script, I wonder? The acting is just a means to carry out his revenge. By the way gotta applaud the ending transitions, they know exactly where to stick those cutoffs to make sure you’re like… don’t stop NOW, we’re getting good! Of course, each episode of this season seems to be one upping the previous one. I think it’s because there’s no wasted movement - for example, we haven’t seen Ruby hardly at all because the story doesn’t require her right now, which has upset some people, but Kana’s busy. Every scene they’re choosing to animate (and I’ve learned they are adding a decent amount of flesh out scenes that didn’t exist in the manga), has a purpose and a meaning, even the ones not regarding principal characters. Every character has a story to tell when they’re on stage, which is why these episodes have so much to unpack each week. I’m told we’re getting close to the end of the stage play arc, and also the mangaka announced he was about ready to begin drawing for the final arc of the series (which is like one hundred more chapters ahead of this, so no worries about that being an issue soon!) My biggest curiosity now is to see not only how Aqua Carrie’s this scene, but how the others react to it. They’re definitely gonna notice something, they’re too sharp not to. That’s probably enough for today. 😅 Five episodes remain.