[OSHI NO KO] has just made its debut on Crunchyroll with its third season. If you’ve just heard of it, or are curious what the story is with this dark idol anime, this guide is for you! After two seasons (including a movie-length first episode), there’s a lot to [OSHI NO KO] , so let’s get started (major spoilers ahead). The Premise It all starts when Dr. Gorou Amamiya’s favorite idol, the up-and-coming star, Ai, becomes his patient. Ai, who’s pregnant with twins, secretly checks into the hospital Gorou works at for prenatal care, hoping to keep word of her pregnancy under wraps to avoid a scandal. Everything seems to be going normally, when an obsessed fan of Ai suddenly murders Gorou, who finds himself reincarnated as Ai’s newborn son, Aqua. At the same time, one of Gorou’s terminally ill patients dies and is also reincarnated as Aqua’s sister, Ruby. It's through this lens that [OSHI NO KO] views both the idol industry and the larger Japanese entertainment industry, and it pulls no punches there. The world [OSHI NO KO] depicts isn’t your typical idol story about hard work and talent; the entertainment business it depicts is fundamentally a business. An actor’s role can get cut because they outshone the star a talent agency wanted to promote, staffers are worked to the bone with little appreciation, and the risk of online bullying is all too real. Across its first two seasons, [OSHI NO KO] looks at everything from movies to TV dramas to stage plays, showing the more serious side of each industry behind all the glamor and effects The Murder Mystery [OSHI NO KO] isn’t just about the entertainment industry, though; it’s also a murder mystery. Ai is initially treated as a lead on par with Aqua and Ruby, but at the end of the first episode, the same stalker who murdered Gorou shows up at Ai’s apartment and, in a fit of jealousy, murders her right in front of Aqua. The stalker kills himself shortly after, but Aqua realizes something: the only way he could’ve found out where Ai lived was from the twins’ mysterious father, who Ai had invited to come visit. From there, Aqua dedicates his life to avenging Ai, even becoming an actor so he can get closer to Ai’s old associates in the entertainment industry and find out who his father really is. Aqua’s first big lead comes in Season 2, when he discovers through DNA testing that Taiki Himekawa, one of his fellow actors, is in fact his half-brother. Aqua confronts him and is shocked when Himekawa tells him that his father is dead. Aqua, while shaken by the news, realizes that this means his quest for revenge is over and begins to think about what he actually wants to do with his life. Of course, that’s not all there is to the story. As Aqua’s girlfriend Akane Kurokawa figures out, Aqua never actually ran a DNA test to confirm that the man Himekawa identified was actually their father. Akane keeps this to herself out of fear that Aqua, who’s only just started building relationships and caring about things other than his revenge, might go back to the colder, more distant person he used to be (Aqua had only started dating her in the first place to further his investigation). Ruby’s Side While Aqua was investigating Ai’s murder, Ruby was focused on her growing idol career. Thanks to Ai’s old agency, Ruby is able to make her debut as part of the new idol group B-Komachi. She’s joined by YouTuber MEM-cho and former child star Kana Arima, who’s also an old rival of Akane and has feelings for Aqua. In Season 2, Ruby, whose main reason for becoming an idol was to reunite with Gorou (she and Aqua agreed as children never to discuss their past lives), discovers Gorou’s corpse while on a trip, and, with the help of a mysterious white-haired girl, comes to the same realization Aqua did: that the only person who could’ve arranged both Ai’s murder and Gorou’s is their mysterious father. Ruby, now with a much darker goal in mind, sets out from there to find him and get her revenge. And that’s where Season 3 starts, with Aqua trying to build a life and career, while Ruby turns her focus to the same revenge that drove him for so long. If you want to see more, you can watch Season 3 right here on Crunchyroll!
