When I watched the first episode of Oshi no Ko when it first aired, I stumbled upon something enthralling. Having a revenge mystery set in the entertainment industry seemed like an interesting concept, and Ai’s death and Aqua’s subsequent rage were staged perfectly for getting me hooked into the characters. Over time, fun supporting characters like Kana and Akane received stunning moments that also began to peel past Aqua’s façade and self-derision.

What makes Oshi no Ko truly awesome is that it somehow delivers on none of this whatsoever in its 166-chapter run. Even if individual moments are spectacular, it all fails to come together. Out of the four most major characters- Aqua, Ruby, Kana and Akane- the first gets character assassinated, the second gets most of her development off-screen, and the last two have some of the most inconclusive character arcs I have ever seen. Thank you Hacka Hackasaka for writing one of the most directionless stories I have seen.

I think the easiest place to start is the final arc that everyone (rightfully) detests. To understand what makes it so bad, let’s take briefly summarize each character first.

The easiest place to start this is with a discussion about Aqua, the protagonist and the reason I got so invested in the first place. His past life as Gorou and his failures to save Sarina and Ai manifests as a specter of his trauma, forcing him to kill his happiness to protect those around him. As he navigates the industry, he hides behind a façade of “using others” when in reality he is forming bonds with them that end up benefiting them far more than himself. Over time, it becomes clear that he has things to live for and that he desires to live as a normal boy, and as the end is approached he begins to explicitly separate from his trauma-rooted past identity as Gorou.

Ruby serves as a deuteragonist- or kind of not really. Her past life as Sarina, a formerly terminally ill patient and admirer of idols, drives her to join the industry. Outside of comic relief, she really just is not a character after the first arc until around Chapter 80, spending most of it as a comic relief character who also is a key member of the newly formed B-Komachi group. Eventually, when she learns about what happened to Gorou and Ai, she takes on a malicious and self-serving form of revenge, contrasting the self-sacrificial approach Aqua takes. This helps propel her into her own in the industry, starting to become a well-known name. (Then she learns her brother is her beloved Gorou and they have one big moment together before becomes a happy-go-lucky incestbait comic relief gag every few chapters lol)

I can be much more brief with Akane and Kana even if they are far more complex than this- both of their characterizations largely lie in their relationships with acting and their budding romances with Aqua.

So where does the last arc lead them? Ruby expositions her way to the top of the entertainment industry in the last arc. The main villain, Aqua/Ruby’s father and Ai/Gorou’s killer, somehow manages to “back down” and reveal a “twist villain” before stepping back in as the true villain in the span of a couple chapters while having the stupidest motive ever. Aqua then decides to kill himself in the most contrived, unnecessary plan ever in an attempt to “protect Ruby’s career”, as Ruby- and nobody else- is now everything to him after almost no interaction for most of the manga aside from one big moment and a couple of incest jokes, even going out of their way to state everything Aqua now has in his life as he dies. Akane, who has been a non-character since Chapter 98, gets relegated to a narrator in the final couple of chapters lamenting Aqua’s death, and then Kana slaps Aqua’s corpse as she cries. Then everyone moves on a chapter later and Ruby’s career is happy and successful : ). What?

Oshi no Ko’s last arc can’t commit to its ideas. It’s an assortment of random plot points that hides its inconsistencies behind a barely upheld theme of “lies” and Mengo’s beautiful art. All of its major characters get the most nothingburger ending of all time, except Aqua, whose death only is remotely thematically appropriate if you read the premise, first arc, and then the last 10 chapters, completely ignoring the 140 or so chapters in between. The last arc retroactively makes those 140 chapters and their fun, spectacular moments cheapened, as none of that was delivered on whatsoever.

However, I wouldn’t be this critical of Oshi no Ko if I thought only the last arc, which is only around 10% of its long run, fumbled everything. After all, even if they really don’t matter outside of a vacuum, characters got enthralling moments that explored their relationships with the industry and the characters around them throughout consistently entertaining arcs like Tokyo Blade and Variety Show. If I’m enjoying many hours of my time reading and then the equivalent of 20 minutes at the end was bad, I’d be soured for sure, but Oshi no Ko’s last arc is just a capstone on the incredible nothingburger that a lot of the rest of the manga is even in a vacuum.

In truth, this series has been bad since Chapter 98, coincidentally right before the three-digit mark and right where Akane stopped being a character. There are two major arcs after this before the final arc: Kana Scandal and the Movie arc. Kana Scandal is a brief period of time where Kana gets involved in a scandal, and it resolves by Aqua pulling the trigger to create the movie detailing his and Ruby’s experience as Ai’s daughter and what lead to her death, facts they have kept secret for the entire manga. Are there any repercussions to this? Any reaction from the society that was supposedly shook up by this fact enough to completely distract from the scandal and effectively a climax of the main plotline as it relates to the entertainment industry? Nah not really, there’s just a slight conflict between Ruby and Aqua that leads to their big moment of resolution and supposed connection. What about the movie arc, the enacting of Aqua’s revenge against his father that assembles all the main players of the manga beforehand? Does that go anywhere besides the reconciliation of Aqua and Ruby? Also again, not really, you could really offscreen exposition this whole arc aside from that one moment and there would somehow be the same amount of character development. The entire tail end of this manga, almost 70 chapters out of 166, is effectively meandering filler when it’s not downright character assassination, with a good, noteworthy chapter or two every twenty or so chapters.

As an aside, shout-out to how hellish this manga was to read while it was ongoing. Aka consistently would drop a big or controversial chapter with a big cliffhanger, go on break for a week if not a month at a time, then immediately deliver on it with the most lukewarm, nothing follow-up possible. When he was publishing chapters multiple weeks in a row, it would often just be expositing about the same points we have heard about the entertainment industry being bad we have heard the entire manga for an entire chapter.

I also have to get on my soapbox about that for a second. I appreciate how Oshi no Ko tries to integrate criticism and positives of the entertainment industry into the story, especially at the beginning when the world and character motives need to be established. What I don’t appreciate is how even as the story continues, it manages to be just as heavy-handed about the same discussion points over and over for chapters at end, we get it. It feels especially half-baked when the conclusion is Aqua’s death being largely independent of that world and everyone else quickly moving on while being happy with their lots in the industry.

Considering I was passionate about this manga and its characters just a year and a half ago, it is infuriating how pointless everything feels after finishing it. Considering I have heard Kaguya also has a bad conclusion (even if it has a subsequent fun resolution), it makes me wonder if Aka is just incapable of tying anything together in his stories. I can’t say I hate it just because I am still attached to the first half, but damn is it directionless dogwater.