Jokes aside, delusional suicide to “protect the waifu” would be quite in keeping with the character of the local protagonist, lmao.
Are you saying that magazines deliberately raise expectations and give people a distorted idea of the work in order to create hype? So the promotion for the latest volume of Oshi no Ko had an unreasonably overly optimistic vibe compared to what happened in the volume?
I feel the /s, but yes the extras for the last volume are really a big slap to the face to the readers, that platform for idol ruby should have been used for another volume, for the last one it feels super weird (had the chance to buy the last volume that way but for sure didn't want to after the end and now especially after this epilogue)
It seems to me that they will now actively try to sell the latest volume and merch at any cost, considering that the manga not only ended, but also ended in a very big disappointment for many. It's as if Aka understands that even if the finale makes money, he will no longer have the opportunity to write a successful mainstream work.
I was introduced to Aka through Kaguya sama, and though the ending for that manga wasn't perfect i thought that ONK would be good too, if not better.
I totally get you, I got to Ala through Ib, even if not bad it had it flaws and got the axe, Kaguya started super strong (like holy shut it was enjoyable and went from monthly to weekly as it was just that good) and then the series starts to go down in the last part (I would say after the festival, but it wasn't that bad at that point).
Therefore, his new work acquires a certain scientific interest in my eyes. This should be a new hit from a successful author, but Aka decided to repeat the move of the Game of Thrones showrunners and just ruined his own life out of the blue. So now a lot of people will be watching how (potentially) quickly this will fail, not so much because of the mediocre premise, but because of the terrible planning and work morale of Aka himself. Plus, obviously the editors will now give him much less creative and simply working freedom, because they will know that Aka is a good author who does not justify much credit by immediately destroying things when he is given freedom. In general, the dude himself ruined his triumph and now his not the best work will be under increased attention and control.
Ackhuallly Japan has partially curbed on violence in media too, 80s was the golden age of Gekiga. I agree fiction is fiction, and it's not too far off from helicopter parents thinking FPS games create school shooters. Creative freedom is there in US and EU e.g Lolita the novel is allowed. But Japan works differently. Apart from government, we also have to consider other threat actors like TV broadcast/advertisers policing, Japanese parents and their priorities, Western moral policing pressure, Credit Card network moral policing etc that has affected creative freedom in Japan over the years.
Hearing about all this, it not only seems incredible to me that the possibility of repeating such an ending in the anime, but also the fact that the manga itself still got it. Because it literally embodies the cliché that anime promotes mental health problems and suicidality, and also looks like a romanticization of suicide from a non-existent Victorian novel. Although we literally got a full Platinum End in the anime, whose ending could easily convince anyone to commit suicide despite clear criticism of suicide.
While I'm almost sure Mengo checked out near the end, enough to not even bother drawing this extra chapter, I don't think she had much to say about the direction or writing in Oshi no Ko. If she took the reins in this I bet the story would look more like the 4 chapters that were confirmed to be written by her and focus on character interaction more than on the industry or some grand narrative.
Well, Aka was sending vague signals about this. On the one hand, he described the desire to write an ending that Mengo would like (which is very strange, since in the interview she talks about wanting something different), on the other, in one of the interviews he said that she advised so much that she actually became a co-author for him .
It would be pretty funny if ONK met the same fate as GOT, only unlike that one, which had been mainstream for years, this was only just now beginning to rise in fame and popularity among the general public with the heavy advertising and the first OP which hit millions of views in just a few weeks.
This is a typical contrast between the professional creator and the visionary creator. The author of Spy x Family directly said that he writes manga as a business project and develops it professionally without hyperfocus on any ideas, trends, etc. While Aka is sort of the Olivet Stone of the manga world, who decided that his credibility after the last manga makes him untouchable in the eyes of fans. If the anime actually begins to suffer from the consequences of Aka's affairs, it will be very symbolic.
I think you people are reading the occult thing wrong. Akane has a very inquisitive mind, she probably realized that there was something supernatural about the happenings regarding the Hoshino twins, she probably realized that Aqua and Gorou were if not the same person at least connected in a supernatural way, so now she is determined to find answers.
She became interested in the occult after learning about reincarnation. Not to mention that she knew very little about Goro. As for the epilogue, it's practically the same chapter 166, only with an attempt to pass it off as something more optimistic.
