#Oshi no Ko chapter 44

[aihoshiino]

oshi no ko in general has a bad habit of setting things up and then just kind of not following through on them but man. black hoshigan ruby really was a whole load of nothing, wasn't it

she has that incredible speech in chapter 79 about tracking down the culprit and killing him but she doesn't actually achieve anything or contribute meaningfully to the revenge quest and of the things she is allowed to do for herself, none of it is actually off her own back – she's just doing everything saitou tells her to do and even the one plan that is her own (the cosplay kerfuffle on dig deep) doesn't really have any long term consequences despite the fact that the arc wrap implied she might end up damaging her friendships with minami and frill.

you can't even really say it was anything to do with her growth as an idol because we're explicitly told saitou is basically managing her from a distance the entire time. and she doesn't contribute to the revenge plot in any meaningful way despite her talking about revenge just as fervently as aqua does. she doesn't even know who the culprit is by the end of it all!

ruby is in black hoshigan mode for 44 chapters – almost a third of the entire manga so far! – and it amounts to nothing. i was really excited when we started getting into the movie arc because i was hoping this was when we would finally start really digging into ruby's insecurities and lingering trauma over sarina's death, her abandonment and losing ai at such a young age. but instead we just get nudge wink incest bait and a refusal to take ruby seriously enough to actually examine her feelings on any of this shit.

in general i find the back half of oshi no ko (post tokyo blade onwards) to be weaker than what preceedes it but this overall lack of respect for ruby as a mover and shaker in the story in her own regard really is one of the things that drives me the most crazy.

#oshi no ko #oshi no posting #onk spoilers #oshi no ko spoilers