#sarina tendouji

[all-of-her-light]

Ruby and the Unplayed Role

(Warning: Long analysis post.)

In Chapter 115 of Oshi no Ko, as Ruby is preparing to take her turn in the interpersonal acting audition, she reflects on her relationship to acting itself – and describes it as running very deep.

And by "the whole time", she seems to mean the whole time. As Sarina, she "played the role" of a girl who faced her circumstances bravely and bore no grudge against her parents for their neglect, because rebelling against those miserable circumstances would have been futile. Upon her reincarnation, "Ai's daughter" too was a role she played, and after Ai's death, she acted as the bright, innocent, non-grieving idol that she believed Ai wanted her to grow up to be. At this point in the story, we've already seen black-starred Ruby hide her vengeful anger behind a smiling facade, but this monologue suggests broad artificiality in Sarina/Ruby's self-presentation even before her vengeance arc.

Notably, Ruby also wonders here whether Ai's bright persona was an act in the same way that hers was:

This helps set the stage for later story beats like the end of Chapter 134, where Ruby again deepens her insight into Ai by personally relating to her.

And then, as if to drive home the point about her own acting, Ruby's turn in the audition consists of her expressing raw, acute grief over Ai and Gorou's deaths...

...before putting on a bubbly mask and acting like the grief isn't real.

Later on, the scene in Chapter 123 where Ruby spills her guts to Aqua seems to elaborate on the nature of the act that she's been putting on:

Ruby has been burying all of her sadness and anger and frustration, seeking to "smile all the time" in order to be loved. She's been performing a sanitized, idealized version of herself out of fear that no one would love the real her. Just like Ai did. Which, again, gives Ruby a powerful avenue for understanding Ai.

But there's an issue with this analysis. If you look back at Ruby's behavior in the manga's early chapters – before she discovers Gorou's corpse, meets the Crow Girl, becomes vengeful and all that – you'll notice that she doesn't actually express unfailing cheer, optimism, kindness, confidence, or generally Ai-like behavior. She doesn't even seem to be trying, really. She's bright and cheerful sometimes, sure – but other times she's unapologetically not, for understandable human reasons.

For instance, there's that time in Chapter 19 when she begs Miyako to hurry in starting an idol group for her to join, openly expressing insecurity about fitting in with her celebrity peers:

Or that time in Chapter 37 when she approaches Kana to confide in her about her stage fright:

(It's hard to imagine Ai seeking out support from a groupmate like this, at least without them opening up to her first in the same conversation.)

Ruby is also not above being rude or hostile to people, even when it's against her own interests, as can be seen in her bickering with Kana in Volume 2:

And then there's Chapter 23, when Ruby gets on Aqua's case about neglecting family time in favor of LoveNow-related activities:

(This is also one of those things Sarina/Ruby does that takes on a new meaning once you learn about her relationship with her original parents.)

There are more examples of pre-vengeance Ruby expressing various negative emotions to others, but I won't belabor the point. In general, I think perceptions of pre-vengeance Ruby as acting consistently cheerful or positive come largely from exaggerating/simplifying the contrast between her and her gloomy brother, or between her and her "darker" future self. They don't reflect her actual behavior.

Now, speaking of Sarina/Ruby's relationship with her original parents, I think it makes sense that a badly neglected child like Sarina would develop a tendency to avoid behaving in any potentially unpleasant ways around her parents, implicitly hoping that they'll want to spend more time with her that way. I also think it makes sense that she would extend this strategy to other relationships, given the formative role of one's relationship with one's parents – especially in Sarina's case, due to her isolation.

Importantly, though, we don't see Sarina trying to perfectly sanitize herself in her interactions with Gorou. Indeed, they both seem quite comfortable teasing each other (in flashbacks both from earlier chapters and from more recent ones):

The fact that Sarina doesn't walk on eggshells with Gorou suggests that she's relatively secure in her relationship with him, rather than fearing that failure to get along with him flawlessly will drive him away. I think this means Ruby's characterization in the early chapters is compatible with Sarina's later-revealed backstory if we understand Sarina's relationship with Gorou as also having been formative, teaching her that she doesn't need to act perfect to be loved. I also think this interpretation helps elucidate why Gorou means so much to Sarina/Ruby: his robust, reliable love and care for her gave her a level of confidence and security in herself that she didn't have before.

Now, what about Ruby's grief over Ai's death? Don't Chapters 115 and 123 imply that to be the single most prominent feeling that pre-vengeance Ruby was burying beneath her acting? How do the early chapters portray the effect of Ai's death on Ruby? Is that portrayal compatible with 115 and 123 (interpreted the way I did earlier)?

I am again going to argue: not really, no. 115 and 123 have Ruby recall "[acting as if] overcoming my mother's death, becoming a bright and innocent idol" (115) while secretly thinking "it'd be easier if I could just forget about her" (123). They seem to portray Ruby's past coping strategy for Ai's death as avoidant in nature; she tried to avoid letting the tragedy affect her or ideally even thinking about it at all. However, the early chapters portray Ruby's coping strategy for Ai's death as distinctly un-avoidant. Allow me to explain.

Starting off, Chapter 10 shows us Ruby's behavior in the days following Ai's death. We first see her reading social media reactions to Ai's murder and expressing anger and distress at people saying she was asking for it if she had a secret relationship, while Aqua listens silently:

A while later, though, after Ai's funeral – in fact, starting in the very next panel – Ruby and Aqua have the following conversation:

This conversation is echoed in Chapter 12, after the post-prologue timeskip, when Ruby, Miyako, and Aqua talk about Ruby joining the underground idol group:

In both conversations, Ruby doesn't deny her family members' claims about the hardships of idolhood, but she expresses a desire to become an idol anyway, not wanting to let the hardships stop her. After all, Ai sparkled, and Ruby wants to be like her.

(To reiterate, by the way, pre-vengeance Ruby's desire to "be like Ai" does not seem to involve never showing any negativity in her personal life. And it's not even as if Ruby never saw any negativity from Ai to begin with; see e.g. Chapter 4.)

But what does this drive of Ruby's have to do with her grief over Ai's death? After all, Ruby has wanted to be an idol – and to be like Ai – since before she was Ruby. She didn't need Ai to die to want those things. And how would her idol ambitions even psychologically relate to processing her grief?

Well, I think we get a pretty good look at a relation between them later on, starting in Chapter 41. This chapter opens with Ruby talking in her thoughts to "Mama in heaven", telling her about developments in the twins' lives from the past few months (which also serves to fill in and recap for the reader). After the recap, Ruby reassures Ai that she's doing well, and then we get these panels:

Ruby believes that performing at a dome – the elite opportunity that Miyako in Chapter 8 told us was "everyone's fantasy" – was also Ai's fantasy. But Ai's dreams of soaring to maximum fame as an idol were dashed by her murder. And now Ruby has taken it upon herself to fulfill them in Ai's stead, giving her another major reason to pursue idolhood.

We see Ruby visiting Ai's grave again and giving her more updates a couple in-universe months later in Chapter 72. Ruby tells her about the upcoming trip to Miyazaki, Aqua having become more cheerful lately, and then:

All of this implies that Ruby has been visiting Ai's grave and connecting with her memory in this way every few months for who-knows-how-long, and she has no intention of stopping.

This is not the behavior of someone who is trying to avoid giving mental space to the death of a loved one. On the contrary, pre-vengeance Ruby repeatedly confronts herself with the concrete fact of Ai's death and responds to it with mental fight rather than flight. The dark side of the idol world may have killed Ai's body, but it hasn't killed her spirit. Ruby copes with the tragedy of Ai's death by turning it into motivation – to preserve Ai's memory, to take up her mantle, to defy the darkness to ensure that her spirit lives on.

So what should we make of these discrepancies in Ruby's characterization between the earlier and later chapters? Honestly, I'm not completely sure. Maybe there's some way in which all of this makes sense after all. Maybe something got lost in the translation from Japanese to English? Maybe some of Ruby's recollections in Chapters 115 and 123 that we've assessed are meant to apply specifically to her vengeful self, or to the times when she was making public appearances? Maybe Akasaka deliberately wrote some of those recollections to be wrong to show that Ruby's awful present mental state is distorting her memories and sense of self? It seemingly wouldn't be the only case of that happening; Ruby appears to claim in Chapter 122 that the reason she became an idol in the first place was to avenge Ai and Gorou, which we know isn't true (and which Aqua also refuses to believe).

However, I think we should also consider the possibility that Akasaka just changed his mind about how he wanted to write Ruby partway through the manga, and the discrepancies in her characterization are artifacts of that without a good in-story explanation. For instance, maybe Akasaka only nailed down the details of Ruby's role in the Movie arc relatively recently, and the things he wanted to do with her required her to be able to personally relate to Ai in ways that didn't line up with her established characterization. So Akasaka tried to reframe what he'd written before to make Ruby more similar to Ai in certain ways, without complete success.

If this hypothesis is true, then Ruby isn't one fully consistent character throughout the whole manga; we have to distinguish "Old Ruby" and "New Ruby" at a minimum. And that idea disappoints me; Ruby is one of my favorite OnK characters, and inconsistencies of this size in her character progression interfere with my ability to appreciate it as it continues into the future. I also just kinda like Old Ruby better than New Ruby; I think Old Ruby better distinguishes herself from Ai and contrasts her in an interesting way. Old Ruby (pre-vengeance) is a person who knows the feeling of loving and being loved, values living authentically, and largely succeeds at it from day to day, but is nevertheless building her life on a couple of big lies and misunderstandings. (Ai didn't dream of the dome; Ai didn't want her children to remain a secret forever; the Ai who Ruby has dedicated herself to honoring is not the real Ai.) I think a character like that is a valuable addition to a story like OnK, and I'm disappointed at the idea of Old Ruby's arc never getting a proper, non-retconning second half and conclusion.

#oshi no ko #aohl talks onk #ruby hoshino #sarina tendouji #onk spoilers #long post #abuse cw

[septimus-h]

Honestly, as a mere 12-year-old, Sarina having such thoughts, and being delusional and pushing them away, is probably an accurate description of what an 'unloved' child would feel. From our childhoods, we were taught that parental love was natural and something every kid received, which makes kids harder to accept the neglect and lack of love from parents. Or, worse, when your parents' love starts waning, you still hold on to the past where they loved you, refusing to let go.

#oshi no ko #oshi no ko spoilers #ruby hoshino #aqua hoshino #animanga #manga #oshi no ko aqua #oshi no ko manga #onk #oshi no ko ruby #sarina tendouji

[a-titty-ninja]

#oshi no ko #my star #推しの子 #ai hoshino #sarina tendouji #anime #mygif #mygif:oshi no ko

[nekcetera]

Our girl ;w;

#cute #art #anime #digitalart #sketch #fanart #lineart #oshi no ko #ai hoshino #manga #推しの子 #ruby #ruby hoshino #sarina tendouji #kana arima #akane kurokawa #aqua hoshino #aquamarine hoshino #ai #ai artwork #au #oshi no ko 142 #pokemon #bunny #star

[gabbyp09]

#oficial art #oshinoko #oshi no ko #onk #my idols children #my idols child #my idol #my star #favorite girl #推しの子 #hoshino ai #ai hoshino #ai oshi no ko #ai onk #onk ai #gorou amemiya #amemiya gorou #sarina tendouji #tendouji sarina #sarina onk #onk sarina #gorou onk #onk gorou #aka akasaka #aqua hoshino #hoshino aquamarine #aquamarine hoshino #hoshino aqua #ruby hoshino #hoshino ruby

[aqours]

the best thing about aqua and ruby is that they're both freaks but like in completely different ways

#blorbos #oshi no ko #onk #my star #aquamarine hoshino #runby hoshino #gorou amemiya #sarina tendouji

[iplayvidya]

Wait, OnK fans been freaking out cuz they thought Ruby was speaking directly to Aqua at the end of 123? I totally thought (and still think) she was just talking out loud to herself, and now she's plotting to make something happen between them. I'm 100% certain that if Aqua knew exactly what Ruby's intentions were, he would shut that shit down right away because Gorou never felt that way towards Sarina.

#oshi no ko #oshi no ko manga #oshi no ko spoilers #aquamarine hoshino #hoshino aquamarine #ruby hoshino #hoshino ruby #gorou amemiya #amemiya gorou #sarina tendouji #tendouji sarina

[just-a-simple-otaku]

Damn I never was an Aqua/Ruby shipper and I don't really care for shipping in OnK, but this is hilarious to me. I just love seeing all the antis coping hard rn and the mental gymnastic they have to do to avoid the incest. It's hilarious to think they got invested for 123 chapters and THIS happened lmao

Even if Aqua/Ruby isn't endgame, you will never take away what Ruby just said on this page. This manga will forever be tainted by the incest xD

#oshi no ko #OnK #onk spoilers #aquamarine hoshino #aqua hoshino #ruby hoshino #推しの子 #gorou amemiya #sarina tendouji #my star #aqua x ruby #gorou x sabina #proship safe #antis are a cult

[kyrieeleisonelise]

Ch 142

These two are completely not on the same page.

#oshi no ko #onk spoilers #onk ruby #ruby hoshino #aqua hoshino #aquamarine hoshino #sarina tendouji

[papitakiwi]

One of the favorite manga coloring I did ♥️

I cleaned the text , I wish I could have added it but I had plans for darker background....

Source : Oshi No Ko : Ichibanbonshi No Spica (Official Light Novel)

It's a small illustration present in Novel hard cover and probably the only light novel only Illustration besides the cover....

Sarina-chan is so cute! 🥺

#oshi no ko #manga coloring #oshi no ko manga #sarina tendouji #sarina chan kawaii #Oshi No ko light novel #onk

[kurogamishiro-chan]

When many people said "eugh, Ruby need to get over her crush on Gorou who now is her own twin", I'm busy thinking about Gorou's, or, Aqua's own "crush".

Gorou, first of all, was not a fan of idol before he met Sarina. And later on he became Ai's biggest fan, especially after he lost Sarina. What I see the most from this is that Gorou is in his own way, a "people pleaser", especially to his precious people. It came with his job as a doctor and his loneliness. And it also can be his own brand of kindness. And maybe being Ai's biggest fan was his coping mechanism.

When he met Sarina, his world has changed bit by bit. He never thought of his own life as unfortunate, but then there was a little girl who lost her own self more and more so fast. And there was no one to support her. Yet she was so radiant that it left a big impression in Gorou's life. The way she still had the capacity to love her idol, Ai, as deep as that was so dazzling. And tho I don't doubt Gorou's grandma's love for him, Sarina might be the first to show and gave him love so straightforwardly. And being emotionally stunted man he was, didn't know what he felt for her but Sarina IS the biggest presence in his heart, even following onto the reincarnation.

Now, I know that Aqua loves Ai so deeply. But for what I see, when he was Gorou, he became a fan of Ai more for Sarina's sake, at first. To give her a friend who share the same interest and all. But later on he became a genuine fan. BUT, remember how he sometimes saw Sarina's shadow in Ruby?? It might be similar with that. He saw Sarina's shadow in Ai, and now vice versa. Even Director Gotanda saw Ai in Ruby.

And above all, Gorou/Aqua can't differ his own feeling of 'love' he doesn't know if he was 'in love' with Ai or not, and he take interest on Akane when she start to mimic Ai and can be used. And there's Kana, who he can banter easily but in the end he use her for his own purpose. That doesn't mean he doesn't care for them, it's the opposite. Despite how crass he used them, he does care deeply and doesn't want them to get hurt. Which fail spectacularly.

But Ruby, Ruby is that one existence he won't ever use for his purpose. And he will go to hell and back to keep her 'radiance'. It's the same with how he treated Sarina and Ai, like they're the precious goodness in this bleak world and have their own circle in his heart. He knew of their flaws, yet still treat them like they had no fault.

He laughed meanly at how naive Kana is, how easily she swayed by the boy she likes. But he tries so hard to preserve Ruby's innocence, or what left of it despite knowing how hard her life was/is. Even when he listen Ruby said of how broken she was, she's still the most radiant.

I do ship AquaRuby, but I won't said that Aqua doesn't have a "crush" on Ai, Akane, Kana. Like I said, Gorou/Aqua is emotionally stunted about his "love". He cares deeply, craves for love, but doesn't know how to receive and reciprocate. His "love" is of self-sacrifice kind of way. He was fucked up when still as Gorou, losing Sarina when she said her confession, and then losing Ai as Aqua in almost the same way. Rather than focusing on his own "love" and discovering it, he's more desperate on not losing anyone else. That said, he wants to finally have his happiness. But as long as the biggest threat (aka Kamiki Hikaru) still running around, his precious people is in a big potential danger, especially his sister Ruby, his idol's daughter who's so alike with their mother, and the reincarnated "Sarina-chan". He feels he owes them (Sarina-chan & Ai) for loving him.

Why he feels like he owe them? From my own experience and from what I know of Gorou, people like us need others (precious people) approval and love to feel like we have a living purpose. Even then, we felt that we need to do more to not lose them. Loneliness is a scary thing. Maybe that's why he attracts other lonely people (the girls). He show them the support they want, and sometimes show some empathy.

And for him, Sarina-chan is the loneliest. She suffered so greatly even without that loneliness. And then he met Tendouji Marina as Aqua, and once again reminded how much Sarina had suffered and abandoned. Even then she still waited for her mother, wished for her parents health, loving Ai and Gorou, smiling and dreaming, etc.

And well, yeah, thats why I think the one Gorou/Aqua loves the most is Sarina/Ruby. I don't know what kind of love it is, and don't know who will end up with Aqua, but for now Sarina/Ruby is his number one girl.

#oshi no ko #hoshino aquamarine #hoshino aqua #hoshino ruby #hoshino ai #arima kana #kurokawa akane #not aqua x akane ship #not aqua x kana ship #but not a hater either #aquaruby #gorousarina #amamiya gorou #tendouji sarina #gorou amemiya #sarina tendouji

[rudy-icons]

#anime and manga #anime icons #anime news #anime #oshi no ko #hoshino ai #sarina tendouji #amemiya gorou

[a-titty-ninja]

#oshi no ko #my star #推しの子 #sarina tendouji #anime #mygif #mygif:oshi no ko

[nekcetera]

this chapter was...sheesh. but Cute older Sarina tho <3

#cute #art #digitalart #anime #fanart #sketch #lineart #oshi no ko #ai hoshino #manga #sarina tendouji #gorou #ruby #ruby hoshino #aqua hoshino #onk ruby #onk #ai #wip #art wip #推しの子

[thoughtspresso]

Am I reaching?

So when The Crow was narrating Sarina Tendouji’s life in Chapter 121, they mentioned that Ai and Gorou-sensei’s presence kept Sarina uplifted through her toughest times. But they also say this:

Which at first pass, I thought could have simply meant, because both Ai and Gorou would die.

However, Sarina does not technically lose Gorou -- since she dies before him.

Does The Crow mean that Ruby is still yet to lose Aqua soon?

We know that Aqua does intend to get himself into serious danger and possibly even death in his attempt to exact revenge upon his father.

We also know that Aqua is angry at The Crow and is trying his best to keep Ruby away from the plot as much as possible.

Could it be that his idea of self-sacrifice isn’t simply his own emo-boy delusions, but something he and The Crow had spoken about before was going to be necessary to take Kamiki down?

#Oshi No Ko #Oshi No Ko Spoilers #Hoshino Ruby #Hoshino Aqua #Ruby Hoshino #Aqua Hoshino #Sarina Tendouji #Tendouji Sarina #onk fantheories #oshi no ko fan theories

[aqours]

for the sake of this post i'm going to ignore any discourse about aqua//ruby ethically just wanted to say my own two cents after chapter 124

tbh if this is the extent of the new dynamic i'm genuinely fine if this is how Aqua and Ruby just are

may be a controversial opinion but i??? actually don't want this story to end with Aqua in a romantic relationship i don't want this to end with aqua/kana, aqua/akane, or aqua/ruby winning. i don't want any ship to end winning. and this has nothing to do with morals or ethics or if a ship is gross or not: i'd prefer everything ended on a note where Aqua is able to walk on his own path in life and anything about whether or not if he pursues anyone romantically -even if its Ruby- to be something open-ended left for fan interpretation to work

i can completely live with Ruby just being super overtly clingy and an imouto-type and never knowing whatever Aqua said in regards to the marriage promise if its open-ended and we never return to it. i said this in another post but Aqua and Ruby are both kind of freaks just in completely different ways. i can live with Ruby being super clingy to Aqua now with a narrative never quite clearing it up and leaving it up to interpretation since that's not the most important thing going on anymore

while i'd appreciate it being more cleared up, if they don't ever actually fully go into it and just say "up to you if you wanna imagine they're fully going for it or Aqua turned it down and Ruby is just happy being a clingy imouto" that's fine too

or you know they do reveal Aqua agreed to it but you know Aqua is fucking insane and manipulative and treats it as like the most despicable thing Aqua has ever done to anyone in this story and doesn't shy from that being fucked up i can deal with that too (although i really highly doubt he would to Sarina/Aqua of all people) i fucking forgot about the glass door lmao

#oshi no ko #onk #onk spoilers #aquamarine hoshino #aqua hoshino #ruby hoshino #kana arima #akane kurokawa #gorou amemiya #sarina tendouji #starposts #onk 124