Part of why I run this blog is to address and highlight different shows. Shows that may have been forgotten. I don’t like jumping on the bandwagon of the latest and greatest thing. Even my seasonal write-ups, which might hit popular recent entries, I do more as reactions than as proper reviews, because I think for a fair review you usually need at least a reasonably complete bit of material and a chance to really process it.
Even when I go after big names and landmark classics, I try to make sure I have something at least a little original to say about them. I may not always succeed, but if there’s something that everyone has seen and everyone has written about, what’s the point of me throwing one more identical review on the pile? Well, completeness and the ability to refer to it at later dates can factor in, but that’s not the case this time.
When I decided to do a review of Oshi no Ko (I will dispense with the quotes), I didn’t have that point lined up… because I hadn’t yet watched Oshi no Ko. To be sure, I was aware of it as it was coming out, since that was only last year. With a sterling reputation and a second season that will start airing between me writing this and this going live, it would be weirder – positively unnatural – if I hadn’t heard of Oshi no Ko. But I hadn’t watched it, and I hadn’t really followed it or indulged spoilers either. I knew in a vague sense that it was a drama – not so much a comedy – based on a manga by the same author as Kaguya-sama: Love is War and that it “got” a lot of folks with some sort of twist deployed early, but not what that might have been. I was prepared to look at it sight unseen to attempt to answer the question: Was it really as good as the hype?
Typically when I’ve asked that question before, it’s been with shows that have been overhyped beyond madness, but oddly enough I didn’t feel that way about Oshi no Ko. It was an award winner, that much was certain, which carries with it a certain weight, but while it was broadly beloved it didn’t seem to have the cultish following certain other shows acquired. I don’t know if I just didn’t travel in the right circles for that, but the bar of public opinion, which I am set to either support or stand against, is still a mortal level of quality.
The task set, let us begin.
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