English Dub Review: Oshi no Ko “Mother and Children”

 

Overview:

Stories are lies meant to entertain, and idols lie to fans eager to believe. This is Ai’s story. It is a lie, but it is also true.

Our Take(Spoilers):

If you have any desire to watch this anime and were waiting for the dub then wait no longer and get to watching! Don’t read any further until you’ve watched because I will be going heavy on the spoilers to tell you why this show had one of the best first episodes in recent memory. So, if you were coming here to see if you should watch it then the answer is yes!

Now if you’re still here I’m going to guess that you either don’t care about spoilers or have watched the episode.

The premise of this show is a bit odd but if you’re an anime fan then honestly, this isn’t that bad. But when an idol fan and the idol’s doctor die and get reincarnated as their favorite idol’s twin children you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a bit weird. If you buy into the premise, however, I promise you’ll be rewarded with one of the best anime experiences of 2023 if not ever.

Oshi no Ko has been getting critical acclaim since its first episode premiered going so far as to be the highest-rated anime on MAL for a time. It has since dropped down to twelve but that is still impressive for an anime that just premiered a month ago. I’ve been reading the manga since it came out and my expectations were sky-high after hearing all of that. Luckily it exceeded those expectations and I was really excited that the first episode was an hour and a half long so they invested in the series from the get-go.

Going to get the technical stuff out of the way first. The animation is beautiful, especially with how well the dance animations are done and I especially love the focus on the character’s eyes. With Ai, Aqua, and Ruby having unique eyes I’m glad they got a lot of focus. Really the only minor gripe I have is that for some reason Sentai dubs just sound off to me. The voice actors chosen did a phenomenal job but sometimes the voices just don’t sound natural like you can hear the mixer at work. But other than that we are on to an instant classic I think.

The life of an idol isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Falling in love could ruin your career or worse get you murdered. For Ai Hoshino that is just what happens though I don’t know if I would say that she technically fell in love but she did have children and for a crazy idol fan that is sometimes enough.

I lost my mother at a fairly young age. Not nearly as young as Aqua and Ruby were but still, losing a mother is something you never really get over, because of this the last fifteen to twenty minutes of this episode just about broke me. But it wasn’t all sad, there was a lot of levity as well. Nothing quite beats seeing toddlers that still poop in their pants dance to their mom’s songs with glow wands.

Oshi no Ko blew me away with its first episode and I have full confidence that it will be great going forward. My only concern is that there is a lot of story to go and I just hope that this does well enough to get it all properly animated. With how well this anime is doing with fans and critics alike I think that might not be an issue in the future.