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Minor spoilers ahead for Oshi No Ko’s pilot episode
Oshi No Kohit new heights with its first episode alone; the pilot surpassed even Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood as the number-one anime of all time on ranking sites like MyAnimeList.
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It was a triumph of plot twists and genre shifts, but it really shone in its portrayal of interesting, unique characters. Ruby Hoshino, daughter of Ai and twin sister to Aqua, was certainly no exception. Even as a toddler, she found herself living the life of her dreams.
A Life Cut Short
Like her brother Aqua, Ruby was asuperfanof Ai Hoshino’s before she was reincarnated as the idol’s daughter. In her first life, she wasSarina Tendoji, a 12-year-old cancer patient. Unable to move or do much of anything because of her illness, Sarina spent the majority of her time watching Ai’s performances over and over again. She had them all memorized by the time she died, though she was never able to reenact them herself.
She andGorou Amemiya, a doctor later reincarnated as Aqua, were extremely close. Though Gorou was a gynecologist by the time Ai appears, when Sarina was still alive four years prior, he was just a resident and spent a lot of time with her. She instilled her love for the idol into Gorou before her passing and even provided a clever bit of foreshadowing for the show: She’d actually wonder aloud to him what it would be like to bereincarnatedas the child of an idol. In her mind, that would automatically mean having a much easier life; she’d have an inside route to the entertainment industry and be well taken care of.
Past Life Trauma
That turned out to be at least partially true after Sarina was reincarnated into Ruby Hoshino, one of Ai’s twin children. Even from a very young age, Ruby did all she could to support her mother, from watching her performances live to engage in stan wars on Twitter. She and Aqua evenblackmailed their babysitter(the president of the agency’s wife) into keeping Ai’s secret and caring for them by convincing her they were deific avatars.
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As she grew older, she and Aqua were put into a preschool and asked to perform a dance routine. She refused and ran out of the classroom, crying. She revealed to her brother that she was terrified to perform in front of the school in any capacity because she didn’t trust her body to be able to perform the moves. She was stillcarrying traumafrom her past life; back then, she’d constantly have to brace herself to keep from falling because she was too weak to move with any real mobility.
Familial Healing
Later that week, Ruby accompanied Ai to dance practice, and she began to help her mother perfect her older routines thanks to her memorization of the videos years prior. Ruby tried to perform the routines herself at her mother’s urging, but she fell flat on her face and began to cry. Ai gently consoled her daughter, noting that she still moved like she wasconstantly afraid to fall. She helped her let go of that fear and began to help her dance.
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Rubyfell in love with dancinginstantly. She had a rare opportunity: She could follow in both her idol’s and her mother’s footsteps, a task doubly easy since they were the same person — and now, she could do so with a healthy body that no longer restricted her movement. She was given a new chance at life in the most literal sense, and at three years old, she decided she’d make the most of it by trying tobecome an idol.
Though she was somewhat thrown off track bythe events of the endof the pilot, the now 16-year-old Ruby still seems somewhat determined to follow in her mother’s footsteps. As the show progresses, everyone is excited to find out if she sticks with it or decides to forge a brand-new path. No matter what, I’m sure it’ll be just as interesting to watch it all play out.
NEXT:Oshi No Ko’s Pilot Gave Me Whiplash In The Best Way
