[Oshi No Ko] Volume 13 Review
This review contains spoilers for [Oshi No Ko] Volume 12 and prior.
The production for The 15 Year Lie, a movie based upon Ai Hoshino’s life and death, has now begun, with Ruby Hoshino playing the lead. But the script is bringing up complicated feelings about her mother in both her present and past life. After she makes a heart-breaking discovery, can her splintered relationship with Aqua help her through it? Meanwhile, Miyako struggles to fit in Ruby’s work and extra job requests, due to her newfound popularity, but perhaps a run-in with an old friend can help her?
Volume 13 is a direct continuation from Volume 12, so if you haven’t read the previous volume in a while, or have forgotten bits that happened, I recommend re-reading it, because the first few chapters of Volume 13 come directly after the events of the end of Volume 12. Volume 13 also doesn’t contain the plot and character summaries we usually get at the start of each volume, so be aware of that as well.
At the end of Volume 12, Ruby was already showing complicated feelings towards her past-life mother, and struggles to understand how Ai (in the script) comes to the conclusion that her mum didn’t love her. This is another example of the story making great use of the reincarnation plot line, because it makes perfect sense that Ruby’s past self, a girl who died young from a disease, spending most of the time in a hospital bed with barely any interaction with her mum, would struggle with such a concept. Ruby’s past self, as she lay in bed fighting for her life, would have held onto her parents’ love with every bit of strength she could wield. Because the very idea of her parents NOT loving her would have probably broken her, and made her not want to fight for the short life she had. In conjunction with Ai’s death, whose last words were “I love you” to her children, and admitting the struggle that she had to give those words meaning, also would have played into Ruby’s internalised truth of parents always loving their kids. That’s what makes the end of Volume 12, and the beginning of #13, so heart-breaking for the character. Aqua and Ruby both learn, in different ways, that Ruby’s past parents have not only moved on, but also with replacement children and don’t even acknowledge their first child’s very existence. Maybe Ruby’s past mum DID love her at some point, but it’s hard to reconcile that with the reality that is right in front of her; she had been replaced long ago, and the parents show no sign of missing her.
This breakdown for Ruby, eventually leads to the book’s biggest emotional plot point, where the siblings finally have a heart-to-heart, with a big reveal that’s been coming for a while. In a way, it feels a bit sudden, but when I sat with it more, it feels earned, giving the context of where this scene takes place: Ruby learning the harsh truth about her parents but also Aqua realising that Ruby has kept the charm that she found on Aqua’s previous life’s corpse. This is also happening just before the filming of the very movie that is all about bringing the truth about their lives, and hopefully their mother’s killer, to the surface. It feels cathartic for the characters, and the reader who has been following this secret for over 100 chapters, and now the twins’ relationship is changed forever as a result. What will truly become of it we’ll have to wait and see; there are some disturbing consequences, such as Ruby remembering ‘sensei’ promising to marry her…and she’s keen to pick up that promise in this life, and also a brief moment where the pair are very close physically…but it’s too early to tell yet if it’ll go anywhere for now.
The other highlight for me was a brief focus on Miyako, the stepmother and manager for Aqua and Ruby; not only do we learn of her backstory, but she also gets a great moment with Ichigo Saitou. Considering that a large chunk of this book and Volume 12 is about motherhood and the complex emotions that come from it, it was nice to see a shift in perspective from Miyako’s point of view. She’s never really been framed in the manga as a mother to them, more as a manager, but in a way she’s been more emotionally stable and available to them both than Ai or Ruby’s previous mother ever were. Miyako’s been keeping an eye on their emotional needs and making sure not to overwork them, and it plays well into her backstory where it reveals she’s been around the houses before, in terms of the glamorous life in Tokyo, so it makes sense she would be level-headed in regards to how far she can push Aqua and Ruby.
The latter half of the book starts the filming of The 15 Year Lie, as well as ‘interludes’ (as the book calls them) with stories from the side characters, including pretty boy Melt and introspection into Meme’s desire to become an idol. I hope we see more of these in the future, not only because the cast of [Oshi No Ko] has gotten very large, but also because some characters could desperately use them, such as the Tsukuyomi (or ‘crow girl’ as fans call her) as she’s been in this series now since Chapter 75, and not only do we know so little about her but it’s starting to get on my nerves now. The combination of her ‘know it all’ attitude and lack of personality outside of that, make her a very frustrating character to read.
Volume 13 of this rollercoaster of a series continues to be strong, with lots of great character developments and planting of potentially dramatic plot points to come. The filming of The 15 Year Lie continues in Volume 14, coming soon.
Read a free preview on the Yen Press website here.
Our review copy was supplied by Yen Press.
