One notable thing aboutthis season’sOshi no Kois a unique quirk in the designs of the main characters. Deceased genius idol Ai Hoshino and her twin children Aquamarine and Ruby each have dazzling eyes that have a unique characteristic – they host huge star-shaped sparkles that lie right where their pupils would be.
While it isn’t something that is noticed by the characters themselves, character design is an art that is meticulous in its execution and its aims – nothing is without reason. With that in mind, there is definitely a reason for the star-like quality in the eyes of the characters, especially when it comes to Ai, but it has not been officially explained, so we can only speculate. However, there is a clue towards the end of the first episode ofOshi no Kothat might just guide us to an answer.
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Love/Star-Struck
A standout aspect about the writing and characterization of the main agents inOshi no Kois wordplay. The strange names that Ai gives to her children are definitely in English; however, they are written in kanji. Ai’s last name, “Hoshino”, is written 星野, with the kanji for “star” followed by another character that elicits the meaning of “field” (like a patch of land). The interpretation of this choice in characters can vary, from a description of the night sky itself, a constellation, or even a galaxy. This could be the whole story regarding the stars in their eyes; that it’s simply because of the Hoshino name; however, there may be more to it. Her first name, Ai アイ, is written in katakana, one of the basic Japanese writing systems that is often used when transliterating foreign words; in onomatopoeia; and sometimes, for emphasis.
Generally, “Ai”, written 愛, is known asa word in Japanese that translates to “love”; however, it describes an intensity and pureness of love, perhaps better explained as love’s most abstract verbal expression in the language. If one went by sound alone, “Hoshino Ai” sounds like it translates to “love of the stars”. There are many ways to understand the logic behind the katakana used to write Ai’s name, one of which is the intention of emphasizing (therefore intensifying) the love that she embodies; however, what’s also likely is that her name comes directly from the first two kana of the word “idol” when loaned to Japanese and therefore, written in katakana like so:アイドル. This transcription, rather than outright use of the word itself when it comes to the written form of Ai’s name serves as a conceptual solidification of the “labour of love” that is the meticulous construction and maintenance of “the lie”, but also marries the concept of literal stars, stardom (as in fame) with this love.
‘What’d you eat today?’
‘What’s your favorite book?’
‘And if you step outside today, where’re you gonna go?’
“I haven’t eaten at all.”
“That’s a secret.”
No matter what you ask
She’s elusive, evasive
– YOASOBI - アイドル (Idol)
Theopening theme toOshi no Ko, YOASOBI’s “Idol"is layered with context regarding what being an idol means and is commentary on the harshness of the industry for those who dare enter it; however, it is specific to Ai Hoshino because the very basis of the song is the short story titled45510written by series author Aka Akasaka. The title is the password to Ai’s cellphone, and the story of45510delves into the archives of a defunct social media platform where the last remaining instance of a particular Ai Hoshino livestream can be found. The story is told from the perspective of a former member of the idol group Ai was once part of, B-Komachi, and details her viewing of this piece of lost footage of the genius idol. The narrator grapples with complicated feelings towards Ai, and as the livestream continues, there are certain moments the narrator can identify as neat lies and others in which Ai’s mask began to crack.
The main thing this narrator emphasizes is the aloofness and unending mystery that served as the main selling point of the idol Ai Hoshino. Despite having worked closely together with Ai, the narrator exists on the same side of the stage as readers of the story, and Ai’s in-universe fans in that she never got close enough to know Ai as a person. On some level, this distance is comparable to the insignificance felt by someone gazing at a bright and distant star, and evidence of this inOshi no Koepisode 1 is seen in the moment of Ai’s death, where the light of an eight-pointed star is seen disappearing dramatically. On some level, Ai (love) and the stars are one and the same in the series.
Rising Son
A possible reason for the sparkly starry eyes in the designs of Ai, Ruby and Aqua lies in various layers of thematic and contextual information presented in the first episode. After Ai’s memorial service towards the end of the first episode, Aqua comes to realize that her murder had to have been instigated by an information leak from a close contact of Ai’s at the time. Having lost all will to live after his idol’s death, Aqua had literally lost the very glint in his eye; however, after processing what he has to do next, Aqua’s rage bubbled up in what was one of the episode’s most powerful scenes, witha painterly art stylepresenting a raging black flame as it transforms into a single crow; then several crows as they take flight, residing in his eye. As the scene zooms out, it transitions from the centred crow into a 6-pointed shape that is actually the space where the sparkle in Aqua’s eye had once been, now replaced by an ominous, dark version of the motif. This sequence is only a few seconds long; however, it might be one of the most important elements in figuring out why the sparkle.
In some accounts of Japanese mythology, the sun goddess Amaterasu О̄mikami (lit. “The Great August Goddess Who Shines Eminently in Heaven”) was born after the creator deity Izanagi cleansed his left eye following his return from the failed rescue of his deceased wife, Izanami, who was held in Yomi, the underworld. As Izanagi cleansed himself, several deities came into existence, with Amaterasu’s brother, Tsukuyomi, being born from Izanagi’s cleansing of his right eye. Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi are twin deities in the sense that they represent sun and moon respectively, with Amaterasu being the solar feminine aspect to Tsukuyomi’s lunar masculine aspect. Amaterasu was appointed by Izanagi to rule over Takamagahara(The Plane of High Heaven), while Tsukuyomi was given the night, and their brother, Susano’o ruled the seas. In the mythological story of the establishment of the very nation of Japan, the fabled first Japanese emperor, Jinmu, was led to Kashihara by Yatagarasu, the three-legged crow in Japanese myth.
Guiding Crow
Yatagarasu is a guiding god, and the appearance of this motif is understood as the evidence of divine intervention in human affairs. In one version of the myth, Yatagarasu was sent by Amaterasu, which is relevant due to the overlap between the East Asian of thesanzuwu– the three-legged crow that inhabits and represents the sun. It’s possible that Ai represents Izanagi, with Aqua being the Tsukuyomi to Ruby’s Amaterasu given the correlation between the sides these gods represent and the positions of the main siblings' sparkle eye; however, Ai could also be Amaterasu, the meaning of which has been understood as a verb akin to “illuminating the heavens”, which lines up with Ai’s own radiance.
The births ofvarious deities resulting from Izanagi’smisogimay be paralleled by Ai’s inspiration of countless future idols in this understanding; and the crows appearing when Aqua steels his resolve is specific to the anime experience ofOshi no Ko, meaning it is a deliberate artistic choice to change the art style for that specific moment in Aqua’s development as a character, and the crow serves as a metaphor for Aqua’s realization of his life’s mission – a guiding force. There’s also the fact that the sparkle has exactly six points – two wings, a head, and three legs, and appears blackened in Aqua’s eye. The blackening could be a visual representation of Aqua’s own observation that he and Ai’s killer are two sides of the same coin, and reflective of his inherent darkness. It could be that the stars are both an elaborate series of puns, both on the understanding of superstars in the entertainment industry and a literal level; a multi-layered yet loose reference to Japanese mythology; or neither.
