?Oshi No Ko?: Growth   Show Only 
August 8, 2024 2:44 AM - Season 2, Episode 6 - Subscribe

The curtain rises on the Tokyo Blade stage show! We get an abridged version of the first act, before it focuses in detail on one of the actors specifically.

This episode turned out to be a character study on Melt, who up until this point has been a relatively minor character in the overarching Oshi no Ko story. We go into a flashback with producer Raida and Kaburagi having a conversation about the actors that Kaburagi recommended, with Raida overall praising the quality of the recommendations but being skeptical on Melt.

We go a bit deeper in Melt's past, showing him as a high-schooler who's mostly managed to coast through life as a result of his good looks. However, after receiving criticism on his performance on Sweet Today, he finds himself frustrated at being in a situation that he can't just face card swipe his way out of. Not enjoying being bad at something, he works hard at improving his acting abilities but the journey isn't easy. He asks for help from both Kana and Aqua, and Aqua tells him to just focus on just knocking the most dramatic moment out of the park, as trying to improve everything about his acting would be too difficult to accomplish in such a short amount of time.

Melt tries his best doing rehearsals, but still finds himself coming up short. We see a great moment with him studying the Tokyo Blade manga at home and finding a connection with his character by realizing that they are both dealing with the frustration of being outmatched by the respective people surrounding them. Using this as the core, Melt manages to deliver on his big fight scene against Kamoshida by combining flashy swordfighting acrobatics with a passionate performance. Abiko-sensei and Yoriko-sensei are both moved to tears, and Melt's fellow actors acknowledge the quality of the scene. The episode ends with the cast getting ready to start the second act of the play.
posted by C^3 (1 comment total)
 
Even though I thought the content of this episode of excellent, it felt out of place.

To contrast with another (live-action) show, the Tina focused episodes on The Bear never felt out of place because that show consistently focused on the lives of the individual members of the kitchen and staff. Oshi no Ko has never really been that kind of show. While focus episodes on one of the more major supporting characters (Ruby, Akane, or Kana) have been done, Melt is such a background character that this felt a little bit jarring to me. Props to the adaptation for arranging things so that he had significant scenes in the last couple of episodes to ease the transition.

I do like the fact that the criticism against the players in bad adaptations has been relatively fair. Even though Melt was one of the main reasons that the Sweet Today adaptation was bad, he was critical of himself and wanted to improve himself so that he wouldn't negatively impact any adaptations he would be a part of in the future. It's not like Melt didn't care that the final product was bad, or was unaware of his contribution to the poor quality, and the authorial intent didn't seem like it was disparaging people like Melt.
posted by C^3 at 2:57 AM on August 8


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