Oshi no Ko has gained a huge fanbase and immense popularity with its peculiar and sinister plot. This anime launched in April 2023 is an adaptation of the Oshi no Ko manga written by Aka Akasaka, who also wrote the famous manga Kaguya Sama: Love is War. In this article, we will explore the references of both Kaguya Sama: Love is War and Oshi no Ko and at the same time examine how Aka Akasaka’s both of these works are different in nature.
Kaguya Sama: Love is War and Oshi no Ko: the nature of similarity in the concept of shared universes
While it is a major trope of Western movies and cinematic history, the idea of shared universes is a recurrent theme across many creations. This happens when differently crafted stories are written by the same person, and in a very subconscious attempt to keep the characters alive, writers often tend to make references in very subtle manners to their older works.
While this subtlety has been compromised in the works of Marvel and DC cinematic universes, we see this subtlety being followed in the Japanese manga industry till today.
Most of the earlier works like that of Akira Toriyama also narrate different stories in a singular universe. The references are often very minute, but they are present. Makoto Shinkai also used this as a trope in his works and he still does so, as he believes that the use of a singular universe could be useful in creating a familiar narrative.
In this regard, Kaguya Sama: Love is War and Oshi no Ko also become an example of such convergence.
Kaguya Sama: Love is War and Oshi no Ko: how are they similar and what are the references
Oshi no Ko’s episode 3 made a reference to Kaguya Sama and fans are going crazy over this development. While the relations are more clearly shown in the manga, the anime adaptation has created a greater stir among the fans.
The tangential connection which has been established in Oshi no Ko episode 3 makes a reference to a manga called Sweet Today, which has also been frequently referred to in Kaguya Sama. Moreover, this might come as a small interference to the whole storyline of Oshi no Ko, but it won’t make any major difference as the existence of two stories in the same universe doesn’t imply that one has to directly affect the other, or for that matter, that one has to play an active role in the other.
How are Kaguya Sama: Love is War and Oshi no Ko different?
- Kaguya Sama: Love is War and Oshi no Ko are different in the sense that their plots are entirely independent of one another.
- The major decisions and plot twists are also left unaffected by each other and this creates an interrogation into the role of two or more stories or plots existing in a singular universe.
- While it may be very presumptuous to say that two plots are always connected to one another, it has to be noted that tangential references are not powerful enough to affect any form of narrative in the manga.
Kaguya Sama: Love is War and Oshi no Ko are independent of one another and do not have any implications or bearings on each other. This being said, we can also look at how the plots portray different aspirations of both the protagonists but it is only a coincidence that this similarity exists in the first place. Kaguya Sama: Love is War and Oshi no Ko are greatly different and their tangential convergence would not amount to any change in Oshi no Ko’s storyline