The following contains spoilers for Episode 3 of Oshi no Ko, "Manga-Based TV Drama," now streaming on HiDive.
The third episode of the hit new seriesOshi no Ko starts off with the return of Kana Arima, the genius child actress who is now a student at the high school Aqua and Ruby are applying to. Having grown up since their first encounter with each other as children, Kana quickly stands out with her spunkiness and true love for acting on full display.
Kana's passion can only be matched by Aqua's obsession with finding the person responsible for finding his mother's killer. Through Kana, Aqua finally manages to find the first lead to help him find his biological father, but he'll have to re-enter the world of acting in order to grab hold of it. Despite only being on the third episode, Oshi no Ko seems to have no intention of slowing down any time soon.
Kana's Struggle
After serendipitously meeting while at Youtou High, Kana follows after Aqua when he heads off to the director's house. She's clearly insistent on catching up with Aqua, but he's not all that interested in comparison. The two eventually arrive at the director's house, where the two sit down and have a meal with the director's family. Despite having already been told that he's no longer actively acting, Kana pushes Aqua to accept a role for the drama she's currently starring in. Aqua has no interest until Kana mentions the name of the producer in charge of the show: Masaya Kaburagi.
Kana is happy and excited to see Aqua act again, but she's a bit apprehensive about the state of the drama. That's because the show, an adaptation of a shojo manga called I'll Go With Sweet Today, is turning out to be quite bad. This is because the majority of the actors are handsome models with no acting experience, leaving Kana alone to carry the show with her chops alone. Despite being handed an awful project with weak actors, Kana still wants to make a good show, to the point that she will act worse than she usually does to keep from exposing her co-stars' poor acting. She's clearly matured from when she was a child diva, and understands that working well with others and being cooperative is more important than just being talented.
The First Lead
While Kana is desperate to pull off a decent show, Aqua only cares about finding his mother's killer. After spending four years trying to brute-force the password on one of Ai's phones, he managed to obtain a list of contacts that Ai knew before she became pregnant. One name on that list is Masaya Kaburagi, the same producer in charge of Sweet Today. In order to find out what Kaburagi's connection to Ai was, Aqua accepts Kana's invitation to join the drama's cast as a villain that appears in the final episode.
While Aqua may only be on set to investigate Kaburagi, his lack of confidence in his acting skills is real. Having attempted before to act in other projects, he now sees his first performance alongside Kana as a fluke due to his mental age not matching his physical appearance. As an adult, Aqua has lost the one thing that separated him from others, leaving him a normal person. Kana, however, doesn't see it that way. To Kana, Aqua's acting style is that of a hard worker who did his best to interpret and express the intentions of the story, and while he many not have been a stellar actor, she was happy just to know that the two of them were doing their best together in the rough world of entertainment.
A Cruel Reality
For Kana Arima, her time as a star child actor was very short. After that came a long period where Kana struggled to stay relevant in the entertainment industry as jobs began to dry up and her previously bad attitude pushed others away. However, she matured, kept working hard, and finally landed herself a lead role in a drama, even if it is one that is sub-par. To Kana, this role is proof that her hard work and perseverance was recognized and rewarded.
Unfortunately, that isn't the case. Kaburagi only sees this show as a vehicle for marketing the stable of models he's been given, and doesn't care one way or the other about its quality. To him, Kana is a convenient actress to use due to her low fees and prestigious name. To an eavesdropping Aqua, it's all too clear that the recognition Kana was hoping for isn't there. However, despite having a realistic outlook on the whole situation, hearing Kaburagi's callous words seems to light a fire inside of him. After collecting several of Kaburagi's cigarette butts, Aqua decides to take his role in the drama a bit more seriously, as a sort of revenge for Kana.