BPO Watchdog Group Reveals Complaint Against Oshi No Ko Fandom

The Broadcasting Ethics & Program Improvement Organization (BPO) recently published an uncommon complaint they received recently.

Warning: The article contains subjects such as suicide and cyberbullying.

At least one viewer has submitted a complaint against a section of the fandom.

In BPO’s May summary, the following was published under the “Drama/Anime” section:

“In an anime, there was an episode in which a female character in a dating reality show receives harassment and contemplates suicide.

Because the portrayal evokes a real-life incident, the relatives of the woman who suicided expressed their discomfort online, and they have been receiving excessive harassment from a subset of the show’s fans.

The production company and broadcaster created the impetus behind these attacks on individuals—should there not be an announcement of some sort to address this?”

The above comment talks about the recent controversy surrounding Oshi no Ko’s sixth episode.

Hana Kimura’s mother took an issue with the episode and criticized the show.

Hana Kimura was a professional wrestler, who committed suicide in May 2020 after getting cyberbullied severely for certain events that took place on the Japanese reality TV show Terrace House. 

She further said that the anime was capitalizing on her daughter’s death.

She said, “The words that the character was exposed to are exactly the words that Hana was exposed to”

“We have talked about these things publicly through interviews and the like. How could those exact same words be used? I can’t overlook the fact that Hana’s death is being used like free source material.”

In the last week’s recap episode, the cast’s commentary on the events of the sixth episode was included.

While Hana Kimura or the controversy around the episode was mentioned, Ruby Hoshino’s VA Yurie Igoma did make a remark through a general perspective that caught people’s eyes.

She said “I was able to observe her portrayal of the bit that depicted the gut-punch feeling humans experience. Watching that really made me think some things over again. I think it was really meaningful for me at this point in my life to have been able to learn about that world.”

The manga’s author, Aka Akasaka has not issued any statements regarding the backlash. However, it is important to note that he indirectly touches on the Hana Kimura incident being one of his inspirations for the themes of the manga.

This was before the episode premiered.

He recently participated in an interview with ANN as well, where he stated: “Talents [entertainers who frequently appear on TV in Japan] can no longer ignore the internet, YouTube has become super popular, movies are watched with subtitles, plays are increasingly based on anime and manga, and there has been an instance of a suicide stemming from a reality show. Considering all those facts, I then decided to take a contemporary subject, something that is happening in the real world of Japanese entertainment today. That was the first concept.”

Source: ANN