AfterOshi No Ko’sabsolutely insane pilot, “the biggest WTF moment yet” is quite a claim to make about any part of this wild show. And yet here it is. I mean it wholeheartedly; with all of the show’s twists and turns so far, I never saw a character as bizarre (yet brilliant) as Pieyon coming.
Yes, the show has provided plenty of commentary on all facets of the entertainment industry - from idol groups to acting sets - but how are you supposed to predict a heavily muscled, chicken-masked fitness YouTuber in a show like Oshi No Ko?
The commentary is absolutely welcome, of course. An anime about the ins and outs of the entertainment industry would be remiss if it didn’t include streaming. Internet content is a hallmark of our modern era; it’s a powerful way for people to consume and create media. In the early years of YouTube, going viral was as simple as posting a funny video or writing a parody song. The production value didn’t have to be particularly good because that wasn’t the point—as long as you made people laugh, you’d done your job and done it well.
Nowadays though, making it on the internet usually requires some sort of gimmick, even if the gimmick is how genuine you are. And there’s no better summation of that than Pieyon. It’s not enough just to be a fitness YouTuber anymore, apparently. No, in Oshi No Ko, there’s a whole genre of masked fitness YouTubers (and, perhaps thankfully, that seems to be confined to this fictional universe. Believe me, I checked). Pieyon in particular has quite the following. It could be that his fitness routines are just that good, since he himself is pretty heavily muscled. It could also be the fact that he wears Speedos, a chicken mask, and literally nothing else.
Whatever the reason, Pieyon agrees to help promote Strawberry Productions' newest idols Kana Arima and Ruby Hoshino (who finally decides on the name B-Komachiin honor of Ai) so long as they can keep up with his hour-long dance workout. What follows is a minute-long, uncut sequence of the three of them dancing in front of a green screen that was, quite frankly, some of the best anatomical animation I’ve ever seen.
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Though the girls manage to stick it out, Pieyon was more than willing to fudge the numbers had they failed, and that fact alone sheds further light on the world of streaming collabs. For some content creators, it’s the chance to work with another creator you respect, admire, or are even friends with, but for many, it’s a contractual obligation. It’s the chance to expand your own audience by exposing your content to an already established audience.
As Miyako tellsRuby and Kana, a collab with Pieyon is the inside track on going viral. Even on YouTube, “making it” is either about connections or luck — and the more saturated the market gets, the less viable luck is. Sometimes to promote your own work, you’ve got to branch out and try something new, something outside your niche. And sometimes to promote your new idol group, you’ve got to dance for an hour straight with a man in a chicken mask.
In a true strike of brilliance, Oshi No Ko snuck a bit of viral marketing of its own into the end of the episode. Pieyon was its perfect vehicle, just because of how absolutely ridiculous he was; this article is evidence enough of that. For the straight minute of uncut music video dancing that quite frankly made me forget the rest of the episode, I couldn’t tear my eyes away. It was like watching a car crash. Pieyon can really dance (or the animators can really animate, I guess?), and to their credit, the members of the newly minted B-Komachi could really keep up.
But the choice to put the entire scene in front of a green screen was perhaps the most incredible marketing ploy of all. Already, I’ve seen edits crop up on Twitter making full use of it. Some have used the clip to punch Dragon Ball characters repeatedly; some even change the music to resync his dancing to something a little more metal. The scene is the perfect vehicle for just about any edit — and they made sure to take full advantage of that.
And that just clinched it for me: The writers of Oshi No Ko (Aka Akasaka included, of course) write so well about the facets of the entertainment industry because they truly know what they’re talking about. They know what it takes to market something well; they know what it takes to make something go viral. It’s strange that a masked fitness YouTuber was what made that click for me so completely, but to use absolute absurdity to that extent is a thing of beauty.
The reasons to watch Oshi No Ko are stacking up, from Aqua’s revenge plot to his acting skills, Pieyon’s antics to Ruby’s desperation to become as recognizable as her mother once was. And if you want to try out the workout yourself, the official Oshi No Ko YouTube channel actually releasedan hour-long versionof the Pieyon dance, though it’s just a looped version of the original. Next week, we’ll get back into Aqua’s dating show experience and see more of Ruby’s actual road to stardom — but I hope it’s not too much to also hope for just a little more Pieyon.
